diaper stripping...

so for those that don't know, i cd, otherwise known as cloth diaper.  i really don't remember what about cloth diapering peaked my interest, but something did.  maybe it was the fact that they are super cute and something about a big, fluffy bum, i find adorable.  plus i am a pretty big fan of green/natural living so anything i can do to cause less trash/pollution on our lovely planet, i am all for!    

 

anyhow, this last weekend was shall i say...not so pretty.  we have had a few good days here in the ole' bible belt so i assumed that the gorgeous weather would continue.  boy was i wrong! 

horrible winds, rain and snow kept us in most of the weekend.  beloved was trying to finish the pole barn for our jennett, but due to the nasty weather, he had to put it on hold. 

 

so on to my post...for as long as i have been cding, i have NEVER had to strip my diapers, i didn't think i needed to.  once again, i was wrong.  i noticed that i was having issues with leakage and what not so i decided to strip them.  in a nut shell stripping is just washing them over and over again until there are no bubbles in the water, oh i almost forgot, you wash them but without soap.  some people say throw a little dawn dish soap in, but i didn't.

 

 

 

i remember reading on other blogs to look out for 'the bubbles.'  if there were bubbles in the water then you had detergent build-up and stripping was necessary. 

 

guess what i had...

 

yep you guessed it...bubbles!  believe it or not these inserts were "clean" or so i thought.  it took a good 3-4 washes to get all the bubbles out. 

after they were done stripping i had hoped that the weather would have improved and i could hang them on my clothes line.  WRONG AGAIN!  rain and kansas winds put a stop to that plan.  so what is a crunchy, babywearing mama supposed to do???

she hangs them on her inside drying rack.  she crams as many of them on there as she can and she places them facing the sun, or what sun there is that day.

the took longer for the diapers to dry obviously, but i was pleased to spend the next 30 minutes the following morning stuffing my diapers. 

so the morale to the story is this...when life hands you lemons, or rain and wind, make an inside clothes line, while watching disney movies with your kids, while drinking tea!

other then the yucky weather and our little keiki getting sick, we had a pretty mellow weekend.

i am linking this post with The Homestead Barn Hop and The Clever Chicks Blog Hop.

peace and love to you all!

 

 

 

 

 

cream cheese anyone???

well hello there fellow farmers/homesteaders!  i hope you all had a rockin' weekend.  we had some great weather here and believe me when i tell you, we took full advantage of it, but that is for another post. 

 

one thing i did do this weekend that brought me to giggles was...make my very own homemade cream cheese, from yogurt.

 

please believe me when i tell you that homemade cream cheese is ridiculously easy to make.  all you need is...

 

some yogurt

a cheese cloth, or in this case a poor man's cheese cloth

a bowl to catch the whey...and that is it!

 

nice right?  anyhow this is how i did it.  i took some of my cultured yogurt and poured it into this silver strainer.  let me back up.  i lined the inside of the strainer with coffee filters, since i didn't have a cheese cloth or a tea towel, and then i poured the yogurt in...

 

 

then i placed the strainer in the blue bowl (pictured below). there was a 1-2 inch gap from the bottom of the strainer to the bowl.  in this gap is where my whey dripped from (sorry no pic).  it is very important that the whey be allowed to drip from the yogurt as it sits.

 

(my poor man/no cheese cloth yogurt set-up)

 

i covered the strainer with a clean dish towel and left it on the counter until i went to bed.  i then moved it into the fridge, and left it over night.  in the morning i woke up to cream cheese! 

 

i carefully scrapped it off the coffee filters and put it in a glass jar.  i then took the whey which was sitting in the blue bowl and put that in a glass jar.  not to sure what i will use my whey for, but you can find all kinds of good uses for it here.

 

 

 

so needless to say, this is one less thing i will be buying at the grocery store and one more thing i will be making myself.  learning things like this makes me super happy because it is one step closer to self-sufficiency and most importantly i know exactly what is in it.

 

now if i can just find a good gluten-free bagel recipe then i will be set!

 

i am linking this post to The Homestead Barn Hop,  The Clever Chicks Blog Hop and Raising Homakers Link-up  . hop on over and check out all the cool links.

 

peace and love to you all!

 

 

our week...inSTAGram styLe

(so apparently i thought i posted this blog post, but i guess i didn't.  i wrote this earlier this week, but oh well.  better late then never right?)

 

welcomE back!  i hope all of you had a FABulous week/weekend.  we have been uber busy here in the farm.  beloved is building a pen for our donkey!  i have taken pictures of its progress but pictures just don't do it justice. 

anyhow, i thought i would post some pics that i had taken during the week via inSTAgram and picstiTch.  hope you like.

