The Bread

No Knead/Artisan Bread

If you've looked at my facebook page, you'll notice I've began trying my hand at bread creation but, I didn't like the way it was turning out. I swore I'd share my recipe after I had it figured out.

These are my first attempts at the no knead bread. Still delicious, but super flat. 

To my surprise, I'VE FIGURED IT OUT!

The best part about this bread is obviously how delicious it is, but also, how easy it is!

You'll need:

3 cups of flour

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of yeast

1 2/3 cups of water

THAT'S IT! Now the crafting portion of the bread is the hardest part.

You'll need a bowl that will hold all the ingredients. Start by adding the yeast and the warm water. (Between 100'F and 150'F) I went on to measure my salt and adding that also. The yeast is supposed to sit in the water for about 10 minutes. Then dump in the flour, be sure to use measuring spoons so you can scrape off the extra. Mix it with a wooden spoon (I'm not sure if there is anything scientific about the wooden spoon, but I've read that on many different recipes) until it's all wet. Cover with a towel and let it sit for 4 to 24 hours.

Once the dough has sat, preheat your oven to 450'F. Once it reaches temperature add your cooking vessel, empty, to the oven for 20 minutes. Most recipes recommend a dutch oven, I've been using a pot and aluminum foil.

You can turn out the dough onto a floured surface and proceed to form a ball, only by tucking the dough under until it's round. DO NOT OVER WORK THE DOUGH! It is key to not work the dough too much. I prefer to flour my hands and turn the dough in my hands while flouring the lump. Cover the dough and let it sit some more while everything is warming up.

Once the vessel has warmed and the dough has been formed stick it in the cooking vessel and cover. Bake for 25 minutes, then remove the cover and bake for another 15 minutes or until it is golden brown. (My oven averages 7-10 minutes)

I managed to ask a woman how she makes her dough, she said I should let it sit for at least 48 hours! The extra long sitting helps with fermentation and flavor, I have yet to try this. For this particular batch I used Whole Wheat Flour, rather than all purpose. Whole wheat does indeed give you a much more dense product, but it is so delicious. Top with some home made butter and chow down!!!

PS: the water temperature needs to be fairly specific. Hotter than 150'F and you'll kill the yeast, cooler than 100'F and the yeast won't activate.

When Medicine as We Know it Fails.....

A bit of a backstory.

My sister is sick, with something no doctor has diagnosed or even attempted to treat. She is up in the wee hours of the night, she struggles to function at work. The illness makes her nauseous, causes her to vomit, and have diarrhea. She has eliminated dairy and gluten in hopes her stomach suddenly decided it can not handle those items. She has been in and out of the hospital for a year with this, blood is drawn, she is sent to a specialist, none of the tests match up with their normal diagnosis, so they say there is nothing wrong and she is sent on her way, for a year now.

I didn't get into herbs to help her specifically, but she has been my guinea pig for herbal remedies, and she's usually willing to try, because, like I said, the doctors are not doing anything.

Now with all that out of the way.

I bought ginger at the farmers market and made my little sister a ginger infusion. I have frequently bought her pre-made tea packets, one time I bought a ginger peppermint tea, it had quite a bit of bite to it, but this time I bought the fresh ginger.

The ginger was approximately 4 inches long, I boiled a kettle of water and sliced the ginger. I then tossed the ginger into a clean mason jar and poured the boiling water on top, closed the lid and turned it upside down to ensure every piece of ginger was being used, then I set it on the window sill for about 3 hours (I forgot about it, whoops). Then I drained it into another mason jar. She's informed me it's really strong, but ginger is a fairly strong herb any ol' way, I'm sure the steeping time has a bit to do with it. haha

Ginger is excellent for stomach woes, nausea, upset stomach, irritable bowel syndrome, colic, and loss of appetite. 

While this may help the pain and annoyance it still doesn't solve her problem, and to be completely honest that is not very holistic of me, to treat just her symptoms, but I am not a doctor of any form. (If I was) I would most likely recommend a lot of meditation and/or possibly yoga to assist with stress that generally causes gut issues (other than parasites). However, she's a busy young lady and down time is neither here nor there.

So, all of these things aside, where is the doctor who studied medicine for many years and is an expert? Where is the doctor who studied and has been practicing for many years? Why has not one single, medical professional offered an option? Because the blood work comes back normal, because everything seems normal. Meanwhile a 19 year old has an eroding esophagus, eroding teeth (maybe not yet), swollen and inflamed intestines and can't eat without feeling ill. This is where modern medicine fails us, when every test taken looks normal so there can not possibly be something wrong. Wouldn't you agree that there is?

