Natural Mosquito Repellent

I just wanted to save this for later, so I can research each plant a little more. I will need to decide which plants will work better where we live (once we are off-grid, but maybe even here), but I want to use some of these around the perimeter of our yard to repel mosquitoes. I am sooooooo sick of them this year after all the rain we had in the Spring!

The ones I'm listing here are all perennials. I may decide to plant some annuals as well, but I like the idea of not having to regrow plants every year. If I do get some annuals, they will probably be things we will eat or use for remedies or something.

Does anyone have experience using these just for mosquito repellent? I'd love to hear how well they work (or not)!

• Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis)
• Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) 
• Citronella Grass (Cymbopogon nardus) 
• Catmint (Nepeta faassenii) 
• Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium)
• Catnip (Nepeta cataria)
• Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia -- This one attracts and EATS mosquitoes, it's carnivorous! So maybe I'd put these in the middle of the yard in case some mosquitoes occasionally breech the barrier, or outside the fence.)

Off-grid and self-sufficiency: Preparing for the Change

I may do a series about moving off-grid and compile them once I am done.....which will be a while since we aren't quite ready for the move yet, but we're getting there! So, just a few thoughts and a question for anyone reading. :) Here are some short term goals, things we are working on now that will get us closer to moving:

1. Get rid of ALL debt BEFORE buying land or anything else necessary for living. There may be a few exceptions, such as our water catchment system and our chickens, and we may purchase items here and there that we will need, but only when we need them here. For example, a wood stove. We don't NEED one just yet, and we do have a fireplace, but it makes me nervous, so we may go ahead and use a wood stove this winter. But for the most part, we're trying very hard to get our debt paid off by the end of the year. We also plan to pay cash for our land and everything else, so NO MORE DEBT!!!!! I'm tired of being a slave!!!
2. Purge, purge, PURGE!!!!!! I've already been working on this for a while, but we still have so much junk.....and we really are not very materialistic, there are just a lot of us!!!! I am paring down our clothing to just a few outfits each. That's it. We're going to be washing laundry by hand, so the less clothes the better! (We've already been line drying for a while, and when our washer dies, if not before, we're not planning to replace it!)
3. Learn how to do things without electricity. Laundry, cooking, lighting rooms, figure out how to charge and use electronics or go without! These are the main things that affect us, but there are so many things we use that require electricity, especially the fridge! I don't think we're going to use propane for anything (just not interested), so we'll either have to make some kind of cold storage area, get solar power for the fridge or learn to live without. Honestly, it's ICE that I will miss, at least during the summer!

So, once these things are all accomplished, we can begin to make the transition!!!!!

1. Quit work and move! Once our debt is all gone, we will sell this house, hubby will quit his job and away we go! Now, we have several children, some of whom can take care of themselves now, but we are trying to figure out the best way to transition. What I mean is, should we rent an apartment in the area we're planning to move, or should we just try to buy some land around the time we sell this house and then "camp" while we build? 
2. Build a tall, sturdy fence!
   
   This will be our first priority for safety reasons, so maybe even before we officially move onto the land, we will determine how big of an area will be fenced in and get it up. There are some potentially dangerous animals for hundreds of thousands of acres in the area we're looking (including Bigfoot! Ha!), so safety must be top priority!
3. Find a water source! Duh, right?! Gotta have water to live! We'd LOVE to have a river or lake on or next to our property, but even a smaller creek or pond would be fine. However, being in the mountains, it shouldn't be difficult to locate a spring or seep. There are a lot of little tributaries off of the big river, so I don't think we'll have trouble locating a source. Worse case scenario, we can dig a well, but hopefully we won't have to go through the expense. We'll also catch rain water, and we know how to filter it and boil, if needed, and we will have it tested as well.
4. Build shelter! Either temporary or permanent, depending on circumstances and the time of year. Obviously some of these things are going to be done simultaneously, but there is still that possibility we may have to stay somewhere else for a bit while we get some things going.
5. Plant a garden. We'd love to have a green house as well, but depending on the time of year we move, a regular ol' (Back to Eden style) garden should give us most of our food. We will plant some fruit trees as well.
   
