Category Archives: Simplicity

Shepherd’s Wagon

I took a nice road trip yesterday. Drove out to eastern Oregon, down to Shaniko, then Antelope and back up to Fossil.  If you can, you should make that drive. The view of the Painted Hills is spectacular. I wanted to visit Fossil as they have a beautiful county courthouse. On the way to see it, I discovered they have a shepherd’s wagon! It’s in a tiny park in downtown and open to view. I was so excited about it that I never got around to the front to read the sign with all the details. I may make another trip out there. For now, here are some pictures.

 

It’s unlikely this was meant to take out on the highway. It has a single axle with rubber tires.

This is the view to the left.

 

Closer view of this kitchen area

 

Bed

Area to the right

And a better view of the stove. I used to have a small wood cookstove like this.

Finally

For a quick health update…it turns out my pulmonologist was concerned about a possible marker for rheumatic arthritis. For most people the marker indicates you could come down with RA. But it also is a marker for skin diseases. I have psoriasis. I was given instructions on what to be aware of, as far as changes in my regular osteoarthritis. I am doing a bone density scan and going to a new primary care doctor next week. And I need to find a home for the chickens so I can start weaning off prednisone. My pulmonologist cracks me up. He was wearing Carhart jeans with a short sleeved, snap button Western shirt when I saw him. I guess you can take the boy out of Tennessee, but you can’t take Tennessee out of the boy!

I have been happily playing with my Palm Zire 71. Finally was down to where I just used it for Handy Shopper and Bible reading at night. Yes, it’s time for the analog itch. Since I am using my Traveler’s notebook for fiber and knitting, I couldn’t use it. I set up my Passport model as a wallet, but I just am not happy with that size. I tried a Field Notes leather cover, but had already decided what I needed before it got here. What I really wanted was something I wanted for two years and talked myself out of, every time. I wanted the Olive limited edition Traveler’s Notebook. I found one at a somewhat reasonable price and bought it. It’s nice when you get the second TN because you already have stuff to use from TN #1 and you have an idea of how to set it up.

I like to use buttons on the elastic band. They add some interest without getting in the way too much. The insert with the zippered pouch is a test. If I like this, I’ll get a nicer version. The zipper doesn’t work well on this one. I’m using an old monthly insert with a lined paper insert. The kraft envelope was in use with the black TN. I really do love how these work. You can completely change the function by changing out the inserts. And the leather used reminds me of Coach leather. It’s just as thick. This fits in my Tom Bihn bag and I’m using it as a wallet replacement. I am still using the Zire at home, at night. I use it for Bible reading. And I’m always going to love my gadgets but it is a relief to use something that doesn’t need to be charged. It wasn’t a frugal purchase, but sometimes, you just want something and can’t talk yourself out of it.

More machines

I made one more trip. I picked up a Minnesota K, plus treadle. The treadle base needs work and it’s missing the drawers. The head needs to be put back together. I picked it up so that I could make a treadle base to use with one of these other machines. I could use it for the Singer 66 and my new to me Singer 237.

So let’s talk about the Singer 237 Fashion Mate. I had a list of machines that she was selling so I started researching them. I would never have considered this machine. It’s too modern and reminds me of when my grandmother was buying newer Singers. But, there were posts on the internet that spoke highly about the machine. It has a plastic piece on the top and front, but the parts are metal. It does straight stitch and zigzag. The instruction booklet for it actually mentions the model sold on a treadle base. So I picked it up.

I needed to put some pieces back together. It seemed to turn okay by hand so I powered it up. It seemed to run okay but I couldn’t get it to zig zag at the widest stitch. I checked and found that the needle had fallen down and wedged against the bobbin case. Moved that and every thing works fine. I still want to go through it and will try sewing on it this weekend. It could be a nice FMQ machine. You can lower the feed dogs and it will use the same darning foot that I have been using on the treadles. I still think it will work better as a treadled machine, so will try that and also try the Singer 99 for FMQ. This machine will be a keeper.

I picked up what I think is a White VSiii. Someone put a hand crank on it. It does not have a shuttle or bobbin, which I understand are hard to find. I think I will likely find a new home for this one.

And the last one was a gimme as I was leaving. Unfortunately, I think this one needs to go to the crusher. It’s a very heavy Morse straight stitch. Her daughter accidentally dropped it and broke off the bobbin winder. That’s not a big problem. What we didn’t notice is that it bent the needle bar badly. And the machine is locked up, which means there could be even more damage. It’s one of the heaviest things I’ve ever seen. I might offer it up as a free parts machine but I just don’t want to mess with it.

