If you didn't see last week's blog, click below for more details about the bundle and our book:

EAT YOUR WILD YARD: SPRING
Growing & Foraging for Wild Edibles in Your Own Backyard
​Text & Photography by Theresa & Bear
Graphic Design by Theresa

You can view some sample pages here.

Bear here... 

Sorry, no pictures this time.  We made it to the Mother Earth News Fair and had a great time. The weather was perfect on Saturday, it was hotter on Sunday but still bearable. There were lots of gadgets to look at and lots of classes on a wide variety of gardening, farming, homesteading, and cooking topics.  

This Fair and our Buy Nothing Challenge did NOT work well together because we didn't resist the urge to spend lots of money. We found too many useful and helpful items to buy, including:

• SOLAR OVEN:  On sunny days we can cook without electricity. Theresa points out that it also dehydrates, sanitizing jars, and pasteurizes water.  I know it's well-built- I used it on a windy day and it fell off our table but didn't break. (Oops... we fixed that problem.) Hoping to have a lot of good stories about sun powered cooking.
• WOOD SPLITTER: I call it a drop maul or maul on a stick. Instead of swinging an ax, I lift a seven pound weight and let it drop on the cutter that splits the wood. It has already saved me a lot of time and pain, and I'm much less likely to injure myself.
• A HAND CRANK FLOUR MILL: We can buy whole grains, dried corn, chickpeas, etc., and make our own flour from them for better tasting and more nutritious breads.  Theresa is hoping to use it to make flour from some of the edible weed seeds we let grow in the yard.  (When we got home she let me know we paid  more for the mill than we paid for our computer. I asked "Does that make you happy or unhappy ?" She said she would let me know, later... ???)
• 6 BOOKS: We did well restraining ourselves. (LOTS of interesting books... MANY interesting subjects... MUST RUN AWAY BEFORE WE GO BROKE!)

My favorite class was how to make cheese in less than an hour. I kinda knew the secret of good cheese was good ingredients. What I didn't know was you can make at least 3 different styles of cheese by adjusting temperatures. I bought the presenter's book  and am going to experiment as soon as I can:

In another class, I found that I am not cut out to make my own aged sausages. You have to control the temperature and humidity for weeks, months, even years. I don't have enough patience for that hobby. (If we raised our own animals, maybe then? )

We may have failed our Buy Nothing Challenge at the Fair, but what we bought should definitely contribute to our homestead and being more self-sufficient, so we're trying not to feel too guilty about it.

Type at ya later...

Bear here...

I am guessing that a lot of you know about the magazine Mother Earth News. They have three large fairs this year, one of them is in Wisconsin. We are heading there this weekend. Lots of workshops, demos, and vendors. Here is the link to their fair info if anyone interested. 

 http://www.motherearthnewsfair.com/wisconsin/   ... crud, that don't look right.

Hope this works... http://www.motherearthnewsfair.com/wisconsin/

That's better...

type at ya later

Bear here...

Theresa has been busy today updating the Resources page on our website. These are some of the books we like that help us with homesteading, gardening, cooking, and other stuff. We are hoping the books will help you too. They are linked to Amazon and if you use our link we get a little cash with no extra cost to you.  You can also buy them from your local bookstore or check them out of the library.

We (Mostly Theresa will be doing the work.) will be updating the resources page when we can. Happy reading.

Type at ya later...

Bear here...  I WANTED A BURGER... A BACON BURGER.  My last experiment with deer meat didn't work too well.  Time to go with something I KNOW will be good, the beet burger. Not so surprising that we have a book on that and we have had a a lot of beet burgers. ( I don't feel right telling you how to do it since the idea and the ingredients are not mine, sorry.) 

Hmmm... Starting to drool... Type at ya later...

Bear here...Tonight we will be having pasta with butter, garlicscapes and much much more... 

No picture of finished dish...Why you ask? I type too slow and when we are done cookin' we want to eat, not blog. Have a good weekend everybody... type at ya later.

Bear here... I see a lot of stressed out people at work, around town and on the blogisphere (web...whatever...). Too many people on the go and needing to get more done.  When the body is pushed too far it may remind the brain who is in charge by getting sick. Some people have to get the flue to stop and take a break, others get stopped by having a stroke. Think about it.

My message, When the body and mind are stressed there are ways to refresh and recharge your batteries. Why is this a quest? Disrupting your life's pattern to feel change takes effort, sometimes luck and time. Here are two ways Theresa and I unwound this week.  

Theresa's Quest: Relax the Body and Mind to Refresh the Spirit.

Theresa thinks a lot, makes lists, worries about those lists and tries to get too much done in a short time. Her vacations are usually spent doing chores she wants to get done but doesn't have time for during the working week. She tries to get the work done first then is out of time to relax. Early this week something strange happened. We got regular rain most of the day, not thundershowers and Theresa had no indoor projects planned. Time to read by an open window. Then, time to put book down and listen to the rain hitting the trees and plants, it was a good. She also loves it when the cats want to use her for a sleeping cushion. Also gotta love the big guy who knew she was tired and didn't move around the house so he wouldn't wake her up. Three hours later she says "I haven't been able to do that for a long time."  REFRESHED. 

Bear's Quest: Get out of the Head while Soothing the Ego.

There are times when I can think of nothing but dark thoughts. (Home issues suck, work sucks, I am going to get yelled at by somebody, someone is out to get me, I'm not good enough. Would I REALLY get fired if I put this jackhole through the wall? He is annoying.) Sometimes all I want to do is sleep and I am not worried about getting up. That and liking to eat tends to get a person over weight, which I am. I have also found that I still feel like crap when I finally get up. Not good.

I have been trying to get in better shape lately and have been reminded that I am not a kid anymore. Walking is the best exercise. I walk when I can (usually around three miles in about an hour or more at least three times a week) and use the bike trail across from our yard. I Know I can do more and today was the day I proved it. I walked home from work, five miles. Not bad.

Almost all thoughts were good. Beautiful day, cool plants, cool dragonflies, cute chipmunks etc... Darkest thought was if I am going to blog about this I should have brought the flippen camera, oh well. Near the house I could hear Home Sweet Home by Mottly Crue playing in my head.  REFRESHED

There was a village wide garage sale this weekend in our town. We decided to sell only (not go buy) and to sell only on Saturday. We had been to enough sales and it was time make room in the house by selling some of our stuff.  (OK...that's a lie... I had time to visit and shop at other garage sales on Friday after work. I found a series of 14 books for 25 cents each. $3.50 for 14 books- too good to pass up- and yes, I did write it off on the buy nothing challenge sheet so there...)

Theresa's Garage Sale Thoughts:  I'm so glad this garage sale is finally over.  We got rid of most of the stuff that has been clogging our upstairs room and making it unusable for over a year.  As we renovated and organized the downstairs rooms, all the furniture I didn't use, but thought might fit elsewhere, gravitated upstairs, until the space was so  full of old furniture I didn't want to be up there. But now that the downstairs renovating is mostly done, I know that none of the stuff upstairs will fit, so I finally let it go, even though it was some stuff that I loved. Now the energy in the house has shifted and loosened, and I feel like doing a good Spring cleaning/organizing.  Then we get to renovate the upstairs room, in which I plan to build a lot of storage for smaller things.  Maybe soon everything will have it's place, and if there's no room for it, I'll know it's time to get rid of it too. I look forward to the day when the simplifying is done.  

Oh, and if you like the antique table or mirror in the photos, they didn't sell at the garage sale and they're still for sale.