Mosquito Net, Watermelons & Homeschool

Here are the pictures I said I would post. I know ALL of you are jealous!! I actually like sleeping underneath this. Aside the whole roach issue, it's also kind of romantic...in a way. Well, when you don't think of it as a mosquito net. Maybe I'm stretching it a bit but WHO CARES? I'm ecstatic about it! I have a side view and a front view so you can appreciate it as much as me. I have had several people ask how our garden is doing too! A couple months of ago we thought our cucumbers were gone because of the heat. They did stop producing but the leaves kept growing and flourishing. Now, as the weather has cooled a bit, they are producing cucumbers again. For the last month, we've gotten several so that's been really FUN!!

Our tomatoes are pretty much dying right now. In one of the pictures of our watermelons, you can see our sad tomatoes plants behind. But....we're VERY HAPPY to say that our watermelons are doing GREAT!! We bought some different heirloom varities so some are striped and some have these cute yellow speckled dots.

We are EXCITING to get started on our fall garden. I'm planning on filling ya'll in on everything we plan on planting and taking pictures of the land and where we are putting the garden spot. This week we are going out to the land with our new goat. Oh....I'll take pictures of him toO! We named him Francis after St. Francis of Assisi. He is our lawnmower right now.

This is our BIGGEST melon right now. I just can't wait to slurp it up!!

This is our watermelon bed that is doing the best. Notice the tomato plants in the background. You can't tell but they are in a different bed. Chris thinks these watermelons are doing so good because he mixed in quite a bit of wood ash with the compost and such.

Lastly, here are my AMAZING kids doing their homeschool!! Just thought I pass it along!

Peace to all, Rachel

Hitting "The Wall"

We hit the wall! Chris and I spent the last week figuring that out. That was/somewhat currently is, the problem. We think.....

Last night we were watching this funny movie called "Run Fatboy Run." It's a British film about a guy who runs out on his pregnant girlfriend on their wedding day. 5 years later and after she finds a new guy, he realizes he made a mistake and wants her back. During those 5 years he has gained quite a bit of weight. Also, he is concluding that he is unhappy and has been unable to follow through with anything of importance to him.

He meets his love interest's new boyfriend and he happens to be running a marathon for a charity. The main character decides he is going to run too and prove to her that he can follow through, with the hopes that she will want him back.

I won't ruin the movie for you because I think it's good enough that you should see it but there's a scene that impacted both Chris and I profoundly. He's running the race and soon after starting , he gets hurt. He's lying on the ground deciding if he should keep going. The movie leaves you assuming he doesn't. As time passes, you realize he is running the race while being pretty injured. During the middle of the run (or walk since he was so injured he's walking pretty slow), he stops. Everyone around him is sure he has hit "the wall." In the movie, a brick wall appears before him and you can tell he just doesn't think he can see a way to get through it. Then....a brick is removed from the middle of the wall. He stands on his tip toes and looks through it.

Mind you, at this point, I assumed he was going to see his love interest. She was the one it seemed he was doing it for so I only guessed that she would be on the other side motivating him. Nope. He looked through the brick only to see himself on the other side.

Chris and I were talking this morning and he said, "I'm like that guy in the movie last night. I felt like I'd hit "the wall." You've seen some of my previous posts. You understand just a tidbit of the struggles we've had. They may not look like that much. They're probably not in the grand scheme of things. But....just like the movie when the main character was injured, he merely stumbled a bit but still got back up. I feel that's how things have been for us up til now. Just things to stumble over but then you just pick yourself back up.

Where we are at now feels much different merely in the fact that we see the wall, we feel the wall, we are completely conscious to where we are at in comparison to the wall...how we got here....and are now asking ourselves if we can go forward. And even more importantly, asking ourselves the question of...if we do go forward why are we going forward and for what reason?

Well, I'm very happy to say I think we have and are getting our answers. I'm scared to put this out there because then it seems so much more real but we decided to make a 2 year commitment with the adventure and then see where we are at. We already knew some of the reasons why we made this decision. Where we are at now only heightens our awareness and shows the picture clearer than when we arrived in Texas.

Chris and I are looking through our wall right now. We see we are doing this for ourselves and our family. We see that I am doing this for me and he is doing this for him. We see that even though this is THE MOST challenging thing we have ever done, we believe....we hold out hope, that the end result will be more rewarding than we could ever imagine. We say that full well knowing that it could turn out completely different than we even had planned.

