acquiring preparedness skills - #7 foraging for wild foods

photo credit - wikipedia

This post is part 7 of our series on acquiring preparedness skills. What I did was adapt handouts I had created for our ward (congregation) preparedness fair last year and re-write them into blog posts. I've tried to make the information more general than our local community, but international readers will still find that it's probably localized to the US.

These posts won't be comprehensive as that isn't the intent. I hope, though, that you are able to begin your journeys toward acquiring skills that allow you and your families to be more prepared and self-reliant.


Where to Learn about Foraging for Wild Foods:

In Print

1. The Weed Cookbook: Naturally Nutritious - Yours Free for the Taking! by Adrienne Crowhurst

3. The Complete Medicinal Herbal: A Practical Guide to the Healing Properties of Herbs, with More Than 250 Remedies for Common Ailments by Penelope Ody

4. The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants by Samuel Thayer

5. The Illustrated Guide to Edible Wild Plants by the Department of the Army

6. Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places by Steve Brill

7. Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide to Over 200 Natural Foods by Thomas Elias



Person-to-Person

1. Work with an experienced individual

2. Take a course through the Coulee Region Herbal Institute



Online

1. Prodigal Gardens

2. Coulee Region Herbal Institute

3. Virginia Tech Weed Identification Guide

4. Medicinal Herb Uses and Picture Gallery

5. Ethnobotanical Leaflets

6. SurvivalIQ – Edibility of Plants

creating, but not writing

Sorry to be absent, but my creative process is focused on designing and drafting patterns right now.

In the works right now - some crowns and a new snack bag design. I hope to have them finished and up in the estsy shop by early next week - provided we get some sunshine so I can take some pics!

acquiring preparedness skills - #6 solar cooking

photo credit - wikipedia


This post is part 6 of our series on acquiring preparedness skills. What I did was adapt handouts I had created for our ward (congregation) preparedness fair last year and re-write them into blog posts. I've tried to make the information more general than our local community, but international readers will still find that it's probably localized to the US.

These posts won't be comprehensive as that isn't the intent. I hope, though, that you are able to begin your journeys toward acquiring skills that allow you and your families to be more prepared and self-reliant.


Where to Learn about Solar Cooking:

Print Resources

1.
Everything Under the Sun- Food Storage Recipes for the Soloar Oven by Wendy DeWitt (free PDF download)

2. Cooking With the Sun: How to Build and Use Solar Cookers by Beth Halacy

3. Solar Cooking for Home and Camp by Linda Frederick Yaffe

4. Solar Cooking: A Primer/Cookbook by Harriet Kofalk

5. Cooking with Sunshine: The Complete Guide to Solar Cuisine with 150 Easy Sun-Cooked Recipes by Lorraine Anderson



Person-to-Person

1. Classes held during the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in Custer, Wisconsin

2. Work with an experienced individual



Online Resources

1. Solar Cookers International

2. The Good Human – Kyoto Box Style Solar Oven

3. The Solar Cooking Archive – Plans for Solar Cookers

4. Solar Cooker Review

5. Simple Solar Panel Cooker Demonstration video

the zen of washing dishes by hand

Since the boy left to live on campus at college we've discovered that most days we don't generate a full load of dishes for the electric dishwasher.

At first we'd rinse the dirty dishes and load them into the dishwasher and run it every other day. We have a portable dishwasher that we have to connect to the kitchen sink faucet and run. It does limit our use of the sink and blocks access to one of the pantries when we have it connected. It's really sort of an inconvenience to use, but this old kitchen doesn't have space for a built-in dishwasher.

Then I finally decided to return to washing the dishes by hand. This how we handled the dishes for the first three years we lived in this house.

I found that I preferred it! For most breakfasts and lunches we just have the dishes generated by the girls and me. These I try to wash up as we go along. I'm really enjoying having the dishes clean and drying in the dish rack right after we finish a meal.

Dinner dishes are washed and dried by the Hubster and I together. I'm really enjoying having that time working with him and talking with him. For some reason when we're working at a task the girls are less likely to interrupt our conversation and go off and play happily (or not so happily) together.

Are there household tasks that you prefer to do by hand?

spicy black bean salad

ingredients:

6 cups cooked and cooled black beans (or about 3-15oz. cans)
3 Tbsp lime juice
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 green onions, sliced thinly
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced (I substituted green pepper because peppers are out of season and red are especially expensive now)

Using a largish bowl, put in beans (drained and rinsed if you use canned), green onions, cilantro, and peppers. In a smaller bowl I mixed together the lime juice, olive oil, vinegar, salt and cayenne. Then I poured the dressing into the other bowl and mixed well. I let the salad marinade in the fridge for about 8 hours (made it in the morning and ate it for dinner). I served it on a bed of mixed greens.

