July 23, 2010 by wyo-helpmeet.

My name is Michaela. Some of you may know me from around the web as wyo-helpmeet. KerryAnn has graciously allowed me to share some bandwidth on her neat little blog, and I pray I can uphold the value she has placed in me. So, about me…..

I am Christian, married with 3 boys that we homeschool. We are entering our 6th year homeschooling (it blows me away every time I’ve said that the past few weeks- SIX years!). We are currently living in a small town in Wyoming. After Atlanta, we are loving the nice slow pace.

I love all things old-fashioned. I love to sew, garden, bake, cook. I have run an in-home daycare for almost 2 years. That will come to an end towards the end of August, though. I work (very) part time for the same company my Hubba works at.After my”daycaring” days are over, I’ll be able to work a little bit more there.

That’s the short & sweet of me. I’ll be back soon to share some of the things I’ve learned over the years!

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July 22, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

This summer has proven to be incredibly busy, much busier than I expected.  A few weeks ago, I felt like the Lord was tapping me on the shoulder and telling me to get organized quickly and declutter as much as we can. We have some elderly family members who might need assistance, and we need to prepare for that possibility.  So I have kicked myself into high gear, trying to school on our year-round schedule, do my job and handle the garden and daily chores in addition to the extra workload this presented.  And we have managed to accomplish everything on a shoestring budget while we save for some needed car and home repairs.

Despite spending time gardening and even expanding our garden, we have lost most of what we planted.  What the Mexican bean beetles and squash vine borers didn’t destroy, the chickens did when the town mowed down a post of our garden fence when they were tending the ditch with their machinery.  The chickens got in and decimated what was growing in short order.  What we have left is some green tomatoes we hope will ripen, about 5 sunflowers that are now over 10 feet tall, and we’re waiting now to see how the potatoes did.  The onions are still tiny, despite supposedly being close to time to be pulled.  We have replanted the winter squash on Monday and we’re now organizing to put the fall and winter garden in.

The last few weeks I have spent time at the farmer’s market, buying wholesale.  The Lord has plopped some incredible deals on produce in our lap.  While canning I worked a full week of VBS at our church and managed to wear myself out between the two.  We processed our extra roosters over a period of two weeks and sent them to freezer camp.  We cleaned out the freezer that needed defrosting and got everything organized in an effort to have enough space to hopefully purchase half of a cow this fall.  I found I had one whole shelf full of stock bones that I need to use. I also got all of the remaining meats grouped by type, to better help me plan our meals and use what we have wisely.

I have started setting up ‘centers’ for everything I do at home, where everything needed for that project is centrally located to where the work is performed.  I have created centers for laundry, baking, dry goods in use, personal care, herbs, school and work, gardening and more.  This inspiration came from listening to Vicki Bentley at the NCHE conference Memorial Day Weekend.  Vicki is an excellent speaker, and if you ever have the opportunity to hear her, I highly encourage you to do so.  I would be willing to drive to a conference just to hear her speak, she gave so much inspiration, encouragement and practical advice.  (You can purchase MP3s of Vicki’s presentations from the conference here.)  Her chore and star chart information alone has been a huge help to me in getting my kids motivated to do chores and take initiative without being asked.  Vicki said in one of her presentations that if you spend just 5 minutes looking for one item every morning and every evening, you waste over 60 hours a year.  I have found that I am going up and down the hallway and the stairs too often because things are not centrally located, and I wish to free up that time so I can accomplish more.

For the baking and dry good centers, I took one cabinet and placed my measuring cups and measuring spoons along with mason jars of xanthan gum, salt, baking soda, baking powder on the bottom shelf.  In racks hanging below the cabinet are all of my spices.  Each spice has a label on the lid so I don’t have to hunt for the correct one.  The rapadura, flours and dry goods are located behind me on a baker’s rack.  Each item in stored in a quart to half-gallon size mason jar with a labeled lid.  I do not have to take extra steps in the kitchen, saving me time and energy.  We also reorganized and deep cleaned the kitchen.

For the laundry center, we reorganized the laundry room so that we now have a rotating system for the clothes hangers, separated by type.  Each day when we get dressed, the empty clothes hangers get hung on each bedroom doorknob.  One child is tasked with the chore of retrieving all of the clothes hangers, taking them downstairs and putting each hanger where it belongs.  This has solved the problems with wrinkled clothing and additional ironing time because it had to be hauled up the stairs after coming out of the dryer while we hunt for the clothes hangers that fit the item.  And you know any time kids haul a piece of clothing, it’s bound to wind up wrinkled.  ;)  All of the different clothing and fabric types now each have their own bin to facilitate quick sorting and washing of the laundry. We finally installed the utility sink that we purchased in 2007 in the laundry room.