So, I am happy to say....we are climbing over, or scooting under or just plain plowing through our wall right now, knowing we will come out victorious on the other side. I think anyways.....hehehehe!

Abundant peace to all,
Rachel

Permaculture 101

"Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in the natural ecologies. It was first developed by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and their associates during the 1970s in a series of publications. The word permaculture is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture, as well as permanent culture."

"The intent was that, by rapidly training individuals in a core set of design principles, those individuals could design their own environments and build increasingly self-sufficient human settlements — ones that reduce society's reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution that Mollison identified as fundamentally and systematically destroying Earth's ecosystems."

Here is wikipedia's definition which I think tells it MUCH better than I could. I had heard about permaculture a few years back from some good friends who had been trying to apply some of it's principles into their home garden. It sounded intriguing back then but, at the time, we weren't in a place where could apply any of it's teachings.

Once it was time for us to make this change, we started gathering all of info we could on the subject. One of the main inspirations for me is the people I found at a website called "The Path to Freedom." I have a vague memory of someone sending me an email link to their video YEARS ago. I remember watching it then and feeling this swelling inside me. I had no idea how deeply it I was impacted until recently. I have scoured their website and watched the video over and over.



Now, I'm not sure if they are applying permaculture ideas into their set up but my what I've seen and read I can only assume so. It's just that I don't think seen the actual word permacuture in their stuff but I'm not absolutely sure. Just let me leave it at that.

We decided to go straight to the source with our first book about permaculture, "Introduction to Permaculure." We have really loved this book and found that it has been a MUST for what we are trying to do. But...we also found it to be written in a textbook format which tends to lean it more toward the boring side. Along with use of language and verbage that was somewhat over our heads. (We are most DEFINITELY a bit on the slower side)

After months of reading, we were grateful for another recommendation. A book called "Gaia's Garden." Also, a permacuture book but a MUCH easier read. When to read both books together, we found that understanding the first book become easier. We found that whatever we struggled to understand in "Introduction to Permaculture", would tend to be explained in a bit more understandable way in "Gaia's Garden." We do feel that we need both books to get and apply needed information in regards to the teachings of permaculture. We do plan on purchasing and reading Mollison's Permaculture Part 1, 2 and so on. There is so much information in just the 2 books we have now that we feel until we can really glean and even apply some of what we already have there is no need to purchase more yet.

One idea that we realize is a MUST is the DESIGN. Well, I should say if you are starting how we are which is square one with bare land. Design is a must even if you are doing what the Path to Freedom people are doing too! It's just you start from where you are at and what is or is not available to you. Our situation I think is a bit different than most because we are starting at square one.

This has been an EXTREMELY daunting task for us. To be honest, we really don't know what we are doing. We are gleaned mega doses of information from people and books but we have never actually applied any of it til now. Trying to create a design that is highly effective and reusable in all aspects has taken much more time than we expected.

These books have truly been a life saver in so many ways. There were so many ideas and concepts that we already knew would work to help build what we are wanting but we just didn't know how to apply them. This is where the books comes in. I think anyone with an endeavor as ours has many ideals they want to meet to create self sufficiency. One main ideal for us is freedom. We want freedom from enslavement of debt and bills and such but also freedom to do what our lives what we truly want. When we want and for the most part, removing ourselves from being beholden to anyone or anything. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.

We've have found that with the ideas and principles of permaculture being properly applied, homesteading seems to be more of a joy and less of a headache. We assume so anyway. We have already found this to be true, to a small extent, with our garden. Just applying permaculture to our garden, we've found it to be much easier and less time restrictive than expected. We have most definitely made many mistakes with this first garden but feel our fall garden should be better and more concise.

I think I will stop here for now. We are still in the process of deciding what type of earth friendly home we want to build. Come back for my next post. Earthbag? Earth berm? Underground? Adobe? What to choose? What to choose? We have some ideas. I'll tell you all about it.

Abundant peace to all,

Rachel

Update On Roaches

I guess while I was gone to Utah, Chris had his mother come and spray something (I don't really want to know what, at this point). Since we have been back, the amount of roaches has dropped to almost non existent. So, the future plan....to spray more chemicals. We are only spraying them in the kitchen, bathroom and patio since we think that's where they're coming from into the rest of the house. We'll see I guess.

The REALLY exciting news though. My mosquito net came yesterday. Can you imagine the world I live in now? I am ECSTATIC about receiving a mosquito net. I NEVER thought I would hear myself say that but I am. And I'm thanking the Divine for helping me find it. Yep. That's the way my life works.