 

 

 starting from left to right...

1.  this precious b/w was a self-portrait taken by none other then my girls.  aren't they just the most beautiful things?  yay, i think so too.  2.  next, my medications necessary to move along the miscarriage that we recently suffered.  i had not only medication to speed up the process, but that medication makes one nauseous so i was given anti-nausea medication along with pain medication.  blah!  i hated every minute of the wretched process, but am thankful that is over, physically anyway.  more on that i another post.  3.  lower left is rah-rah outside with daddy watching him work on the pen. 

 

1.  my farm boots.  lovE theM with a capital L!  2.  my super cool emerGency EssentialS magazine that i meticiously thumb through for days on end.  i ordered some stuff, but was bummed to find out that the things i REALLY wanted were on back order.  yuck!  3.  the very beginning of the donkey pen.  a little side note here, my hubby totaLLY ROCKS! there is nothing this guy can't build.  4.  something else i love...stacks of firewood ready to be burned.  something about this picture makes me grin from ear-to-ear.  does anyone else feel that way when they see firewood or is it just me?

 

i had another little collage of pics that i intended to add to this post, but for some reason blogger is not cooperating right now, so i shall end it here.

 

peace and love to you all!



 

just do IT already

 (i found this awesome sign here)

 

enuFF said...

to school lunch or not to school lunch, that is the question...

for those of you who have children in the public school system you know that the lunches that they offer/serve the children are TERRIBLE!  no nutritional value, filled with yucky fats, dyes, hfcs and preservatives i can't even say let alone spell.  it is enough to drive a mama cRaZy! 

rest assured that there are other like-minded mama's out there who have spent oodles of time improving and fighting for healthier lunches.  for those schools unwilling to change their menus for the welfare of our children, mama's like you and me have devoted time in the kitchen improving school lunches along with making them funner. 

check out some of these fun lunches by lisa at 100 days of real food...







aren't they adorable? 

they are so cute and most importantly so healthy. 

i just adore lisa's blog because she is a woman after my own heart.  i love her cute little decorations and inventive ways to pretty up her daughters lunches.  i recently purchased the norpro silicone ice pop makers from amazon which you can find here.  i have the silicon muffin liners on my wish list through amazon and hope to get them pretty soon.  you can find the muffin liners on amazon here.  i have purchased the ziploc divider lunchboxes, but it wasn't from amazon.  i was visiting family in az and stumbled across a killer deal, 2 for $2.99 so i snatched up 4 of 'em!  if you can't find them in your local walmart or grocery store you can buy them from amazon here. 

please check out lisa's blog because i just totally rocks! 

last but not least, i stumbled across this cool idea for lunches on carole's blog at my kitchen escapades.



how cheap, inventive and cool is this idea!  i am so jealous that i can't think things like this up...maybe one day.

anyhow, i hope you go and check out these ladies blogs.  they are filled with awesome information and great ideas! 

until next time my friends.

peace and love to you all!

sOURdougH swEETness...



(pic of my sourdough starter chillaxin' in a crock on the stove top)

 

so i am a pretty big fan of whole/real foods.  my family and i are slowly on a journey, they just don't know it yet, to incorporate more real/whole foods and in the process rid ourselves and our home of processed foods.  we all know the hidden dangers/poisons in processed foods but did you know for example that autoimmune diseases are linked to the consumption of processed foods?  and since i suffer from an autoimmune disease, i can't ignore what is right in from of me right?  right!

so our first step, which we have done before, is to incorporate sourdough in our diets.  for those of you who don't know much about it, i insist you go to here and read/sign up for her ecourse.  i have done it and i loved it!

i have made just about everything in the book, and every recipe is awesome, just ask my family.  today i made a double batch of the sourdough tortillas and tomorrow i will be making a double batch of the crepes. 

here is a pic of my sourdough starter after having been fed hours prior. 

 

 

do you see all the bubbles?!?!  sweet right? 

 

anyhow, this is one step towards eating healthier and becoming more self-sufficient.  what have you done this week to contribute to greater self-sufficiency? 

 

i am linking this post to The Homestead Barn Hop and The Clever Chicks Blog Hop.  hop on over there and check out all the cool links. 

NOT a hAPPy cAmpeR!

(instaGram)

i know it is a little blurry, which is to be expected when mama is driving...shhhhh don't tell the PoPo but i think we can all admit that at some point in time we have all felt this way.