For our school supplies we use daily, we repurposed a rolling cart which is now located within reach of my computer.  We also located a bookcase and the filing cabinet beside my desk in order to facilitate school, bill paying and handling my job.  Now, when mail comes in, I can handle it immediately and drop it right into the correct file folder in the filing cabinet.  Paper doesn’t have to be handled twice, nothing gets lost and I don’t worry about any bills or other important paperwork getting missed.  We located a locking cabinet with doors in an unused area of the living room that holds shoe-box sized rubermaid containers.  These boxes contain our items that are in pieces, such as the math blocks and flashcards, as well as the games and the small-piece items such as K-nex and Legos.

I updated my household binder (Flylady style) and created binders for family recipes, every mailer I have published, our school records, and the gardening and homesteading records.  I also have one binder where I keep info on ideas or things I want to try, build plans for potential projects and the like.

I obtained two rolling carts, one for each child.  These carts now hold the library books and are parked beside the homeschool cabinet. These carts are incredibly handy and stop the problem of having to haul the books to the car and into the library, breaking my back.  This has just about eliminated our hunting for a book that is due and it keeps the books out of the kid’s bedrooms.

I created two memory card boxes.  I used the Simply Charlotte Mason Memory System and made one for our scripture verses and made one for the myriad of other things I wish my children to memorize.  We have included everything from family members phone numbers to poems, science and history facts, songs and more.  These boxes set atop our rolling school supply cart.

I still have to get the dining room chairs recovered so we can reclaim our dining room table.  We are also looking for an effective storage solution for our canning jars, both full and empty.  Both of these projects are likely going to take some cash, so I’m looking for the most workable solution that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Posted in Homeschooling, frugality, Organization- inside, Kids, Gardening, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

July 22, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

Apples (early)
Apricots
Basil
Berries
Cherries (end)
Corn
Cucumbers
Eggplant (early)
Grapes
Green beans
Green onions
Limes
Melons
Mission Figs
Nectarines
Okra
Valencia Oranges (early)
Peaches
Pears (early)
Peppers (early)
Plums (early)
Red onions
Shallots (early)
Summer squash
Sweet Onions(end)
Tomatoes
Zucchini

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June 2, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

Apricots
Basil (early)
Beets (end)
Blackberry
Blueberry
Carrots
Cherry
Corn
Cucumber (early)
Dill (early)
Eggplant (early)
Garlic
Grapes (early)
Green beans(early)
Green onion
Lime
Melons (early)
Nectarines
Onions
Peaches
Peas
Pineapple
Potatoes
Raspberry
Salad Greens
Strawberry
Summer squash
Tomatoes (early)
Zucchini

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May 13, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

I haven’t blogged much in the last month because we have been working hard to get our raised garden beds built and extended onto some new ground.  We are effectively trying to double our vegetable garden space despite being limited by the steep topography and shade from all of the woods.  Once we are done, we will put in some new beds in a different area of the yard for the herbs and perennial plants.  We also had an extended visit from my grandparents and my grandmother came down with shingles while they were here.  That sent me into a tizzy of work, trying to get ready with extra food cooked and the chores and gardening done ahead in case the kids caught chicken pox from her. Their 14-day incubation period ended on Wednesday and they show no symptoms, so I assume they did not catch it from her.  We will still continue to watch them until this coming Wednesday, just in case.  So the last few weeks have been very busy but very productive.

Living in Western NC, our last frost date is mid-April but we don’t put out the warm weather vegetables until Mother’s Day weekend or after.  This past weekend was too cool to plant out (under 55 degrees at night) and The Farmer’s Almanac lists today and tomorrow as the favorable days to get the hot weather plants into the ground.  So I will spend tomorrow trying to break the new ground and get the grass/weeds up, finish spreading the 15 cubic yards of topsoil into the new raised beds, amending with azomite and greensand and then transplanting the plants out that were hardened off earlier this week.

I will be transplanting tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, winter and summer squash, zucchini, lettuces, melons, hibiscus and a good number of herbs.  We will also be putting beans, cowpeas, carrots, lettuce and okra into the ground. None of my beets sprouted, so we will try those again later in the year. Once things are transplanted, the weeding, feeding and soil work on a large scale begins.  We also have 5 roosters and a few hens to butcher soon and need to get the outside equipment set up for that.  Since next Saturday afternoon is taken up with another scheduled activity, I hope we can accomplish culling the flock next Friday and Saturday morning, as Jeff normally gets off in the afternoon on Fridays.