How many people out there are experiencing medical issues but are not being treated? Not because they chose to not utilize a doctor but because everything seems normal? Medicine has always been something I've believed in, it saved my life when I was 3 years young, and again throughout adolescence as a child with asthma. Now, I still believe in modern medicine and all the amazing technology, but I see the flaws, if it doesn't come in a pill from a scientist, it's no longer medicine. At no fault of a medical professional, but at the education that they receive. This drug helps that symptom...etc. What about the medicine that grows in our backyards, that may actually be quite helpful and less dangerous. I have never heard of a doctor referring their patient to a hibiscus flower for high cholesterol, it's usually, diet, exercise and this pill (or plethora of pills).

One more brief example and then I'll stop. My daughter was 18 months old with Hand, Foot, Mouth disease from daycare. As soon as I noticed I took her to the doctor and I remember them saying "It's a virus, there's nothing we can do, but let it run it's course" (they did give me Tylenol for her fever). Insert first time mommy panic attack. I went to the internet for treatment, which suggested Elderberry Syrup and a Probiotic, I raced to the store and picked it up, with in a few days it was gone. Of course, that's the norm for virus', to let them run their course and that's fine.

Give me your feedback!!!!

Have a wonderful fall weekend!

The Stuff

For our school day

I thought I might write a bit about what curriculum and extras we use and how we use it.

To begin with we use Abeka for reading/writing and math. It is an older version and it teaches the kids cursive handwriting, mind you, I only have the cirriculum/lesson plan books, I use the cirriculum as a guide for daily lessons.

Along with the curriculum books I received a few of the extras. I have several of the "learning to read" books, and flash cards for learning how to blend letters to form words.

I purchased this little book at Staples, it features each letter of the alphabet in uppercase and lower case as well as words. I like to rip apart work books and make copies, for reuse, because I am sure I will be using these again next year for the younger two, who don't start Pre-K until next year.

I picked this up when I picked up the curriculum (at a local used curriculum sale). This is really geared toward much older children, but we still sing the songs, tell the stories and participate in the discussion, this usually blends with our culture education (which is not as fancy as it sounds). I appreciate this book because it really does attempt to create wonderful humans.

Everything is color coded. My son (youngest), loves blue, my middle loves pink and green and my oldest loves purple. This is my son's box, and that little folder is his work for the week, separated by paper protectors, typically I try to put the days work in the front left pocket so as soon as they open their folders their work is right there.

These are the station regulators, if you will.

They're attached by Velcro so I can change things up, on Friday's there are no stations in their folders (Friday's are dedicated to review and crafts).

3 is science station

2 is math

1 is reading/writing

6 is the TV (culture class usually)

4 is their easel

and 5 is the reading station.

Eventually I will share the station set ups (and school room) you can get a small glimpse of the stations from this blog post I made. Station 5 also acts as a calm down corner, it has a lot of windows and there are calm down bottles (water bottles with glitter in them).

Thanks for taking a peak and tell me, how do you home school?

Metal News

Happy Halloween!!!!

I awoke to a nice foggy Halloween morning, and it just seemed so appropriate, I had to share!

Here are some super spooky Jack-o-lanterns we carved over the weekend.

Okay, okay, enough about Halloween and all that fun, I have metal news to share with you all! The Man was kind enough to allow me in his space while he worked and was gracious enough to give me all the answers to my silly questions.

For beginners this is his forge. It's made from an old propane bar-b-q, he ripped it down to bare bones, drilled holes on either side so he could insert the air flow pipe.

Here's a photo where you can actually see the pipe. My last blog about Metal Working I told you how he set up his air flow by using an old mattress pump and a light dimmer switch.

The photo above his how he lights his charcoal. I have to tell you; the propane and the flame so close, for so long, was only a little frightening.

He's considering closing off the other half of the forge as he just isn't using all of the space, I reminded him that a longer knife, or an ax would take up more space and I think he actually agreed with me. HAHA

Here we have a picture after the forge finally lit. I think it was a total of 5 minutes getting the charcoal to light, I don't know why, it seemed like it took forever!