I found I actually liked it better the following day when I ate it for lunch - the flavor was spicier. This is not a dish for people who dislike spicy pepper flavors.

Wordless Wednesday - April Showers???

Photos taken April 19, 2011

dyeing wool with Kool-Aid

I tried my hand at dyeing some wool with Kool-Aid back in early March, but didn't get around to editing this post until recently.

The wool was some that I received years ago in a craft swap. Some day I will have a farm of my own with sheep. :)

It's a very simple process and there are tons of tutorials out on the web, but basically you boil up some water, add your Kool-Aid, and then soak your carded wool in the dye bath for an hour or more.

Then I rinsed the wool in tepid water (you don't want to shock the wool by exposing it to extreme differences in temperatures), squeezed a bit of the excess water out by hand, and hung it over some hangers to drip dry in the basement.

Here's a pictorial record of the process for you to peruse. :)


raw wool


carding using the drum carder


finished batt


batt ready for dyeing


grape flavored Kool-Aid


grape flavored Kool-Aid in bucket with boiling water


wool in grape flavored Kool-Aid and boiling water


wool dyed with grape Kool-Aid - rinsed and squeezed semi-dry


lemonade flavor Kool-Aid


lemonade flavor Kool-Aid and boiling water in bucket


wool in lemonade Kool-Aid and boiling water


wool dyed with lemonade Kool-Aid - rinsed and squeezed semi-dry


pink lemonade flavor Kool-Aid


pink lemonade flavor Kool-Aid and boiling water in bucket


wool in pink lemonade Kool-Aid and boiling water


wool dyed with pink lemonade Kool-Aid - rinsed and squeezed semi-dry


berry blue flavored Kool-Aid


berry blue flavor Kool-Aid in bucket with boiling water


wool in the bucket of boiling water and berry blue flavor Kool-Aid


wool dyed with berry blue Kool-Aid - rinsed and squeezed semi-dry


Multiple batches drying on hangers in our basement (excuse the mess in the background, but that's our life)

meet my new tote bag

I used Simplicity 9963 and vintage fabric from my stash.

This is supposedly view G, but I eliminated the trim and floral applique and added the two buttons and buttonholes on the side pockets. I also eliminated the foam base because it seemed to just make the bag extra bulky.





Have you been doing any sewing lately?

and it's done!

Here's the finished spring runner:




(and yes, it's not a perfect rectangle - maybe the summer runner will be better)

spring runner top is finished

I'm plugging right along on the spring runner.

In my rush to get going on this project I did miscalculate the size, though. No problem! I just added another strip of light green to one end and two rows of dark green to lengthen it to the correct size.

Here's the finished top:

spring runner design and layout

I'm making progress.

I decided to use 3" blocks to make it go just a little quicker. I also opted for a simple zig-zag design.

This is a really easy project (at least the way I've designed it) and it was very quick to cut out the blocks and arrange a design I liked. The only regret is the small size of the bookcase and that limited the design flexibility. I suppose if I had gone with smaller blocks it would have afforded more flexibility, but I really need to make the April 19th deadline!

Even though I ought to be outside...

I'm going to spend just a little time inside making a table runner.

I was inspired by Jenny over at Stumbles & Stitches to join in her Spring Runner Sew-Along.

I've been wanting to convert the top of a short bookcase in our living room into a seasonal table for our family and this is just the boost I need to make it a reality.

I chose greens for the spring runner because spring here is all about green. Our spring in Wisconsin comes a little bit later than other parts of the US and it's a short season. Before you know it we're into summer and wonder if we even had a spring. While other areas of the country have gorgeous flowers, we're just happy to see the green grass springing up and buds beginning on our trees. :)

The fabrics I chose came from my stash, but I think they were all originally fat quarters that I purchased during 99 cent sales at JoAnn Fabrics.



If you want to join in you can - but only through today - April 12th so hurry on over!

spring has sprung!

I didn't take any pictures today. I thought about going inside once and grabbing the camera, but honestly I didn't want to go inside!

It was a gorgeous spring day here with temps in the 60's and I just wanted to soak up the sunshine and enjoy my time outdoors.

We spent some time in the backyard. While I cleared out the few leftovers from last year's gardens and cut back the raspberry canes and removed dead wood, the girls played and played.

