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Just say NO to GMO

no-gmo Little by little I have been actively working on removing GMO foods from my pantry, to make it more painless I focus on one food or one food group at a time.

I have always been an avid label reader, when my (now grown) son was a child, he had been diagnosed with ADHD, something that is unfortunately all too common, especially in boys. One of the things we did was to modify his diet by removing everything, and I do mean everything that was any sort of sugar, that meant every ingredient that ended in “ose”, the only exception to that was lactose, fortunately that didn’t seem to bother him. Some of the items removed from his diet was sucrose (table sugar), glucose, sucrose, dextrose, fructose, the hardest one was dextrose, that can even be found in table salt! As long as we kept his diet going, he behaved so much better, fortunately I was a prolific and adventurous cook, I had no problems making anything he wanted or needed, my son and the rest of us ate quite well. It’s my son’s birthday today, happy birthday Josh!…

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Scorpion season

scorpion2In a recent article, I talked about all the critters that poke, stick, sting and bite, one of those critters we deal with out here are the scorpions, and it’s the beginning of scorpion season now. A few years back, we had a rash of them inside the sky castle, we were killing one and two a night, every night. They become active after dark, coming out to hunt other insects, mostly crickets and such. I wouldn’t mind except for their nasty sting. When we had that bad rash of them, I had been sitting in front of my laptop one evening, it was warm, I was wearing shorts, I felt something on my leg next to my knee, I thought it was a fly and absentmindedly brushed my leg with my hand, that was the first time (and hopefully last time) I got hit by a scorpion, I have to say, it HURTS!…

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Life in the sky castle

I sit looking out the window, my view is magnificent, I am looking down across a high desert mountain valley, words cannot describe the beauty of the landscape that falls below me, but this is a harsh beauty, full of plants, bugs and critters that poke, stick, sting and bite. Some might find this a torture, I find it to be my Heaven on earth.

PB and I moved out here 5 years ago this last December, in some ways it was a huge move, in other ways it felt like coming home. After buying up just under 6 acres on a mountain side, in the high desert of far western Texas, one of the first things PB did was build our cabin, what would become our sky castle.…

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Sensible shoes makes sense

hhShoes, ladies I know you think about them a lot, and some of you guys too, but how many of you wear shoes that would let you down in an emergency situation? Ladies I talking about running around in high heels, or little flip flop sandals…

Now I’m not saying you can’t wear these kinds of shoes, but perhaps you should seriously consider stashing a more suitable pair of shoes that could be quickly accessed in an emergency.…

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Sleepy?

sleepy

Here’s a scenario, you are working hard, say chopping wood for winter, or perhaps you are starting your garden this spring, you have been working hard for hours, you realize it’s lunchtime, your stomach is growling, you need to refuel. Now you have some options, what to eat for lunch… often times after eating our bodies (and mind) slows down, instead of wanting to go back to work, you are looking at the recliner, or even the bed (that’s me, raising hand!)… how many times have you eaten and right afterward all you wanted to do was sleep? That is not what you want to have happen, you need to refuel and go back to work. What if I told you that what you eat can have an effect on whether you are ready to go back to work or you are ready to go to sleep?…

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Community

Trailersteading – book review

trailersteadingcoversmHow many of you would like (love?) to to have your own place and live for just what you’d pay in taxes? Assuming you already have a piece of land (hint, look for so called “junk” land and you can often have it for a song)… Well that’s precisely what Anna Hess and her husband Mark did.…

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Community

One more tragedy

Boston bombing victim 3 lu lingziWith the tragedy of the bombing in Boston, this is just one more reminder that we need to be prepared for as many different situations as possible. First I want to say how saddened I am by the actions of whoever is responsible, this is an unspeakable tragedy to those who were injured, killed and traumatized by this bombing, to all their friends and families.…

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The Lost Art of Scratch Cooking

fromscsrchFood is so important, unless you were raised on a working farm, most of us have no idea where our food comes from, during the last Great Depression many people survived because they were less than one generation out from the farm, many had gardens, chickens, a milk cow… now people live crammed into cities with postage stamp sized yards with HOA’s and city ordinances that keep them from growing anything but grass, and Heaven forbid they have more than a dog or cat…

There is a lost art, the art of cooking, specifically from scratch, given a kitchen from our grandmother’s time, how many of us would be able to whip up a meal? Without microwaves, without box mixes, without the frozen conveniences in pre-packaged plastic… Fortunately I’m not the only person who thinks this way, who wonders about these things.…

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Mom takes care of everything! pt 2

MOMMOM, aka milk of magnesia, it’s incredible stuff! I wrote about using it as a deodorant, it works very well for that… now we will talk about the other good things this miraculous white liquid does. Would you ever think of putting what is essentially a laxative on your face? I do it, why you might ask? Read on!…

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New homes for pot-growers

bruce_perlowinSpread Peace Radio featured renowned philanthropist and leader in the industrial hemp industry, Bruce Perlowin, CEO of Hemp, Inc. (OTC: HEMP), has announced his plans to fund and build a 500-acre Kins Domain in Arizona.

During the talk radio interview, broadcasted last week, Perlowin enlightened listeners on what initially inspired him to create self-sustainable communities and the social-economic benefits Kins Domains provide. Inspired by the book series “The Ringing Cedars Of Russia,” this 500-acre Kins Domain “Project” encompasses one 2 1/2 acre (one hectare) lot, surrounded by a living fence, trees (2/3), a pond, organic gardens and fruit trees, a natural beehive, a family tree that stays on the Kins Domain for future generations and an all-green home to create a high frequency, natural energy microclimate.…

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The persuasive prepper: convincing loved ones to prepare

It would seem that I’m not the only blogger/prepper who is also worried about getting family on board for prepping. I can’t impress upon you just how important this is, the more people around you who are also ready for whatever may be coming down the pike, the better off YOU will be, the fewer people you will either have to share with (meaning less food and supplies for YOU and YOUR household) or the fewer you will have to turn away in an emergency situation, neither scenario is a good one. Daisy Luther recently wrote about how to get your loved ones to get ready, to be prepared, to be more responsible for taking care of themselves and their households……

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