On the personal front, my husband was able to get a new job in April.  He was laid off one year ago today.  Eleven months of unemployment was very difficult and the downturn in the economy has greatly affected us.   I am grateful that the long period of unemployment is over and that God provided Jeff with a job at a company where he is happy and fits in well.  The last year was a good opportunity to fine-tune my penny pinching endeavors and it helped me to weed through some strategies that, while they work, they take up too much time in comparison to the money they save to be useful to me on a regular basis.

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May 13, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

Produce is always cheapest when you buy it in season for your location. While I can not list every single area of the country and what is in season, this is a general over-view of what is currently in season in the United States. If you only buy local produce, not all of this will be available to you, but if you do purchase from stores, this is what should be the least expensive and the most fresh right now, even if it’s being trucked in from another state. Use this as a guide for purchasing large amounts from non-local farmer’s markets for canning, freezing, lacto-fementing, dehydrating and preserving. If you can purchase locally and it is within your budget, please do. However, if you are new to eating seasonally or don’t have a local farmer, this list will help you make the best purchasing decisions.

Early- it is the beginning of their season, they might not be available in Northern locations
End- it is the end of the season, you might be able to grab a steal of a deal on any you can find

Artichoke (end)
Apricot (early)
Asparagus (end)
Avocado, Haas (end)
Beets
Broccoli (end)
Cabbage (end)
Cauliflower (end)
Carrots
Celery (end)
English Peas
Fava Beans
Fennel (end)
Grapefruit (end)
Green beans (early)
Green onion
Kale (end)
Limes
Mushrooms
New potatoes
Onions/Ramps
Peas
Radish (end)
Rhubarb (end)
Salad greens
Spinach (end)
Strawberries
Vidalia Onions
Zucchini (early)

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April 14, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

 Ginger Honey cough syrup, photo courtesy of Kayla at Life in Small Town, Wyoming

Recently, we’ve had the yearly sinus fun that comes from the wild weather swings of Spring.  We had short sleeve weather, two days of freezing, then we hit 90 degrees the next day.  This was compounded by us doing some heavy gardening and cleaning out the chicken coop, exposing us to a lot of dust.  The weather and the dust caused my husband and son to have post-nasal drip and a nagging cough from the resulting tickle in the throat.

I am always on a quest to find cheap and natural ways to help treat ‘what ails ya.’  A few weeks ago I read about making a cough syrup by very thinly slicing a hand-sized piece of peeled ginger, Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in herbal remedies, herbs, recipe | Print | 4 Comments »

April 6, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

Produce is always cheapest when you buy it in season for your location. While I can not list every single area of the country and what is in season, this is a general over-view of what is currently in season in the United States.  If you only buy local produce, not all of this will be available to you, but if you do purchase from stores, this is what should be the least expensive and the most fresh right now, even if it’s being trucked in from another state. Use this as a guide for purchasing large amounts from non-local farmer’s markets for canning, freezing, lacto-fementing, dehydrating and preserving. If you can purchase locally and it is within your budget, please do. However, if you are new to eating seasonally or don’t have a local farmer, this list will help you make the best purchasing decisions.

Artichoke
Asparagus
Avocado, Haas
Broccoli
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celery
Chinese cabbages
Collards
Fennel
Grapefruit
Green onion
Kale
Kiwi
Leeks
Lemon
Lime (early)
Navel orange
Peas
Radish
Rhubarb
Sunchoke
Shallot
Spinach
Strawberry
Swiss chard
Tangerine

Posted in seasonal eating, Cheap Eats, Food Storage | Print | 1 Comment »

March 15, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

My children are prone to complain if they see the same meal too many times in a row.  To keep them from getting food boredom, I often take leftovers and turn them into something new. I do pinto beans on a Monday night, doubling the beans and setting the extra aside.  I serve cornbread for dinner on Tuesday or Wednesday, and the following day for lunch I serve the reheated beans spooned over the cornbread.  For me and the kids, we’ll eat three slices of cornbread and a third to a half a pound of dry beans for a lunch.

Final cost- 73 cents a serving using organic beans or 67 cents a serving for conventional.  If you can use cornmeal that isn’t gluten-free, it will be a cheaper meal. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in leftovers, Nut-free, Soy-Free, Lunch, lazy cooking, crock-pot, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, frugality, recipe, Gluten-Free | Print | 1 Comment »

March 13, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

How many times do your kids run into the kitchen and pull their stool up to the stove to take a peek at what you’re heating up for lunch, only to hear, “Awwww!  Again?  We ate that last night!”  Fried rice is a good way to reinvent leftovers from the night before.  I serve this by having rice one night and then doing a roast, pork or chicken and veggies the second night.  The third day for lunch I combine the rice and leftover meat and veggies to make fried rice.

Fried Rice Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in leftovers, Nut-free, Lunch, lazy cooking, Menu Mailer, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, recipe, Gluten-Free | Print | 2 Comments »