Beauty Farming Life

Prepping: Present participle of prep (verb) Verb: 1: Prepare (something); make ready 2: Prepare oneself for an event When we bought our farm, our goal was, and still is, to become more and more self sufficient and create a place to retire to.  Along the way in this process, we've come to realize that in our own way, we are also creating, hopefully anyway, a safe retreat to go to in the event there is some crisis that forces us to leave our house in the city. When we searched for a property, we wanted something out in the country, away from the city, along the back roads, and out of the general public.  When "Ma" decided to sell, of course we wanted to buy.  Our initial plans went into motion and we started the long process of transforming it into what we have always dreamed of.  We are doing it because we want to, and we enjoy it and we called it becoming more self sufficient, but we are discovering that we are doing is actually a form of preppi...

  Remember when I posted about finding these round metal tins at a discount store?  I was trying to figure out what to put in them.  Well, I  decided to use them to be practical and make them the hidden storage for candles and related accessories. I think it's a great way to be prepared in plain sight .  I'm not quite finished, but the small one has matches of different types and sizes and a couple of lighters as well, and the large one has tea lights, votives, and some small candlesticks.  They make it easy to know right where they are when we need them, for any reason.

Wall mounted oil lamps off When we spent the night at the farm a couple of nights last month, we used the wall mounted oil lamps that we bought last year and this time, I finally remembered to take some pictures so we could share what they look like.  They put out a surprisingly large amount of light when all of them were lit.  There is one more to the left of the photo, just out of camera range, five total. (pay no mind to the missing roller shade, it will soon be replaced, ha).  There is no overhead lighting in the dining room and while we do have a couple of wall outlets that we could plug lamps into, for now anyway, we're going to try it with oil lamps and candles as the lighting source in the dining room. Wall mounted oil lamps lit It's soft light, inviting and warm, and it harkens back to an older time.   It's obviously still a work in progress but we think it's coming along nicely! We have to remind ourselves we don't have to be in a hu...

West Virginia state flag I'm sure many of you saw the news out of West Virginia a few weeks ago.  The mess is HERE for those who haven't read about it.  Long story short, a chemical storage company had a failure of a toxic chemical storage tank which then leaked some horrendous chemical into the water supply of a large part of WV.  Residents all around the area were told to stop using water.  Not just 'don't drink it', but don't bathe in it, don't wash their hands with it, don't wash dishes, don't brush their teeth, don't even flush toilets. Basically they were told not to touch it. Water!? Dangerous!? Hazardous to your health!? It's something we all take for granted at times.  We turn on the faucet and water comes out, right?  But what happens when it doesn't?  Or if it makes you sick even if it did come out?  It got us to thinking about being prepared. Now at the farm we are on a well, and it's fairly d...

Last Summer, I blogged about our DIY seed storage bank or vault idea.  Recently, I realized we needed more space for our seeds, not to mention a way to make them more organized.  So  I took that same idea and multiplied it by four.  It was a rainy weekend and this gave me something to do. We love these cans.  They are  Empty Paint Cans . You can buy them just about anywhere they sell paint or, using link above, via Amazon.  They are very inexpensive, these were $3 each.  So for $12, I was able to get four so that I could divide our growing seed collection.  I came up with  Veggies, Herbs, Salad/Greens , and Flowers. Here is a shot inside showing the seed packets and moisture absorber. Rather than repeat the particulars of how I did this part, you can  CLICK HERE for the original post on it.  It's very simple to do and a great way to organize your seeds and protect them.  I put some labels on them, ...

West Virginia state flag I'm sure many of you saw the news out of West Virginia a few weeks ago.  The mess is HERE for those who haven't read about it.  Long story short, a chemical storage company had a failure of a toxic chemical storage tank which then leaked some horrendous chemical into the water supply of a large part of WV.  Residents all around the area were told to stop using water.  Not just 'don't drink it', but don't bathe in it, don't wash their hands with it, don't wash dishes, don't brush their teeth, don't even flush toilets. Basically they were told not to touch it. Water!? Dangerous!? Hazardous to your health!? It's something we all take for granted at times.  We turn on the faucet and water comes out, right?  But what happens when it doesn't?  Or if it makes you sick even if it did come out?  It got us to thinking about being prepared. Now at the farm we are on a well, and it's fairly d...

September is National Preparedness Month in the United States.  While we should be prepared all year long, it never hurts to be reminded. I thought I'd share a personal story.  A few years ago, we had a major hurricane come through the Houston area.   Hurricane Ike .  We thought we were prepared and we had the mindset that 'hey, in a day or so, everything would be back to normal'.  It wasn't a category 4 or 5 so we weren't worried about damage to the house but we vastly underestimated how quickly things would bounce back. The night it hit (why do they always seem to hit at night?) was definitely intense.  We could hear the house creaking and more than a couple large objects struck the house.  You could hear the explosions of transformers as they went out and if you braved glancing out the window, you could see purple and green flashes in the sky as they exploded from downed power lines.  The power finally went out about 1am....