So that’s the latest and hopefully last update on new machines for awhile. I want to mess around with the Necchi some more too. I’ve ordered some scrap fabric. It sounds bizarre but I really don’t have any scrap to use for quilting. I have a couple of new quilting books. And I have an idea for a project. I’m starting to learn FMQ and have been making pot holders out of my practice pieces. The problem is finding time to work on this. We have our annual Library Messabout at the Portland library tomorrow. One of the members will talk about sailing his wooden sailboat to Hawaii. Everyone gets together and looks over old boating books from their closed stacks. It’s usually a nice time and I can look through the library for books to take home.

Also, more progress on fixing up the house. We had a friend finish repainting the main bathroom. He did a walkway in the back yard out to the shed and finished up some of the painting out front. He isn’t working right now, so we want to hire him to help us finish this place up. I will have to find a way to move everything out of this room so that we can paint it, which will be a major deal. I might take a day off for it. I have a seed order in. I don’t want to plant much but would like a few tomato plants. I can always hope that I’ll have a real garden. I did manage to make it to the staff meeting this week. My O2 levels have been great. It still wears me out and it takes a couple of days for me to recover. I still feel better than I have in years.

I forgot an important piece of news. I signed up for the Ray Elkins sewing machine repair workshop in July. I am really looking forward to it. The problem will be finding a machine to work on in the class. If the Necchi still needs work, I could take it. I suspect another machine will turn up before the class.

Another issue with digital

I bought a Kindle Paperwhite at Christmas. I’ve looked at Kindles over the years and have considered getting one. I have some cookbooks in Kindle format that I’ve used my phone to view. And Amazon offered the Kindle on payments. So despite some doubts, I picked one up. It’s a decent device for the price. It’s lightweight and you can adjust the font. It works out pretty well for using a recipe while cooking.

But there has been something that I didn’t like about it and it finally dawned on me what that is. Books on the Kindle never age. You never find pictures or other items tucked in one. There’s no character to a book you read on the Kindle. I am someone that started reading at an early age and I have read a lot of books in my life. It’s just not as satisfying as a physical book. Plus you have to charge it and you have to rely on Amazon continuing to make the book accessible.

I don’t think I’ll get rid of it. I can always use it for cookbooks! I have started to shift focus towards buying hard bound copies of books I really love and getting rid of some of the old paperbacks that I haven’t read in years. I do not read as much now as I did when I was younger. I can buy for quality versus quantity. And who knows what I’ll find in that used book!

More wedding sewing

Good news: I got the Denver Fabric order. Bad news: they were sold out of the cotton lawn. I’d ordered 10 yards and planned to use that for my blouse and maybe a chemise. The blue cotton twill is very nice. I’d thought about doing a wedding skirt out of it, but went with the white linen. It will still make a nice skirt and I will try and cut it out this weekend. I’d gone to Hancock Fabric last night and picked up some lace beading and ribbon for the Edwardian Underthings pieces. The store manager was very nice, gave me 20% off the whole order and asked if I’d take the survey for her. So I did that and got a code for $5 off on an order of $30 or more.

I checked around the house and didn’t find any natural fiber sheer enough for the blouse. So back to Hancock today. I found some 100% linen that is lightweight, maybe even considered handkerchief weight. It was $17.99 a yard,  but they were having a 50% off sale that I didn’t know about. I bought three yards and didn’t have enough for the discount, so picked up another spool of thread. It’s in the dryer now. I like the idea of both pieces being linen. It wrinkles, but it’s the perfect fabric for these pieces.

Here’s another picture of the skirt:

 

front

back

closeup of skirt fabric

Sewing for the wedding

I ordered some fabric for wedding clothes. I wanted something I could wear for other occasions. But, I am still waiting for that fabric. I have some fairly heavy white linen that I bought years ago. I decided to sew it up as a Walking Skirt. And I like it enough I will probably wear it on wedding day. I am sewing this on the 1891 Singer, which deserves to make a wedding dress.

I usually struggle with sewing. I tend to cut things out poorly and I don’t press them as I sew. It comes from working in a sewing factory where I picked up bad habits. But, the Treadle Quilters group on Facebook has helped me tremendously! The first thing was spray starch. I grew up in the era when you starched and ironed clothes, but I haven’t used starch in years. It makes a huge difference in cutting out fabric and in sewing it. I starched it, let it sit and ironed it with my Steam-O-Matic.

