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Ambitious goals

Long ago, when we were living in Maryland we had the goal to reduce our grocery store consumption.  We set ourselves a limit of only shopping local and minimal shopping at the grocery store. Here's the link to that challenge.   Tough Decisions Now due to worldwide events, we are revisiting that idea however instead we're challenging ourselves to grow as much as we can ourselves.  This means fruits, vegetables, proteins and herbs. Thanks to my husband who gave me a go-pro for Christmas I will now be filming quite a bit of what happens on our property so now you can follow us as we face challenges, celebrate successes, and work to produce over 80% of our food. Friday we received our honeybees and we hived them Saturday, 18April. This weekend we will also be tapping birch trees which will be used for birch syrup and birch wine.  I'll be putting up videos shortly as we accomplish all of this and more. Now that being said, Blogger has been relatively hard to ...
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Negative 36 with chickens in our garage

The past couple of weeks have been interesting to say the least.  Our temperatures here in Interior Alaska have gone from positive temperatures in the teens to lows of -40.  While the house is hanging in there, of course, no surprise there. This place was built to last, we have lost a couple of animals and now as of today, the 5th of January, we are housing three chickens in our garage.  Unfortunately two of these girls had the bad luck to start molting late Autumn.  Little Ms. Toriel started molting first in late November.  Chloe came right behind her in mid December.  By the morning of Christmas Eve it became apparent, we had to house poor little Toriel in the garage as first and foremost she had very little feathers on her poor body.  She's also lower in the pecking order which means others are picking on her and she is not allowed to share their heat.  As my husband brought her in to show me it was apparent, she was on deaths doorstep. Her eye...
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Location: North Pole, AK 99705, USA
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Current Earthley Sale January 1-6

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Current Sale Jan 1-6 20% off 10 products. Code: swap20 Top 10 Swaps Sale https://www.earthley.com/top-10-swaps-sale/ ref/tamtbell/ Top 10 Swap Products: Remineralizing Tooth powder instead of paste Rosemary-Lavender Shampoo bar instead of liquid Silky Smooth Leave-In Conditioner spray instead of conditioner Mineral Deodorant instead of conventional deo Pain Potion instead of Tylenol Charcoal bar instead of cleanser Digest-Support instead of heartburn meds Nourish Me, Her, Him instead of multi-vitamins First time customers get a 10% discount on their orders (outside of other sales) with the code: "newtoearthley." Free Shipping for orders over $50
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Who are we and why are we here?

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I write this today not for those who already know who I am, but for those instead who are new to our page.  Now I have to admit, the page used to go by the name How Does Our Garden Grow because when I first started it in Maryland, that was how it fit us more.  How IS our garden growing?  When we first moved to Maryland, we had so many things happen to us financially that, truly, we were really bad off.  We had dry goods in our pantry, but nothing fresh in the fridge, and only a small amount of canned goods.  We had no homemade canned goods at all.  Imagine being in a situation where all you have is flour, Bisquick, sugar, cornmeal, some dried beans, and a container of rice.  Yes, you can make a meal out of that, but it gets boring super quick.  To make matters worse, we couldn't afford to buy much due to issues with the condo we still owned in Alaska along with car troubles and a financial gaff by the military which left us with two and a half m...
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Stories from the Homestead

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This morning our family finished breakfast, were engaged in cleaning up and putting things away.  I decided I'd really like a cup of cappuccino before I got moving on making some salsa with some reduced tomatoes from Fred Meyers yesterday.  Suddenly I heard a large bird, I mean really large hit the front window.  I exclaimed loudly "what the heck was that?" Of course my husband Edward just answered "huh? What?  I didn't hear anything"  So I went out to look.  Thank God I did.  Poor Pot Pie, our newest addition who is one of the few that DOES NOT have her wings clipped was hanging out in a pot of dirt at the window.  The poor girl was looking in with desperation, not realizing I was standing on the porch.  I shrieked "Pot Pie sweety, what are you doing here?"  At which point I grabbed her, began walking to the yard where the chickens and rabbits are when I then screeched with a chicken held to my chest "DOG!!!!" Oh no.  A dog was in...
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Progress on an Alaskan Homestead

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I can’t believe the year is almost over with.  Its Mid-November, the ground is fully covered with snow (finally), and we’re just about done for the season.  This year seemed to be more about protein farming than our garden really; when I sit and ponder it.  Slowly but surely our property is becoming more and more productive.  In July I posted that it seemed as if our meat rabbit production was not doing as well but suddenly come September that all changed.  We had two surprise litters and we had a friend drop off some of her grow outs as she was getting out of rabbits for a while.  This pushed our meat harvested massively up.  That definitely helps counter the cost of raising the rabbits.  While I love my breeder rabbits (Bones, Pepper, Dorothy, Cadbury, Butterfinger, Granny Cookie) they are not simply pets.  As any protein farmer knows, these are also my livestock.  I get to know each and every one.  Their likes and dislikes,...
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Cafe Mocha Hot Process Soap

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Brew coffee triple strength several hours prior to creating batch of soap.  This will be used for the lye.  I like to add cloves into the brewed coffee as it adds a bit of a complex smell later.   SoapCalc © Recipe Name:    New    Print Recipe Total oil weight 3 lb Water as percent of oil weight 38.00 % Super Fat/Discount 5 % Lye Concentration 27.883 % Water : Lye Ratio 2.5864:1 Sat : Unsat Ratio 60 : 40 Iodine 41 INS 176 Fragrance Ratio 0.5 Fragrance Weight 1.50 oz Pounds Ounces Grams Water 1.140 18.24 517.09 Lye -  NaOH 0.441 7.05 199.92 Oils 3.000 48.00 1,360.78 Fragrance 0.094 1.50 42.53 Soap weight before CP cure or HP cook 4.675 74.79 2,120.32 # √ Oil/Fat % Pounds Ounces Grams 1 Coconut Oil, 76 deg 35.00 1.050 16.80 476.27 2 Tallow Beef 40.00 1.200 19.20 544.31 3 Shea Butter 5.00 0.150 2.40 68.04 4 Olive Oil 20.00 0.600 9.60 272.16 Totals 100.00 3.000 48.00 1,360.78 Soap Bar Quality Range ...
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