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.