Steam-O-Matic

I cut it outside, on a freebie table that Lon plans to use in his office. It was a lot easier to cut it there than anything I’ve tried inside. I need to make myself a nice cutting table for my office. The Walking Skirt is pretty straight forward and I’ve made a few. The only tricky part is the placket. And here is where I had fun. I took out one of the binders from my puzzle box. It just turns it over once, which works okay for the edges on the plackets. It was so easy to use and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

binder

In fact, I liked it so much, I used it on the waistband too. Normally, I’d press the edge on the waistband and sew it in. I ran the edge through the binder and then sewed that to the skirt. It worked beautifully. I still need to put in hooks and eyes (and I found a neat way to do that in a 1927 sewing book I just got.) And I need to hem it. I know this skirt will be much too long. I am thinking about hemming it as is, then doing tucks around the bottom. That’s a traditional type embellishment for these skirts and would shorten it. I am really pleased with the skirt so far. It’s linen and will wrinkle, but it’s summer and it’s a traditional fiber. And I finally found a use for it. If I don’t get the fabric for the blouse pretty quick, I may improvise there too. I have the lace I want to use, but I need a light weight fabric. I also have a few other items, cut out from an earlier project, that I will work on this week. They can be used if the fabric order doesn’t show up soon. I like Denver Fabrics, but they take a long time to ship out.

I’m hoping to use the tucker and ruffler on this project. These attachments were used to make the designs of the day. They should work fine for my project.

Den Danske Pioneer, Siegel-Cooper and New Home treadles

UPDATE: I’ve been told, by knowledgeable folks at Treadle On, that this is a National that appears to be a New Home. It has faked out other folks. I will try and pull that information into a new post this week.

I’ve mentioned it before, but my first treadle was a Siegel-Cooper. I owned it way before I was on the internet and I didn’t know a thing about badged machines. We had it in the bus, and then I found a new home for it in Walla Walla. So, when I found a treadle head with the same decals, I bought it. This one said Den Danske Pioneer, which turns out to be the oldest Danish language newspaper in America, still published. I’ve been trying to find out which company made it and had assumed it was National. After investigation today, I believe it was New Home.

Here’s what it looks like:

side view

front plate

foot

side decals

bobbin winder

decal den danske pioneer

another look at the name

tensioner

center decal is bad

top decal

stitch regulator

shuttle cover

would have serial number here if new home

backside

back of the tensioner

large access plate

Now, take a look at the links to this very nice New Home Light Running treadle. The base is very close to my original treadle. Links here, here, and here. They are very similar.

I managed to get the bobbin cover opened up. I’m using some lubricating spray called Deep Creep and it seems to work well. I am going to give this a spin over the weekend. I have a lot of sewing to do, so really don’t have time to do a lot this time. I’m putting it in the White base for now. That should work well enough for testing.

Barn treadle

So I have been checking Craigslist again, looking at treadles. I found a post yesterday. The treadle had been stored in a barn and was in rough shape. She thought it might be useful for parts, so offered it up for sale. We went out on it last night. I imagined the worst possible condition, so that I wouldn’t be disappointed. I was happy to see it upright on the irons. And when she said that her husband thought he could turn it into a table, I handed over my fifteen dollars. I am  not ready to give up on it yet.

So here is my new White rotary. This is the first treadle I’ve gotten with an intact belt! The case is fragile, with some of the trim missing. The head was frozen up and dirty. I oiled it a lot last night and did get it to turn. I will be working on this a bit more today. I think it can be made usable again.

 

White serial  number Serial number. I’m guessing this could be anytime between 1898 and 1910.
backside It’s dirty
front of the head And rusty
treadle base And the case is pretty fragile.
I hope it can be functional again. I think it would be a good choice for free motion quilting. I just want to get these machines in working condition and keep them going as long as I can.

And, now for number 2….

This is not the machine Lon wanted. He wanted a Singer in a parlor cabinet, but it would have required another trip to Seattle. Don’t ask me why we decided to get another treadle, but he’s still fascinated by them. And so am I!

