Friday Favorites

The title Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers speaks to my heart. I've always been rather weird and unsocialized, even when I went to public school. When I started homeschooling my own kids, I became even more so. My children were called weird and unsocialized because they were family oriented instead of peer oriented. They had the courage to stand up against things they didn't believe in and were more mature than their peers. In fact, studies of adults who were homeschooled show just how weird they are. They are much more likely to: be business owners, involved in volunteer activities and serve in local government positions than adults that were educated in regular schools. They also have more self-esteem, are happier and just generally more content with their lives. I'm glad my kids weren't socialized by their peers! The label is true and I am proud of it!

The writer of this blog is a woman after my own heart. Her homeschooling style is very similar to mine and she always has lots of good ideas on her blog and FaceBook page. You can connect with Kris's blog by going to http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/  From there you can link with her in a variety of ways. Check her out!


God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Gourd Birdhouse

Last fall, one of my good friends Lou Weigand, had a truck full of birdhouse gourds. I thought I'd like to take a stab at making them so I bought one. Isn't it pretty?

Here's how I did it. First I started with this dried gourd.

Then I made a circle on a piece of paper.

and cut it out.

Then I put the piece of paper on the gourd and drew a circle with it. Grampa Tom thinks I should have used a smaller circle and he's probably right. I am spacially challenged you know. I'll change that next time.

 Then I got out my handy dandy dremmel tool and cut into the gourd around the circle.

It didn't go quite all the way through, but it made a nice groove for me to finish the job with a box cutter.

The one thing I like about the size of this whole is that it was easy to pull the seeds and fiber out. I will probably need some sort of a bent hanger tool to remove them from a smaller hole.

Then once again, I got my handy dandy dremmel  tool out and made some holes in the bottom so it would drain.

and a couple at the top for the wire to hang it with to go through.

I'm way to cheap to buy ink cartridges for my printer. Many years ago, I got into refillable cartridges because it's a much more economical way to buy ink and the more ink you buy at time, the less you pay for it, so I got several big bottles of ink. But I just don't use the colored inks fast enough. They got thick and were gumming up my printer. I just hated to throw it away so I've kept it thinking it would be a good paint.

The first coat went on and dried really well.

But the second coat was still sticky and wet even after 24 hours.

and even after sitting a couple of days on top of the corn stove. So I finally rinsed it off and put some acrylic spray on it. I really like how it turned out!

I need to call Lou and see if he's got any left. I'm going to grow some of these this year, but they take a year to dry and I'd like to have some painted ones to take to the markets this year.

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

GMOs

Any story sounds true until you hear the other side. This might loose me a few customers, but I want you all to know our view of GMOs. Please read this whole post regardless of what you currently believe.  There is a lot of stuff going around about how they cause disease, infertility, alien abductions ... Here's the truth:

Farmers and seed companies have been breeding plants for certain traits forever. Mixing two varieties is called creating a hybrid. This process takes lots of time. The breeder will select plants to breed based on the specific traits he is looking for. It usually takes several generations to come up with the desired results. The  typical hybrid takes 5-10 years to develop. Some hybrids create infertile seed and some go on to become heirloom varieties after several generations. Many heirlooms are known to be insect resistant,  drought resistant, resistant to a certain type of disease, etc. In the past this type of breeding has taken years to accomplish. With GMO technology, the genetic selection process that in the past has been a hit or miss proposition can be targeted and accomplished in the lab without having to wait 5-10 years.

We farmers have been feeding GMO grain to livestock for years. Most breeding herds and flocks of cows, pigs, chickens and other animals have been fed no other grain than GMO for many generations. If the all the hype about how dangerous GMOs are was true, The United States would no longer have any livestock industry.

If you don't, select, store and cook your food it properly you will get food poisoning sooner or later. Most animal feed isn't cooked, but grains can be infected with disease. Some diseases occur in the fields, some happen with improper storage or handling. I am willing to bet that if any disease or infertility problem attributed to GMO was really investigated, tainted food would be the true cause.

We feed GMO grains. It's a matter of availability. We do have some ethical problems with GMOs, and would feed non-GMO if it were practical but non-GMO feed costs a lot more. We think our prices are high enough.

If that is so, why are all the bees disappearing? Well, I'm not exactly sure, but my bet is that it has something to do with the push to get farmers to practice no-till farming. Years ago, there was great concern about the loss of top soil. It's a valid concern. So, more and more farmers no-till their land. It's good for the soil, but you have to dump a ton of chemicals on it to kill the weeds that aren't killed by plowing. The chemical companies tell us that herbicides won't affect insects, but every container has warnings not to get the stuff on your skin or breathe the vapors. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing they don't affect insects. I don't know the answer to this one. Permaculture would solve it, but that involves getting pretty much everyone producing food. That ain't gonna happen.

The real problems with GMOs are legal. When it is nearly impossible for a farmer to put in a crop without paying a fee to one giant global  company, that's a problem. Monsanto has a strangle hold on agriculture.

Anyone who tells you that this process causes infertility or seed that will not reproduce is misinformed. Some people read that farmers can't save the seed from these crops and replant them so they think the reason why is because there is something wrong with the seed. One good indicator of the healthiness of  any food is how well it will reproduce. Seed from GMO plants will reproduce if planted in the ground. In fact, this stuff is so prolific most organic farmers are having problems with GMO contamination.  The problem is that if a farmer saves seed from his GMO crop and plants it, Monsanto can and will destroy him financially. Monsanto is even going after a lot of organic farmers who through no fault of their own have crops contaminated with GMOs. This is wrong and dangerous!

So there you have it. I am a traitor to the hysteria that surrounds GMOs.


God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

We have one of these row planters. Makes seed so much easier to plant!