This is what she looks like once she's up and running! Sparks and flame everywhere, hot metal being thrown all over the place and quite a bit of water being sprayed on the coals.

Which brings on the question, why the heck are you spraying water on it? The answer: You only want the center of the coals hot, if you can keep the outer coals cool, the center will stay the hottest point, thus creating a great temperature for heating metal. (Duh!) After I heard the answer, I was a bit disappointed in not coming up with that myself.

The anvil. It's' cute isn't it? After a full day of heating and beating metal The Man informs me that having his anvil on the ground is hurting his old bones, he has a massive chunk of tree sitting in the front yard, but the chainsaw is giving him issues. It's a lopsided hunk of tree and it's about 4 feet long, so it really needs to be cut down to size. After beating the metal until it starts to darken, I watched him stick it on the little round magnet you see at the end of the anvil. (Here comes another question) What's with the magnet? Turns out; once the metal becomes magnetic again, it is no longer hot enough to form and it has to go back in the fire. I feel like somewhere in the depths of my knowledge I knew that once metal reaches a certain temperature it is no longer magnetic, I just tossed that knowledge to the side, like the Pythagorean theorem from math in high school. hahaha

I'm not sure what type of "nail" this is and I don't enjoy being incorrect, but alas, here is a round piece of metal the man has happily flattened and begun to shape into a nice knife form.

Here are a few of his other tools, a grinder, a new sander (picked up from a yard sale for $20) and some other rad stuff that he's picked up along the ride.

I thought I would provide you all with a fun video. If you find yourself on my facebook page, I uploaded a time lapse video of The Man working on several knives at once.

Thanks for having a look!

Apocalypse Prep?

Nope. Just Herbal Remedies.

Did I trick you? I had to add some humor to my Friday. Really though, if society collapses, let's say long term, what happens when our Doctors are no longer able to provide the medicine we're all used to? We'll be thrown into Medieval times! I am assuming most of my glorious readers are fairly like minded in the sense that we all want some level of self sufficiency, of course assumptions can be a terrible thing, so what the heck do I know.

In my last herbal blog I mentioned willow tree acting as Aspirin. In the Native American culture it is used for; headaches, body-aches, fevers...etc. The part of the willow tree that is used is the bark and/or the roots. You may be asking yourself "how?", with hot water of course! You would place some bark/root in a covered pot of boiling water for approximately 10 minutes, drain into a jar or cup that has a lid, cover and store in a cool, dark place or you can dump the whole concoction in a jar/cup with a lid and drain later. Of course this is only one method there are many ways to extract the salicin from a willow tree however all primarily are from root and bark.

Why in the world would I go through all that effort for Aspirin I can buy it over the counter at just about any store? Many reasons other than the obvious, money saving option, and the first and foremost is, Aspirin causes many stomach problems because Salicin is terrible for our body's terrain, when the scientists extracted salicin and create it in a tablet form there are a lot of added buffers so that it does not cause so much damage, and yet it still does. However, when you extract salicin from it's natural source it comes with natural buffers that do not cause nearly as much harm to our wonderful bodies. That ends my rant on pharmaceutical mumbo-jumbo.

While being self sufficient is the majority of my goal, that also goes hand in hand with medicine. I would love to be able to produce all of my own medicine, of course natural medicine will not cure all of our ailments, as I read somewhere once, the Native Americans refer to those ailments are "the white man's diseases". Pretty factual, I suppose, when you look at the grand scheme of things. (Cancer)

I haven't began making my own remedies because the holidays are rapidly approaching, we have some traveling to do, feasts to prepare and toys to buy for our children. I'm in saving mode, to say the least. However, I have gathered most of the materials necessary to begin (just not the darn herbs). I am so ready to start whipping up some awesome stuff but I believe in the "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" theory, so I'm not trying to rush and I don't want to move so fast I don't focus on perfection. (Can you tell I'm a perfectionist? Haha!)

Of course I am trying to include more photos, so I will show and tell what I have collected thus far:

First and foremost my tea kettle (back ground picture for a good laugh). I found this beautiful little guy at our flea market and he is indeed ceramic.

This is my adorable mortar and pestle. The Man bought this little lady for me and I probably won't use her quite as much as I assumed when I first started this journey.

My beloved Mason Jars (I plan to start canning foods soon). These are quart sized jars and I currently host 12 of them. I have used one or two for echinacea tea because the family came down with a stomach bug awhile back....it was disgusting.