6. Chop wood!!!! We've already decided we've got to move before the end of September at the latest so we'll have time get enough wood chopped for the winter. Gotta stay warm!!!

One thing we've been learning through the years, thankfully while we have room for errors (still being on-grid), is that we need to always look ahead to the next season to prepare. During the summer and fall, we need to prepare buildings, animals, chop wood, etc. for the winter. If we don't, we may not be warm! During winter and spring, we need to work hard on our garden or we may not have enough to eat! It will definitely be hard work, but we're looking forward to it!

There are many more things we'll need to do when you get into the fine details, but these are things we're working on now. What is the one thing you feel is a MUST for going off-grid and being self-sufficient that I did not mention?

Chicken brooder

We used this as a brooder for the first time last year and it worked so well. This was just a koi pond that was sunk down in our front yard of the first house we bought 12 years ago. It was ugly and very impractical, so we dug it up. It is about 5 feet across and 22" or so deep, so lots of room!

We eventually started using it as a swimming pool for the kids. It was a GREAT swimming pool, but as the kids got older (and there are more of them now!), it just didn't seem big enough any more. I really did love it as a swimming pool though!

I also noticed a crack in the bottom, so we decided maybe it would make a nice brooder. All I can say is, if I was a baby chick, this would seem like a mansion! I'm sure they love it, and it could hold probably 50 chicks pretty comfortably for a short time, if we needed to.

This pond/pool/brooder cleans up very easy and really nicely (we've had to clean it out so many times over the years), so I think I'm going to turn it into something else this summer.....a sand box! How fun will that be?!?! And then maybe over the winter we can have it over a garden area (we've had some really nice grass/weeds in winters past!) before using it as a brooder again next year.

But for now, our new little chicks can run and play in their little huge chicky mansion.

It was a little chilly out, so it took a few minutes to warm up the place. I wish I had a picture of them when we first turned the heat lamp on. They literally stood up tall, stretching toward the lamp, and closed their eyes, just basking in the warmth! Haha! It was adorable!

Notes on what we used: The tire was just there so the 15 month old could see inside. :) The big black thing is a platform type structure built of wood and covered with some kind of rubber. We found it (and several more) in a huge dumpster. That is to keep in heat and keep rain and animals out. We took some chicken wire (also free) and attached it the edge of the black platform, attached the other edge of the wire to a 2x4 (also free), and this serves as a vent during the warmer part of the day and also to keep out predators. Then we have a board covering it, which we can remove to release heat, when needed, and a tarp over all that to keep the rain out. This is all angled as well so the rain will run down and out. It should work very well, and we are very happy with it, especially since it was all free. Oh, and the stepping stones we have the feed and water sitting on, and the cinder block the light is attached too......also free. :) Yep, every bit of it was FREE. Hey, even the eggs the chicks hatched from were free! We just had to buy a new heat bulb, water and feed trays, and wood chips. :)

New chicks and a giveaway!!!!

Heritage Rhode Island Reds. We had 5 of them hatch, but the last one had to have help, and I think it is too weak to make it. The other 4 though are all doing really, REALLY well. Here are some pics of them taken yesterday.

And now for the giveaway......This last picture for some reason just really makes me laugh! I am not a witty person though, so I need a good caption. You may enter as many times as you want and even put them all in one comment, and the caption that makes me and my family laugh the most will win this book:

Just to be clear, this is the picture to create the caption for. Share with your friends! We will pick a winner this Sunday evening, March 25th. Have fun, and thank you! :)

(I want to do another giveaway soon, so stay tuned!)

Chicken Butchering

This was our first. It was quite comical at times, but we definitely made sure it was as quick and painless as possible for the bird. We thank Yah for providing for us!