1910 Singer vibrating shuttle #2 with sphinx decals:

 

sphinx decals

treadle base

seven drawers

The cats love it already!
cat bed

It’s not as pretty as the other machine and the cabinet needs work. (They put an aquarium on top of it and it leaked! I don’t want to comment.) I just felt like it needed to come home with me. I ordered bobbins and a leather belt from Treadle Lady. Installed the belt on my first machine, sorted out some issues with the tension and bobbin, and it now works! I should have a second belt this week for this machine. They still need a good cleaning and I’ve oiled them every day that I’ve had them. That’s what they need most. And I have my Viking 6430 out as I’m trying to finish a new skirt. Didn’t quite get it done in time for Depoe Bay on Saturday. That was a nice trip. Not as many boats as we usually see, but it was sunny.

Depoe Bay

“Once Upon a Time, The Way America Was”

A simple American farmer could own his land and have voice in the laws of the government. His regard for this newfound independence, his devotion to God, his reverence for home and love of hard work made him quite a fellow that the rest of the world looked up to. Everyone in America could be equal to kings and queens abroad; and this, in short, is the heritage we often take for granted and manage sometimes to forget.

It becomes easy to forget in our everyday existence when so many things are done for us: life becomes dull because we are robbed of the pleasure of doing things for ourselves. The government is doing more for us now than we realize, even more than a self-reliant person might wish. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. Less self-reliant now, we feel less important than we used to. Back in pioneer days we were completely aware of our self dependence because everything we ate and drank, everything we wore, almost everything we touched were results of our own labor. We had reason to believe we were pretty important in those days.

What a bore life has become! When we turn on a water faucet we have no idea where the water comes from. When we want light, we simply flick on a switch without knowing where the power came from. Our clothes might come from Chicago or Hong Kong but we couldn’t care less: our food comes from somewhere by truck or train-what’s the difference? The actual difference is that if you had dug your own well, you would savor that water like fine wine. If you made your own candles for light, you’d enjoy the fruits of your labor, prizing those candles, actually enjoying the light they gave. If your father raised the sheep and your mother spun the wool to make your socks and your suit, you’d be pretty proud of them and never think of discarding them even when worn out. A house and furniture made of trees you felled yourself would become museum pieces to you. Your whole life would be full of the evidences of your own value, therefore your life would be richer and more meaningful, Such was the awareness and spiritual richness of early days that does not exist today.

Eric Sloane, “Once Upon a Time, The Way America Was”

 

Isn’t that a great passage? Back when I could change tires myself (before they started putting the lug nuts on so tight that you can’t break them loose), it was really  empowering. My relatives came out to visit me and had a flat. I changed it for them. I’m not sure my uncle has changed a tire. He’s an engineer and physical labor isn’t his thing. Lon went shopping with me the other day and got to learn what prices are like now. He said “If you have a garden, you could save a lot of money.” That’s true, and you have the advantage of raising that food yourself. You know how to do it and you won’t waste it. I like spinning and knitting because I can. If I make a garment out of handspun, I’ve had every inch of that fiber go through my fingers twice. It doesn’t bore me. In fact, I make use of otherwise wasted time. I could be staring at my cell phone instead.

The skirt project

I’d originally considered making a big deal out of the skirt project, sort of like those dress a day type blogs. I just wanted to see how I’d feel about wearing skirts full time, after a lifetime of wearing jeans. I think I’m confortable enough with it that I won’t be changing back. I look better in these skirts. They are not expensive to make and are actually a pretty quick sew. If I were wearing jeans, I would feel squeezed into them. The Prednisone tends to make me gain weight, so it’s a constant battle. Lon likes my skirts and I’m comfortable. I have two new skirts cut out. I’ll probably make a couple of wool skirts for winter use, with flannel petticoats. And as a side bonus, men don’t seem to be afraid to be polite. I like that. I’ve even worn my long skirt out to do battle with the blackberries. They snag the skirt just like they do my jeans.

We’ve actually been making a few changes around here and that’s been nice. We cut back on the cell phone plan again. We are getting rid of Comcast TV today. It’s $90 a month just for TV with them. And it’s crap. If it were up to me, we’d forego the tv, but we’re putting in Directv instead. It will save us money in the long run. I’ll keep Comcast for the internet.