Lastly, the heat has died down. Don't get me wrong, we are still sweating but temperatures have dropped to 95 degrees or even below on some days. Blessing...blessing...and more blessings. The sweet smell of reprieve. I mean that literally too! You can only imagine how some of us smelled by the end of the day.

I think I FINALLY found my silver lining. Thanks for EVERYONE's help. I couldn't have done it without you~

Abundant peace to all,
Rachel

Ugh!! Cockroaches~

Notice the writing to the left of this post. See it there in blue? It is our mission statement. Our purpose for this move and what we want to accomplish. Just so you know, weeks of talking, praying, discussing and much debating went into that mission statement. At this moment though, there is a certain sentence that I'm highly considering throwing out!

Here it is. "We speak and hold firm to our truth while maintaining authentic harmonious connections with all living things." Don't get me wrong, I'm all for speaking and holding firm to my truth, it's the next part of the sentence that I'm struggling with right now. Yeah....the part about maintaining harmonious connections with all living things. That part...well...that part I think is gonna do me in!

Because I did spend some of my growing up years here in Texas, Imoved here aware of the bug situation. I have vague memories of pronounced swelling on certain parts of my body only after we realized I was probably allergic to fire ants. Then there were the asps, the black furry caterpiller that we were NEVER to touch or go near. And lastly, I DEFINITELY remember and will NEVER forget the COCKROACHES!

Let's talk about cockroaches for a minute. There are 3 types of cockroaches found in our area. All of which live within our home. The American Cockroach. The Chinese Cockroach and the Wood Roach. I have a few things to say about each and everyone of them. Here it is!

They're FOUL! They stink. They're FAST...so fast in fact that when you see one and feel the urge to step on it, it's gone before you can even blink. They are UGLY!! They exude this energy or presence that seriously make the hair all over your body stand up straight. What is that? and WHY? I really don't know. I don't feel that way when I think about an ant or a fly or a cricket. In fact, I can't think of another bug where ABSOLUTE DISGUST is the first word that comes to mind.

Oh, I have to just throw in this. A few months before we moved, Chris and I were watching the Travel Channel I think. This guy travels around the world eating food. It looked like a very intriguing show so we stopped to watch it. It seemed exciting enough to us just to watch him eat different foods but the show took a new twist when we realized he was eating BUGS from around the world. Ok, I just got finished eating a bit ago and I can already feel my food wanting to come up the wrong direction. It was just to much for me..

Back to the cockroaches. Let me just tell you. They are MANY! They are prevalent. They are HUGE and they are NOT leaving the lake house. I just don't know what to do. I think I finally reached my limit when I was pulling out my suitcases to pack for our trip to Utah and because the bags had sat there for longer than a few days, about 5 or 6 cockroaches had gather in and around and were now scattering EVERYWHERE. During the scattering process, one ran across the top of my bed and over the body and face of my dear Mabel, only to wake her up! It just is so GROSS to watch that happen and my brain is still trying to figure out why.

Chris says the way I feel is pretty illogical. After all, cockroaches can't hurt you. They just run fast and usually they run away from you! I understand all this. I promise I do. It's still just about the FEELING I get from them. My skin literally crawls. When we come home at night, all my kids storm into the house to start the cockroach killing frenzy as they turn lights on. It's like a war zone in there. Roaches running everywhere. Feet flying like rubber fly swatters. On that night, I walked into the house to find 25 dead roaches. Are you feeling my pain yet?

Or...when your dead asleep and all of a sudden you feel something on your arm that is kind of tickly? You want to maybe scratch it but you're still too asleep. You feel it again and this time your a bit more conscious. All of a sudden it hits....WHAM!! You realize what you are feeling. You're instantly awake and sitting up only to watch the butt end of the cockroach rushing down your arm and off your hand. I can't even write this story without my toenails curling.

Here's the dilemma. I know what our mission statement says. My heart, my idealistic look at the world through rose colored glasses heart, wants to see a cockroach, explain to it that it does not belong in our house and gently pick it up and kiss it good bye while I send him out the door. Unfortunately, for my family we tried this at first until Chris finally let me know that my idealism was KILLING our family.