This rooster's name was Black Forest, so I had to look up a recipe for Black Forest chicken! I didn't have all the ingredients on hand (and we don't eat pork, so I left out the ham), but I used what I had and improvised, and BOY was it good! Myles had a really hard time eating it. Oh, and by the way, he wanted NOTHING to do with butchering it either. He's not quite ready yet! LOL!

New baby chicks!

We didn't think any of these would hatch. The mama was setting faithfully, but we thought it got too cold in the beginning and that it had been too long. We were about to toss the eggs, actually! It's a good thing we didn't! We were going to candle them first though.

Aren't they adorable?! The rooster is a Golden Laced Wyandotte and the Mama Hen is a Rhode Island Red (which is my favorite breed right now.....they are so friendly!). We ended up with 6 babies, which DOUBLED our current chicken population. Fun!!

Our little homestead, 2010

Well, I didn't get any pictures from early in the season, and, as usual, I didn't get a great jump start this year. However, my goal each year is to do better than the last, and so far we are doing MUCH better than last year! In March I planted some beets, peas and broccoli. I never saw any broccoli. I'm not sure if it was the soil or heat or something else, but the beets and peas did great! I need to figure out why my beets are not bigger. I think we have too much sand??? Everything above ground seems to grow very well though, and our peas, though not very much in quantity due to a couple of bad hail storms, were very yummy!

Later into the hotter season, I didn't get as much planted as quickly as I would have liked to. I blame it on the pregnancy and CONSTANTLY being tired. UGH! But I pushed through as much as I could, and once I finally made it to that 2nd trimester and had a little more energy, I was able to do more. (The family did help, but it was mostly me working on it.) In that time I had lost some baby plants, mostly okra and tomatoes. I was mostly disappointed because I had used up all my organic, heirloom seeds and had to resort to Wal-Mart ones for replanting! Maybe I'll order more next time. Part of the reason they went bad is because I used the Jiffy pellets for starting my seeds, and they were horrible! They were affordable, so I thought I'd give them a try, and once the plants all reached a few inches high and were ready for planting, they died very quickly. They also all had very, very thin stems and were very unhealthy-looking. I will NOT be buying those ever again!

Once we finally got some other plants in the ground, we had some strawberries, okra, squash, peppers, musk melon and oodles of cherry tomato plants! Still waiting to be planted, I also have more okra, bush beans, 3 different types of pumpkin, 2 types of watermelon, butternut squash, and carrots. If I can just get them in the ground ASAP, they should do very well!

So here are pictures taken this morning of what we have so far! Um, ignore the tall grass & weeds. We always do a little TOO well at growing those!

These are volunteer sunflowers that took over my first garden. They overtook the peas, but at least we were able to get a lot of good ones before they died off! YUM!

From top to bottom: squash, peppers and melons!

seedlings

Okra! Our favorite!

Mostly weeds, but if you look closely, you might see the 24 cherry tomato plants! The weeds are not up against the plants, but, um, we still need to get them out of there!

A lovely bloom on the okra. :)

Our first okra of the season! We each had a bite....just enough to tease us!

They were delicious! Freshly picked raw okra is the BEST!!!

My trees are doing very well! I have two pecan, two chestnut, one granny smith apple, one almond and one cherry.

Our oldest chickens, 4 females and 1 male. These girls should start laying any day now!  Yea!!!! We have a white Wyandotte, two Rhode Island Reds, Black Minorca and the rooster is a Golden Laced Wyandotte.

Our "teen" chicks. These two are around 5-6 weeks old. The bigger, lighter one is an Americana and the smaller one is a Russian Orloff. We can't figure out why the Orloff is so much smaller, but it seems to be healthy!

And these little darlings are only a week old! We have two Rhode Island Reds and two mixed breeds (but should be good layers).

So that is our little homestead so far, here in the city! My goal is to expand a little each year, as much as the city will allow, until hopefully one day soon we can move to the country and get goats, sheep, etc. and do what we want!!!! Happy farming, everyone! :)