They opened up their sandbox for the first time this season and found it full of water. No problem for them! They proceeded to fish out the sand toys and make a nice batch of sand pies. They also pulled the balls out from the garage and tossed them around a bit. The slide and see-saw saw their seasonal inagurations as well.

When the bored of playing the backyard they asked us to go out front. I tossed the raspberry twigs onto the compost pile and went out to the sidewalk where they played with bikes, scooters, and assorted ride-on toys.

It was a blast to be outside again for an entire afternoon and fabulous to be working in the garden again!

I saw the rhubarb poking up, buds on the raspberry canes and apple trees, and an assortment of wild foods (weeds) coming up in the empty raised beds.

Soon I'll need to get out there and move the strawberry plants. We need to relocate them in order to rebuild the bed that currently houses them.

But first I need to finish the second half of trimming in the raspberry patch.

What's going on in your gardens this spring? (or autumn for my friends in the southern hemisphere)

Another shirt becomes a dress post

Now it's the baby girl's turn to have her shirts converted into dresses. We did this quite often with the big girl's shirts as she grew too tall for them.

I know the pictures are awful, but the baby girl is also going through a stage where she'd prefer to spend her days sans-clothing, so she was a rather reluctant model this time.





This sewing project is a quick and easy way to convert a girl's shirt into a dress. It's one of our favorite methods to extend the life of a shirt that has been outgrown in length but otherwise fits.

Just measure the hem of the shirt (all the way around) and double that measurement. Then cut a swath of woven fabric about 10" wide and as long as the measurement taken before.

Sew two lines of gathering threads at the top of the fabric.

I use my serger to sew up the ends to make the fabric into a circle. I gather up the edge with gathering and pin it right sides together to the shirt hem. Then I serge the two together. I use the serger to finish the hem edge. Then I turn under the serged hem and topstich with my sewing machine.

It generally takes less than a 1/2 hour and I have a "new" dress for my daughter.

Some sickly time crafting penguins

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. I'm just a bit sickly. Started as an ordinary cold and has morphed into my body trying desperately to hack up my lungs. Not really, but it's kickin' my behind, this virus is.


So....I've been sewing. It's therapeutic for me. Just don't look closely at the whirlwind of toys strewn all about my house. And a hat tip to the Hubster for making sure we have clean clothing to wear.

Anyway....on to the crafting. I'm a pattern hoarder (true confession time) and have binders and binders filled with blog printouts.

This week I tried out the penguin finger puppets from Jess at Craftiness is not optional.









And no, those aren't photos taken of my kids wearing their pjs well into the afternoon hours...or are they?

and the winner of the "It's a Disaster!" book is...

exmish!

"We are trying to get our garden started (AGAIN). We've got our year's worth in the basement, and we're hoping to get it better organized and find the holes (I was appalled to discover a few weeks ago that we had no white flour or sugar left...OOPS. Plenty of beans and wheat though. :p )

My husband also bought two bows and is working on learning how to use them, along with our 12-yo DS (there are a lot of deer where we live)."



Hey, exmish, I couldn't find your email addy on your blogger profile, so please contact me via my profile and let me know where to ship your book. :)

acquiring preparedness skills - #5 slaughtering and butchering

photo credit - Farm Security Administration Collection

This post is part 5 of our series on acquiring preparedness skills. What I did was adapt handouts I had created for our ward (congregation) preparedness fair last year and re-write them into blog posts. I've tried to make the information more general than our local community, but international readers will still find that it's probably localized to the US.

These posts won't be comprehensive as that isn't the intent. I hope, though, that you are able to begin your journeys toward acquiring skills that allow you and your families to be more prepared and self-reliant.


Where to Learn about Slaughtering and Butchering Livestock:

Print Resources

1. Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game by John Mettler

2. Butchering, Processing and Preservation of Meat, Cattle, Hogs, Sheep, Game, Poultry, Fish by Frank Getz Ashbrook

3. Jack Ubaldi's Meat Book: A Butcher's Guide to Buying, Cutting, and Cooking Meat by Jack Ubaldi



Person-to-Person

1. 4-H Programs

2. Apprentice with a butcher

3. Wisconsin Association of Meat Processors (for local apprenticeship opportunities)

4. UW Extension Meat Processing School



Online Resources

1. Backwoods Home Magazine - Slaughtering and Butchering by Dynah Geissal

2. The Modern Homestead - Homestead Poultry Butchering

3. How to Butcher a Chicken

4. Home Sheep Butchering Made Easy