Then we moved onto essential oils that I diligently sprayed every night around every crack and crevice in the house. This seemed to keep them at bay for a while but never stopped them from coming. I became desperate and starting talking to people about it. EVERYONE....I'm not exaggerating here.....everyone told me the ONLY way to get rid of roaches was to use chemicals. Roach killer. (Let me rephrase that....everyone who lives in Texas told me to use chemicals. All my extremely loving idealistic friends in Utah told me to talk to the roaches and they would go away. Well, I tried that. The roaches response was merely, "Um, we are doing our jobs here. This house is falling apart so if you want us to leave don't provide such great food!")

Boric acid is our next move. Supposed to be safe for humans, bad for cockroaches. I have researched up and down for alternative methods that actually work. None so far. I would definitely love it if someone has a fool proof method that I haven't heard about so if you do....don't hold back.

Until then I am staying at my parents or my mother in laws waiting for my mosquito netting to get here. You read right. Mosquito netting. It turns out I can put up with knowing the roaches are there, I can even let somr of them reside in our home, but I WILL NOT put up with them crawling on me at night.

My mom and I sat in front of the computer 2 nights while tears flowed down my cheeks when I realized I could purchase mosquito netting and sleep peacefully without fear of being touched by roaches. (Sorry a bit of an exaggeration there!) The saddest part of it was I wished I had thought to get it 3 months ago instead of sleeping with the sheet covering my whole body including my face and head.

So, while I work on myself and my complete acceptance and love for the cockroach. For what they do for my compost. For what they do for Mother Earth...I will be applying any and all of the methods I spoke of above. Please know, that I am actually praying for that love because ultimately....I do long to live harmouiously with them....with their foulness and all.

The last 2 posts, I know, have been a bit complainy. I don't plan to make all of them, or even most of them for that matter, that way. The heat and the cockroaches just happen to be my 2 biggest obstacles right now both of which...I am VERY excited to say, seem to be changing for the better. I have had a few friends state they would like me to go into more detail of my daily life. So there it is. I know your all jealous. I would be. Until next time.

Abundant peace to all,

Rachel

Sweating Bullets

I am a city girl! There is just no if, ands or buts about it. I have NEVER been raised or lived in the country in any way, shape or form. Oh, I remember once, when we lived in Oklahoma, my dad putting in a garden. I remember him periodically watering it. But mostly, I remember it slowly shrivling up and dying before any fruit or veggies even produced!

Oh....and there was that time that we did actually have a horse. I was quite young so I don't remember it much but my mom says I LOVED to feed it. I would walk outside with carrot or apple in hand, very anxious to feed her, but according to my mom...the carrot was usually gone by the time I got to her. I have ALWAYS loved horses and have had opportunities to ride them off and on in my life. Wouldn't that be nice if that made me a country girl, but I'm thinking that doesn't really count. Oh well.

The reason for the monologue about me is, if you haven't noticed, we plan to move out into the country. We are moving to a tiny town in Texas. It does have 20,000 people I guess, but that's pretty tiny compared to where I have lived before. We're not WAY far out but it sure does feel that way. I must admit, I just am not used to this way of living...AT ALL! I don't even think I had heard the word "homestead" before a year ago or so.

I don't know if my issues are so much the country/city thing either, as it is realizing that I have NEVER been required to do anything hard in my life. REALLY!! I promise. My husband went on a 2 year Mormon mission to Portugal and learned quite a bit about personal sacrifice and with drawls from things you become used to. No, not me. If I wanted something, I just went to the closest store and bought. Or figured out how I could get it. I can't remember a time when I ever had to go without anything I absolutely felt I couldn't live without.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I spent years complaining like everyone else about what I still didn't have. When I am truly honest with myself though, I have lived the life of luxury. We've never had large sums of money, if fact....the contrary. I now recognize though that if I wanted it bad enough. I got it. That's it.

Well, here's the current battle I am having now. As I have stated before....we live in a 45 year old, 900 sq.ft., cockroach and termite infested, lake house with NO air conditioning. We live in East Texas where the temperatures can raise to well over 100 degrees with 90%+ humidity. I did spend some of my growing up years in Tx. but remember what I said above. I lived just like most everyone else in an air conditioned home with most anything I wanted. (If you are thinking....wait....I didn't get everything I wanted, if you are 50-60 years old or older than I might believe you....but if you are 40 or younger, I don't. We are the generation of convenience and ease. Let's be honest.) And let's face it, I was a child and truly resilient to most anything. I could sleep comfortably on a cement floor back then.