This gorgeous china cabinet is currently home to my herbal things, the lower portion will be used to store made tinctures and teas, it also hosts my strainer and cheese cloth.

These are my gems. They are old medicine bottles I picked up at the flea market also, because I love old stuff and they just look cute.

Perhaps one day I will be able to make a living with my herbs, but for now it's just a cool hobby!

Schedule vs. Routine

Hint: I picked Routine

I started with a schedule. It was a very loose schedule because I know what my job requires of me on the busy days. I set it up so I could direct the schedule but it was already made and the kids had these flower numbers on the stations and then stuck in their folders. It's sort of like the drawer system, but a bit more chaotic. HA!

Our schedule (once upon a time ago) looked like this:

• 7:00 - wake up
• 8:00-9:00 - breakfast, clean up, hygiene
• 9:00-9:30 - circle time (calendar, songs, yoga)
• 9:30-11:00 - stations
• 11:00-11:30 - paperwork and clean up
• 12:00 - lunch
• 12:30 nap

Between phone calls for work and this schedule I would end the morning angry and so frustrated, so I took a week off to pay more attention to our mornings and how they REALLY work, even though I thought I had planned the schedule accordingly I didn't and it didn't work, it made me want to give up. What I realized is we wake up between 7:30 and 8:00. The kids want to watch some TV (we're a strictly PBS family) and I generally need a cup of coffee or two before I can do anything. So, I've done away with the schedule and I work with our natural ebb and flow of the day, to include not always getting dressed before school. HAHA

We start circle time around 9:00 or 10:00, yes, we still do circle time because it gets our brains going, it still only takes about 30 minutes, some days we do yoga, some days we practice yelling and some days we practice meditating. Once we finish the kids go straight into paperwork (usually only 2 pages, handwriting practice and numbers). I have changed that particular time because with our schedule we almost never finished paperwork, I always got too busy and the time always slipped by. While the paperwork is not the mortar to our foundation, I feel better if we knock those things out first and enjoy our educational games later. Remember I have framed our education around the Montessori style, so educational play is just as crucial as paperwork is to a regular school. We do a lot of off the record education through books, the kitchen, the yard, walks around the neighborhood or in the woods, at the beach....etc. During paperwork I set up the stations with activities and once the kids have finished they go to their assigned station I just dictate time (I really need to buy a timer) and occasionally give help. Here are some pictures from this morning (it was a PJ day):

 Above: My almost 4 year old working on reading

 Above: My 3 year old working on sorting, colors and counting

My almost 5 year old working on writing the letters E and I (in cursive)

You can sort of see the numbers behind the stations.

We are learning cursive, counting to 20, and general science and world history things.

 Friday's are (and will always be) dedicated to review and crafts, we start with circle time, we review our numbers and letters for that week, we discuss the week and then I break out the glue and scissors and we make a fun craft. Last week we made paper pumpkins and a birthday card for the man. This week we will be waiting until Saturday to carve our pumpkins, so we will discuss knife safety and print out carving ideas. This weekend will be filled with end-of-harvest fun also; Bonfire, BBQ, nature walk to collect leaves and twigs for our fall wreath.

What are some of your most favorite fall crafts?

Metal Working

This isn't my thing, but it is the man's thing, I want to share what he has accomplished and what I have learned by just being around it.

He built his forge using an old propane bar-b-q, he made the ash infused cement which, to my understanding, acts the same as heat brick. It is a coal forge and he rigged a blower from an old air mattress pump and a light dimmer switch so he can adjust the air flow appropriately. He is on the hunt for an old wine barrel or whiskey barrel so he can quench the metal after heating it. He has yet to forge a knife, however, he cut, shaped, sanded and sharpened a knife from an old chunk of metal he had. It was a painfully intricate process. Haha!

This weekend was the man's birthday and I was supposed to allow him time to tend to his forge, I failed. We spent the whole weekend doing other things. This was also supposed to be my time for glorious learning so I could give you all these wonderful photos and knowledge. (The photo provided is our kids, and family playing in his work space)

Once he has the quench barrel, he has several leaf springs that are, apparently, excellent forging metal. His next project is a knife made from an old lawn mower blade.

Do any of you awesome readers partake in metal working? Do you follow specific techniques, free hand or by the books? Is it a hobby or are you taking commission for pieces? It's a lost art I would say, but it is a very awesome thing to know, ya know for the zombie apocalypse.