Tree Trimmer Ray MacDermott

There's a man in this tree. Can you find him? He's Ray MacDermott. Ray is a good friend of mine. He worked for decades as a tree trimmer for lots of different companies. He is currently working on his own. He came to prune my apple trees the other day. This isn't an apple tree. It's one of the trees near an apple tree. It was shading one of my apple trees so that it wasn't spreading right, so Ray took it upon himself to climb up there and remove the offending limbs. He didn't have to do that. That's just the kind of guy he is. 

We just have two apple trees. The one you see in the next  picture is one that was planted eons ago. Grampa Tom says he thinks he was just a little, little kid when it was planted. At one point, a big wind storm blew it over and they thought it was dead, but it grew back. When we moved here in '88 it was producing red apples. We wanted a granny smith apple tree for apple sauce, so we planted the tree behind it that year. It had the wrong tag on it. It turned out to be a red apple tree.  My son has a granny smith at our place out side of Dallas City so we're good now.

We are terrible people. We have never pruned our trees. It's about time.

The next picture is of the final product. Don't they look great? 

Ray left the branches because he gives a discount if you clean up the mess yourself.  Grampa Tom is talking about getting a chipper and selling apple wood chips for smoking at the markets this summer.

If you'd like to hire Ray he does tree trimming, topping, pruning or removal. Call 217-430-7542 or message his wife Becky for a free estimate.  35+ years experience...lots of satisfied customers! He lives in Carthage, IL but he's been known to travel long distances for work so give him a call!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Housekeeping

#1 Doing a little housekeeping on the blog today. I found that some people who are my personal friends on FB and also follow my business page on FB are getting multiple posts from both of my sites. When I investigated, I found that network blogs was still feeding my blog under the original name Grama Sue's Farm and Flea Market as well as it's current name, Grama Sue's Rainbow Farm. I went in to delete the old name and found that it still had 20 followers. Network blogs suggested that perhaps I didn't want to delete the blog since there were still people following it.

So, if you follow this blog with an RSS feed, please check to see that it is under the name Grama Sue's Rainbow Farm. If not, click on the blue link and follow me from there. I will be deleting the Grama Sue's Farm and Flea Market feed at the end of March.

# 2 I'd  like to get an idea about how people who read regularly are receiving this blog. Are you getting it by e-mail, RSS, through FB or a combination? Please leave a comment :) It will help my ratings in the Google standings :)

 #3 I want to update my blog list. If you have a blog, please list your site in the comments.

Thanks!

God Bless You All!



~Grama Sue

60th Wedding Anniversary

Today on the farm, we are celebrating my mother and father-in-love's 60th wedding anniversary. Margret Mae Sparrow and Walter Whitson were married at the Appanoose Faith Presbyterian Church on March 1st, 1953. They raised 9 kids, 3 of whom they adopted, cared for several other foster children as well. In the last 25 years or so they have "adopted" and cared for many, many elderly folks.

Almost 35 years ago they accepted me, a wild crazy girl, into their family. I left a lot to be desired in a daughter in-law, but they loved me anyway and they have become some of my closest friends! They live across the yard from us and  get volunteered whenever we need some help. When our kids were growing up they were always there to lend a hand. Now they gather and deliver eggs when we are gone, help us pick green beans, apples and anything else, wash veggies if we are running late to the markets, run errands for us on occasion  help with butchering, and pray for us daily. I really got lucky in the in-law department!

They will be having an open house at their place from 2 - 5 pm. The address is 2565 N Co. Rd 1050, Niota, IL 62358. If you are in the area, please come have a piece of cake with us!


God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

6 Days of Creation

God created man in His image. Every one of us is creative. I used to think I wasn't very creative because I couldn't draw or sing, but that is just plain wrong. The way I  read it, God spent 6 days creating and then spent the 7th reviewing all that He had made. . So, on Saturday's I post some of the things that I created the previous week.

Here goes:

Sunday I spent most of the day working on a floor plan. It's a pretty amazing house if I do say so myself! It only has 1903 square feet of living space but the 3 bedrooms are all tucked far enough from the main family areas that they ought to be quiet retreats. I really value a quiet bedroom! Check it out here. 

Monday morning I flipped on my computer and went in to finish up Exodus 12 on my What's In a Name Bible translation and every word was marked misspelled except for 4 "I AM LORD Yehovah". There was something wrong with my spell check. Not sure what, I got to fiddling around with some settings and it corrected itself, but I thought it was pretty cool to wake up to that reminder!  OK, so I didn't create that one, but when God trumps you with the most awesome creation of the day, I think He needs to take center stage!

Tuesday I decided to try my hand at making a gourd birdhouse. There are some things that I will do differently next time, but it is turning out kinda cool. I'll blog about it soon.

Wednesday I got to page 23 in my book about homeschooling called Almost Unschooling Grama. I posted a little bit from the section on record keeping that I was writing on Thursday. If you missed it, click here. Hope I can get it done before garden time! I've got tons of new gardens to create!

Thursday I had all kinds of fun creating a new floor plan. This one is about 2500 square foot. It is another inter-generational  plan with a processing room between the mud room and the kitchen where you can process fresh meat, veggies and eggs for storage. It also has a walk-in cooler and freezer. It's the latest post on my Floor Plan Play Land blog.

And on Friday, I created another big pot of chili. I have 45 quarts of chili put up now. I've only got one more gallon of tomatoes left in the freezer. I watched Alton Brown make a tomato sauce the other day. I think I'll try something like that with the rest of my tomatoes. You know it's going to be "something like that" because I hardly ever follow a recipe exactly. Besides, he started with canned tomatoes, mine will be frozen. :)P

That's it for this week! I'm going to spend the weekend helping my mother and father in-love celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary!


God Bless You All!


~Grama Sue