I’m sure that everyone is looking for ways to save. Food prices keep climbing. I intend to buy some bulk foods to store this summer. I also want to dry more veggies. I have two food dryers, so I could really put some food away. Lon has been learning how to make hard cider and branching out to making ginger ale. If I can kill off enough blackberries, I will put in some sort of garden this year. I have blueberry bushes to plant and my grapevine made it through the winter. I think I’ll plant all that out back. I don’t know if I will be replacing these chickens. For now, they are laying like crazy. I’m down to 7 and we still have eggs everywhere. I’m taking some time off around Memorial Day. I might follow in a friend’s footsteps and make some egg noodles for storage. It’s a good way to put up extra eggs. I have two noodle maker machines around here and they could be dried in the food dryers.

We are probably going to have to forget about Paleo for now. I’m going to try and keep feeding us more veggies and cut back on carbs. It is just too expensive for us to eat like that. I think we can do okay if we are careful and keep portions small. We typically split a sandwich between us and use salad plates for dinner. I’ll try and keep Nourishing Traditions in mind when I’m making meals. I have halibut scraps cooking in the slow cooker. They were on sale at Chuck’s Produce and I think they’ll make a nice chowder.

Depoe Bay Wooden Boat show is this weekend. It looks like we’ll be going. If not, we’ll be eating tabbouli for awhile!

 

Cute kitty picture. She tends to do this at night for some reason:

Fanny on her bum

 

 

More notebooks

I’ve used Moleskines for several years now. However, since they moved production to China, the paper quality has gone downhill. I continue to buy Reporters, but I prefer the Quo Vadis small Habanas for notebooks.

I have not been able to resist Field Notes. I like to collect old notebooks and I like the vintage feel of Field Notes. It’s not really fountain pen friendly paper but then it’s not a notebook that makes you want to write with a fountain pen.

So I ordered the latest notebook, which arrived today!

Sherwood
The cover of these is a thin cherrywood veneer.

notebook back

It’s really nice stuff! And look at the paper.

sherwood paper

I like these. I realize that the cover will be on the fragile side. I use the plain brown ones for most things. This is the sort of notebook that you can do a mind dump in and not think twice. I just like their style.

MMMMM, Notebooks!

Not computers, mind you, but paper notebooks. There’s a new year coming up and I am buying up notebooks for it. I like the ability to have alarms in the calendar on my phone. I use notes and Remember the Milk. But I no longer really trust digital. I haven’t since Jeffrey was in the ICU and the charger for my Palm was back at work.

I have been using Moleskines for a long time and the small Reporter is still one of my favorite notebooks. The problem is that the paper quality has gone downhill since they started making them in China. I did buy a new Reporter, so I have one if I really need it. I’d prefer to use something with better paper, since I tend to use fountain pens.

I decided to try something new and I ordered a 3 pack of the latest Field Notes special edition.Field Notes

After reading reviews on them last night, I believe that most Field Notebooks have a first page, testing all manner of ink and pens. I didn’t do that. But here is the back of my first entry and bleed through is not bad on these:
Page back

I had a temporary mania for them. I like old notebooks and I like the idea of simple, retro notebooks. I will likely buy them for other purposes. They don’t really work for my daily notebook. I like to track my days and I want something larger and more permanent. If I were to use Field Notes in the same way, I’d go through a notebook every three weeks. But here is the answer for anyone looking for a fountain pen friendly notebook, Quo Vadis Habana:
Quo Vadis Habana

I did some samples, in the Anise green one, using my calligraphy pen’s broadest nib. I can still use both sides of the paper. They are slightly larger than the Rhodia and Moleskine shown here:
Habana, Rhodia and Moleskine

I prefer the blank page ones. They have a pocket in the back. The only down side is that this is the white paper, not an ivory. They are very nice notebooks.

And, I also got this:
Word. Standard Memorandum

I like the other Word. notebooks too. I couldn’t resist this one. There is not a lot of room to jot down the day’s happenings. Think of it as tweeting your day. It will work nicely with my regular notebook. I also carry an Apica. I really love the paper on these and it might even work for my daily notebook if I used a cover on one. I use it for thoughts on my system. It seems a bit odd as I really don’t do a lot of planning. I still manage to fill one up anyway.

simplicity

I find sites like this entertaining: Project 333. They function in the same way that Paleo helps you lose weight. You artificially limit your choices. I told Lon about this site. And 33 items seems extravagant to me! Lon typically gets used jeans from Ebay and wears them out. He’s usually alternating between two different shirts and will wear one pair of pants until they are shot. (Yes, they do get washed!) I have been wearing long skirts. I’ve been using the Folkwear Walking Skirt pattern, and I love it. So, I have two skirts and one petticoat. I have several knit tops that I wear, maybe five total. It’s about time to get some new tops and I have the Folkwear Gibson Girl Blouse pattern to make up. Both of us have clothes in the closet that we don’t wear. I will probably do a closet purge this month and get rid of some things that just don’t suit me. I have material for a couple more skirts, so have plans to do some sewing.

