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...

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 ...

Muscadine grapevine This was a pleasant little surprise.  It's a Muscadine grape vine that I bought last year on end of Summer clearance.  I didn't put it in the ground because I can't just put it anywhere without some planning for a trellis and it got so hot so fast this year, I was concentrating on the fruit trees themselves.  So I've been babysitting it in the backyard in town, keeping it watered.  It's not the most attractive plant at the moment since all I've done is water it and it's kind of gangly, but notice the little surprise we found... ...an actual small cluster of grapes!  Only three here, but hiding behind another set of leaves were... ...four more ripe grapes!  We're excited that it actually produced fruit, while still in their small, plastic, garden center container. Then we ate them. OH. MY. GOODNESS. The grapey-est (new word) grape flavor we've ever had.  Wow.  I had no idea they were s...

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...

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...

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, ...