Living this way is NOT what I am used to. At all. I hoping you are understanding this now. Granted, Chris and I KNOW this change is meant for us. It is the IDEAL we have been wanting for some time for ourselves and our family. We still hold out hope and believe we can and will do it. Does that make it easier? Well, it hasn't yet. In fact, I am realizing my upbringing is actually making it harder.

I am not used to sweating ALL day long. Day in. Day out. It doesn't matter what time of day right now. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. Unless, we walk into an air conditioned building. Which does happen a couple times a week. Let me tell you!! I have NEVER before been more grateful for air conditioning than I have been over the past 4 months.

I live in my frock at home because of the heat. When I awake in the morning, I put it on. I sweat. We work outside on the garden. I sweat. We come back in the house to cool off. I stand in front of the fan. I sweat. The funnest part of my day is standing in front of the stove during the absolute HOTTEST part of the day, making dinner. BOY, do I sweat! It really does feel like taking a shower sometimes. It is such a strange sensation to feel wetness running down your abdomen in such large quantities that your can't believe you even have that much liquid inside of you to be excreted.

Ok, you want to know the funny part now. My oldest son. He's 13. He will wear long sleeve shirts. I'm not kidding. Like I said above, resilient.

The blessing....the silver lining...the God send....we live on a lake. YEAH! When it's unbearable, we jump in. It cools us off and lifts us. We feel we can go on. Or we even have a hose. Talk about blessing. I never thought I would hear myself say how grateful I am for our outside hose. The water is VERY cool and feels HEAVENLY when you are that hot. Thank God! Seriously~ Also, in the evening when it does cool down to 95 degrees, we've been blessed with a ceiling fan that sucks in the cool air. HALLELUJAH!! Seriously. Sometimes it drops down to the 80's at night and we actually stop sweating and feel comfortable.

So, there's a tidbit into our daily life. Check back very soon. I plan on writing A LOT more often and next time will be about the cockroaches and my new found disgust toward them. I'll hopefully take pictures and go into detail of the creepy crawlies....moving on us at night. You don't want to miss it!!

Abundant peace to all (especially me),
Rachel

P.S. If you want to see pictures of our house, check HERE! A friend stated it looks alot nicer than she thought. Ya, she can't really smell it, can she? I will take more detailed pictures. We are grateful for it but OH....it's gross.

Holding Pattern

A few things have come about over the last few days. We have hit a holding pattern. We feel a bit lost with the endeavor we are under taking. I'm not quite sure if I should even post this on this blog. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what to post here and what to write about and hope this is still of interest to our readers.

We have realized that due to severe under funding and abundant IDEALISM, we are somewhat at a loss as to whether this undertaking is over taking US! We have several reasons for this move, aside from self reliance and self sufficiency. We truly want to change habits that we feel are preventing us from creating a consistent progressive pattern in our lives. As we thought about and pondered this change over the last couple of years, our weaknesses were glaring right at us. We saw our laziness, our gluttony, our complete waste, our lack of care or responsibility for more than just ourselves and what this was doing to our fellow living beings and our Mother Earth. We became acutely aware of where our economy seemed to be heading. We saw the need for constructive play and work to be the order of the day for our children. We wanted to do better. We LONGED to BE better....but....just didn't know how we could do it, living in our current society that seems to enable all the negative attributes I just listed above. We wanted to spend MUCH more time together as a family and truly share in "being the change we wanted to see in the world."

We are pretty sure we can still go forward and make ends meet. We have some ideas to bring in some income, even though, our hope is that we will need very little monetary funds by the time all is said and done. We hope to be able to trade goods like goods and help to rebuild a more principled economy. But....we are still in a quandary of how to move forward. That with 5 children, whom we home school and are with all day long and do need constant and consistent attention, if we really can accomplish this goal. We truly want the best for them. We believe this change can instill something inside of them the strength to believe and live their dreams. The question is....do we have the strength inside us, as their parents? We just don't know.

This is reason for this post. You can read a more emotional version on my other blog at www.livingmom.net. I am wanting ideas, thought, opinions(hopefully understanding and kind), support. Has our idealism gotten the best of us? Should we have transitioned more? I feel just so lost in these questions that I am struggling for an answer.

I know I have insightful readers and friends. Thank you in advance for your words. They will be pondered and prayed over and taken very seriously.

I am truly going to try and post more often. Another question is what are people wanting to know about through our experience? That might give me a better idea about what to post about.

Abundant peace to all,
Rachel