I’ve usually had limited closet space, so I try to get rid of things I’m not using. I have a pair of silk trousers that I will keep, in case I need something dressy. What’s the point of keeping something that you can’t wear any more? It just makes you feel bad about yourself. Styles change and you probably won’t want to wear it again any way. I don’t know if I’ll want to wear jeans again, but I do find that I am enjoying my long skirts. Maybe it’s time to shake up your wardrobe too, especially with spring on the way.

Changing focus a bit

I am thinking about doing some pen and ink posts. I have been on a fountain pen kick lately. Back in the old days, I used to use Moleskines for planning. I had a couple of different systems. I have been trying to use my iPhone for some of that. I’ve been using Life Balance, which I’ve used long enough to trust. I used the built in Calendar and Reminders for some things. I’ve installed and discarded several other programs. But it seems I’ve lost my task for keeping everything digital.

I write all over the place. I used to do morning pages and I still write fairly often in cheap spiral notebooks. I have a large Moleskines reporter that I will grab and write in during the day. I wanted something else, a small structured record of my day. I have been keeping track of what I eat. I want to track my finances better. I wanted a bit about the weather and a note of the days happenings.

I ordered a Habana, but had to wait for it to come in. I checked Target and found a bunch of marked down notebooks, including a couple of small Moleskines. I set up my system in one of those.

I use two facing pages per day. At the top left, I date the page. Next is the weather and temperature. If I check it early in the morning, I’ll sometimes write the day’s forecast. Below that is my food diary. On the bottom third is my financial log. I carry over my balance every day and note my inflows and outflows. I track my cash on hand. I have been so disorganized, no matter how hard I try. I have been able to know exactly how much I have by checking this record.

The right hand page is my log of the day. I will do a few notes as I go through the day. At night, before I go to bed, I carry the day over. I write my template for the next day. I carry over my balances. And I make any last notes for the day. It’s very satisfying. And that’s why I am playing with fountain pens.

A lesson in quality

This quilt is from the Goodwill Outlet store, where you buy clothes by the pound. I normally wouldn’t have picked it up, but I was a few pounds shy of a major price break and wanted the lower price. I usually pick up old bedspreads for dog bedding. 20111106-112034.jpg Anyway someone put a lot of work into this. I suspect it was for a baby or young child. It’s unfortunate they didn’t put more thought into it. The pattern is lovely but the material used is not used wisely. Then there’s this, the reason it was discarded.

20111106-112342.jpg All of the white areas have torn loose. The material is not tightly woven enough. I tacked it down to keep it from further destruction but the quilt just isn’t good enough to really repair. The person that made this should have been more focused on beauty and utility. It would have been so simple to have used better material for the white. They could have chosen material that worked better. This fabric is really bad:

20111106-112818.jpg Which brings me back to beauty. I used to get lectures on using synthetic yarn. Now there are situations where synthetic yarns are appropriate. And there’s nothing that says it can’t be beautiful as in these gloves:

20111106-113132.jpg There’s definitely something to be said for using the best materials you can get.

I finished the Steve Jobs biography recently. What I took away from that was a reaffirmation of the importance of beauty in our lives. I think we are more pained by surrounding ourselves with cheap ugly crap than we might imagine. Beauty does not need to be expensive but it does require a careful pruning of what we choose to keep.

Hay strings

I spent a rather hot weekend, braiding hay strings into goat halters. I’ve been thinking of a way to do this for some time now. Lily and Maddie are trying them out, so I guess we’ll see how long they last before I post any pictures or directions here. I think they turned out pretty well and were easy to do. Best of all, they use up hay strings. Does this qualify as frugal craziness, given that you can buy halters for under $10? Beats me, but the hay string was free to me.

It’s over

I somehow doubt that I get many readers with a well to do lifestyle. But for the record, that whole lifestyle of spending way more than you make and charging to the max, it’s over. It’s not coming back any time soon and likely not even in our lifetime. You need to deal with the new reality. It’s like those folks who thought that having a home equity line of credit was like having savings. Then they found out that the banks could revoke that line of credit. Suddenly, they don’t have a penny in case of emergencies. Savings are real (and yes, you can lose savings, as folks found out during the bank failures of the Great Depression).