Our first aid supplies at the farm had been woefully inadequate until I found this Curad Complete First Aid Kit on sale at a local store.  It housed the standard assortment of bandages and such so that was good.  Not that we're accident prone of course but it's always nice to have one handy and since our bathroom does not have a medicine cabinet, this made sense.  B ut we were always moving it somewhere and then not remembering where it was if we needed it. Flash forward to recently when I found this first aid storage box.  It is metal, painted red and best of all, it mounts on the wall.  I actually saw it first on Williams Sonoma's website but then I found it at a store here in town where it was much less expensive.  Of course this is a local mom and pop store so I can't direct you there but, as with most everything it seems, it's available on Amazon. Click here  Kikkerland Red First Aid Box  if you are ...

We have recently found the perfect tapered candles.  Now we know of course, that not everyone has a Trader Joe's nearby but if you do, or know someone near one, these come very highly recommended.  They are usually only available at this time of year. Trader Joe's candles They are simply called..."EIGHT CANDLES".  As the name implies, it is a package of eight candles, these being a cream color (they also have white).  They are dripless and self-extinguishing.  We are always doubtful of dripless but imagine our surprise when we lit a few for a dinner recently and they burned about 7 hours without any drips.  We lit them about 6pm and at 1am, they were almost gone...not a single drip in all that time.  Did they self extinguish?  Yep, we actually watched two of them burn down almost to the bottom and then the flames just went out.  Fascinating to say the least. Side note, NEVER leave a burning candle unattended! They come...

After the epic rains we had this Spring, there were a few times when I was at the farm and got caught in a downpour and all I could do it wait it out on the porch.  That got me to thinking that we need a rain suit of some sort for the farm.  If I had to go out and do something on the property in the rain, it would be nice to have a means to get around without getting soaked. I've recently started shopping for some other things at Duluth Trading (more on those purchases later) when I stumbled across their rain suit.  It had great reviews and the yellow was on "special clearance" because of an issue with the color.  Instead of just a basic yellow, it was a bit more fluorescent yellow and had some small barely visible spots.  It was about half price.  Great deal! It just came via UPS the other day.  Duluth Trading Yellow Rain Suit It is definitely a fluorescent yellow.  2nd Man looked at it and he sa...

Percolator A while back, I blogged about something we call " prepping in plain sight ".  In other words, having things around that you can use anytime, but that might also be extra useful in an emergency such as bad weather or another natural or man made disaster, power outage, etc. One thing 2nd Man enjoys is his morning coffee.  Me, not so much, I'm more of a tea drinker so for me, a tea kettle is all I will need.  We always have at least a couple of those floating around.  For coffee however, we figured something a little more old school might be best.   So recently, I was digging around in some boxes (from my parents) in storage after our move and I found that my Mom had apparently bought this percolator but never used it.  It's brand new, and was still in its original store packaging.  The b est part of all?  The package shows that it is also rated for use over a fire or camping stove!  So that means that we now have a w...

One of our local TV stations was giving away some Red Cross Deluxe Emergency kits for the beginning of Hurricane Season.   KHOU.com .  You could enter online daily and so most nights, while watching the news and getting the reminder, I would enter. Red Cross Deluxe Emergency Kit I kind of forgot about it for a bit.  Then the other day I got an email that said I was chosen as a winner!   WOO HOO! Above is a picture of what all it comes with...including a backpack filled with all sorts of items.  A first aid kit, bags of drinking water and ration bars, a crank radio, flashlight, duct tape, and more...even a collapsible 3 gallon water bag.   We'll keep this in town for emergencies, since we have some supplies at the farm, plus I'm working on a better first aid kit for out there as we ll. We've ordered some cool  things  for that at Amazon and will have that in an upcoming post.  Of course today is the second annual AMAZON PRI...

So.....here is a fun (and ongoing) project.  What is it?  Read on! Red Excel metal tool box We started with this metal tool box.  Heavy, sturdy, seals up nicely and definitely mouse proof. Purchased here at Amazon (affiliate): Excel TB137-Red 1-Tray Steel Tool Box $16.72.  Not too bad for heavy duty quality. It's a nice size and has this removable top tray that adds more storage.   It holds a lot of tools in the bottom. But wait? Are we going to put tools in it? No, we have other plans. I ordered some stickers online.  Three "white cross" stickers and 2 "first aid kit" stickers.  They threw in a 9/11 sticker which we thought was kind of a nice touch to add to our new first aid kit.   Red metal First Aid kit I put one of these on the front and another on the lower part of the back side. Then I put a white cross on each end of the box. And just like that, voila! A heavy duty first aid ...