Thanks for reading! See ya next time.  

The Herbal Journey

I was meant to be a healer...

As far back as my memories go I've had a deep desire to help people feel better heal. Shame on me for not realizing how many options there are in terms of healing. I grew up thinking I would be a doctor, my whole life I had strove to be in the medical field, it just makes sense to me, I understand illnesses and the body. Fast forward to college and I wasn't even a semester in when I knew medicine wasn't for me anymore. I took up advertising HA! I figured out quickly, in college, I was excellent with people. Long story short; dropped out of college, joined the military, had a sales job, and now I have my work at home job, I listened to the powers that be and realized herbalism is my calling.

What the heck are am I talking about, right? I'm talking about using mother nature to heal illness, injury, mental and physical! I want to use everything, roots, bark, flower petals, leaves, stems and nuts. Holistic treatment or alternative medicine treats the "whole" you. Spiritual, physical, and mental...rather than "you have a headache, here's some Tylenol" we get to the root of the problem (which is probably stress of some sort).

Speaking of Tylenol: 

I want everyone to know that Tylenol originates from the willow tree. I also want you to know that Willow [tree] will cause far less damage to your stomach than Tylenol or any of it's sister pills. We all know someone who has stomach ulcers because of a medicine. We all have watched the advertisements on television for drugs and their side effects. How many times have you heard the side effects list for a drug and thought "holy cow, I'm better off with my initial problem"?

I won't even go into the ridiculous amount of money we shovel out for "healthcare" and "medicine".

I am also not encouraging you to give your doctor the finger and start searching the closest patch of growing plants to treat yourself. I am encouraging you to stick around and read about natural treatments, allow me to share my knowledge of herbs and the benefits.

If homesteading and self sufficiency is my dream, then herbal medicine knowledge is a must!

The Homeschool Journey

I was a horrible student. 

Not in the sense that I acted out, didn't study or talked too much. I was a horrible student because I didn't learn in the manner that public school educates. I excelled in classes that made me use my hands and did terrible in the normal classes, with the exception of "Language Arts", I have a knack for that. I thought I would never excel at anything. Turns out, I just learn differently. 

I watched my sister, 7 years younger than myself, experience an even lesser education than I had. They watched sponge-bob regularly, who knew that show was even remotely educational. 

When I became a mother I started the search for education options for my teeny tiny human, no seriously, I was pregnant when I began the hunt. As my oldest grew closer and closer to school age and my financial situation becoming worse and worse, I began to settle with the idea that she would go into the public education system. Oh the disappointment I felt; my life was a mess therefore giving my child the best was not an option, so much disappointment. One day, I sat in my awful job loathing every passing second and I had a customer who offered me a job as his office manager working from my home. I would be lying if I told you I hesitated, I jumped all over that chance to be home! I began researching like a crazy person for home schooling options, laws, material...etc. I began buying resources and slowly implementing educational pieces to our normal day. I've tried the structured method, where everything happens at a specific time. Let me be frank, I have a job that requires me to be on the phone, with as little distraction or noise as possible, that time specific schedule went out the door within two weeks, it was completely impractical and even more impossible to fully implement into our routine because I am constantly leaving the room.

I do take a Montessori approach to education and we learn everything through play. There is, really, not a moment of the day that I am not educating my children on something. With that being said I take a much more lackadaisical approach to education than I thought I would. (I promise to have another post with our routine) There have been many tears shed throughout this journey, it has been hard on me, some times I feel like a failure, I feel like it is way too hard, I have no idea what I am doing. Yet, every day I wake up and educate my children on something. My youngest is really into the Egyptian Pyramids and the ocean. My middle child is into artistic things and astronomy. My oldest child is into all things earth, science completely fascinates her. My children are 4, 3 and 3 years old (we're in birthday season, so everyone is slightly overlapping) "What about the 3 R's?" you may be wondering. Well, we work on those things daily, my kids love learning the sounds of letters, they hate writing, they love counting as high as they can (we practice counting by playing hide and seek), they hate counting objects. I don't have a fancy degree, I'm not always available, but my children are learning (about things I never imagined a tot to learn about) and thriving and enjoying life. Homeschooling to me is about obtaining the best education possible while spending time as a family, it's not about tests and homework. It's open, honest communication, it's about building excellent character and being awesome every day at everything we try and trying everything!

Thanks for reading, see ya next time.