So, what can you do? You need to learn to do what folks used to do: live within your means. It will mean the end of recreational shopping. You’ll need to learn how to take care of things and make them last. You’ll need to learn how to get good value for your money. You’ll need to learn how to cook and prepare foods from scratch. It doesn’t mean a life of deprivation. It does mean taking a lot more responsibility for yourself and your family.

My friend, Ginger, has taught me a lot about this. Ginger is a prepper. She has been working towards a year’s supply of food. She started out buying the long term storage stuff, like grains and beans. Then she started buying short term stuff. She’s got this organized in a way that lets her rotate her food. I guess you could say she has a well stocked pantry. She went through a difficult time recently when trying to sell her home. To save enough money to pay her mortgage on a reduced income, she was able to use her food storage. Imagine what it would be like, to have a year’s supply of food to depend on. If you were unemployed, you would still have enough food for yourself and your family. You could use that unemployment check to pay the bills and buy gas for your job search. The stress level would be much lower. Even three months worth of food would give you peace of mind.

So here’s some recommendations:

  1. Start a garden. It’s time to start doing. Even if you have a postage stamp yard, you can still grow enough for salads. When we lived in the Airstream and travelled, I had a garden in milk crates. I could put it in the trailer when we moved and back out at the new location.
  2. Pay yourself first. You need savings. I’ve talked to several people who have gone from good paying jobs to poor paying ones. All of us are astounded at how much money we used to waste. Start from wherever you are and start to put something away first thing, before you pay anyone else. Read The Richest Man in Babylon to learn why this is important. Another good book is The Millionaire Next Door. People that are really rich don’t have the lifestyle you envisioned.
  3. Learn how to make do. This goes back to that idea of getting good value for your money. I just found a great book on getting this mentality: Thrift in the Household. You may not want to make your own vinegar. But read that part on weighing what you buy and then weighing the waste. Sometimes we think we are getting a great deal, when we are really overpaying for junk.

I am not in the doom and gloom camp, not yet. I do think that we are going to have a period at least equal to the tech crunch. Given the higher prices on food and fuel, I suspect it will be a longer downturn. You really need to take a look at your spending and start planning for that downturn. After all, if I’m wrong, it won’t hurt you. If I’m right, it might make a big difference. If you’re interested in learning about food storage, Provident Living is a good place to start.

Technology at arm’s length

We’ve been using technology at arm’s length a bit this year, sort of like the Amish. I thought I’d let you know how it’s going.

Phones: We don’t have a phone line. Cell phones die about five miles from our place. This means I’m not on the on call rotation at work. It also means that I usually have to get in the car and drive a bit to call in sick. That’s the down side. The rest is all to the good. I talk on the phone all day long, so I have no desire to talk to anyone on the phone at night. I write letters, yes real letters, to my aunt. I do communicate with some folks by email. Most of the calls we had at the old place were junk away and I hated even dealing with the answering machine. I have a prepaid cell phone that I carry with me, but seldom use. Too many people are spending their time with a phone glued to their ear. It’s a real time waster.

Television: The tv died before we moved and we didn’t replace it. We’d have to have satellite but there’s just no need. Everyone always tries to point out the good things about tv. The truth is that we mostly watch junk. We are encouraged to eat things we don’t want, buy things we don’t need and to go against our raising. I’ve spent more than my fair share of time watching “What Not to Wear”. I just don’t miss it that much. The best memories we have seem to be of listening to radio shows at a friend’s off grid cabin. We can make those kind of memories on our own. Besides, Jeffrey can always go over to our friend’s place if he wants to watch NASCAR. It’s a lot more fun that way.

Refrigeration: We bought ice last year. This year, we have access to a refrigerator, where we make our own ice. We can use the freezer to put a few things away for later in the week. It’s not at our place but is a few miles down the road. It’s been a big help this year. I’d still like to get an ice house and root cellar built. Maybe we’ll manage that next year. We’ve been charging our battery at the same place, which means that we don’t have to run the generator as often.

Water: Hauling water is a major hassle and takes up a lot of Jeffrey’s time. We think we’ve figured out a place to put in the garden next year, that will let us tap into the small spring we have on the place. And we’d like to build up near that spot anyway. In the fall, there’s enough rainfall to water the animals and use for baths. People really don’t appreciate how nice it is to have running water.