Our New Barn Yard Cat - Tater

This is Tater, our new Barn Yard cat. Yes, I know, I already have several "pet" cats, but they have been house cats most of their lives and are not "wild wise" so cannot have the full run of the farm. But more on them in a future post.

It is interesting how, when you truly need something, it just pops up out of nowhere sometimes. David and I were sitting by the heater, taking a break with our coffee one day and started talking about how we needed a good, rodent catching cat to keep the rodents out of the feed barrels. It seems that no matter how tightly we try and keep the feed closed (critters and ours), that those varmints just keep getting into it all. We agreed that none of the cats we have could do the job because they just don't have enough fear of dogs nor the wilds. They have pretty much always lived inside and most of them are used to sleeping and playing with large dogs. Just turning any of them loose to have the run of the farm just woudn't be wise. They would never survive.

As we sat there, talking and dreaming, we said that, ideally, we need a cat that wants to hunt his/her own food, is scared of dogs and wild animals, won't bother the chickens, goats, etc. and is friendly and gentle with us .... a pretty tall order for a cat!  Amazingly, about two days later, Tater showed up! We have no idea where she came from, she just showed up and started calling/meowing to us. She would come up somewhat close to us, but not close enough for us to touch her. I gave her a bit to eat and she thanked me by catching a rodent next to the feed barrel! Within a few days, we could pet her, hold her, and she now wraps herself around our legs loving on us and purring contentedly. She likes to have just a dab of "crunch" each day (a bit of dry cat food), but she much prefers to catch her own food! She spends her days hanging out at the feed barrels, in the garden, and next to the chicken pens in anticipation of catching anything rodent that tries to get near them. She eats what she catches and doesn't catch more than she can eat. She has now saved us much more $$$ in feed than what it costs to give her that dab of "crunch" she likes each day. What a true blessing, gift, and answer to a problem she is!

Thanks for reading! Have a blessed day!

WW - Taking a Country Nap with "Momma"

Taking a Country Nap

TIGHTWAD TUESDAY - Free Garbage Bags!

There are lots of things that annoy me, but one of the things that annoys me the most in life, is buying something for the sole purpose of throwing it away! Yep, I am talking about trash bags. It just doesn't make sense.

I have pondered ways of solving this problem for a very long time, now. One way of course, is to drastically reduce the amount of trash that you generate. Personally, I think that that is the best way. We, ourselves, are striving every day to reduce the amount of trash that we generate, but, unfortunately, we do still have a little that we have to dispose of. That brings us back to needing to acquire trash bags to dispose of that trash.

About a year ago I discovered a way to get many of those trash bags for FREE!  How? I go to furniture stores and ask them for the plastic bags that are wrapped around the furniture cushions during shipping. When the furniture arrives (such as sofas and easy chairs) and is put out on the showroom floor, those bags that were wrapped around the cushions during shipping are then taken off and tossed out into the trash. When I discovered this I thought, "It just doesn't make sense for these plastic bags to be tossed out into the dumpster, empty, while I am purchasing empty plastic bags to put my trash into!"

So .... I stop into the nearest, local furniture store every chance I get and ask for the plastic bags that were wrapped around the furniture cushions during shipping. So far, they have always been glad to let me have them. Not only does using these bags save me money, but it also gives those bags one more purpose before they hit the landfill.

Have any of you ever used these bags for trash bags? Or for any other purpose, for that matter?
Have any of you ever found any other types of  "free" bags to use as trash bags and if so, what were they? I would love to know!

Thank you for stopping in and reading this post. Have a FANTASTIC day!

Already Hot & Dry

What a difference this Spring already is as compared to last Spring! Last spring we had rain ..... after rain ...... after rain. Yes, we usually do get a lot of rain in the Spring, but last year was a record breaker. If you set aside all the damaging flooding, it was great for many gardens. You ran out, planted a few things (especially for people like me that had been using the no-till method of gardening), then it rained and watered it in.  What didn't flood or wash away (I think my okra ended up in the next county), grew like crazy! It was such a great year for those crops that need lots of water and it is usually too dry for them.

All that rain also greatly interfered with getting my farm (Granny Annie's Farm) moved. My driveway (and the road going to my house) stayed so wet and muddy that there was one long stretch after another (sometimes weeks) that we could not get a vehicle/trailer in to move my stuff out with. Although all that rain was great for growing stuff, it really cost us in personal possessions.

Now I am here at David's, we are starting our first garden totally together but ..... where is the rain? Even today it was supposed to rain but has now been pulled out of the forecast. The lack of rain is great in the sense that we still have mountains of my belongings outside, covered over with plastic and tarps (which the wind keeps blowing off) until we can get enough storage space to organize it all, but the garden and fruiting trees and bushes badly needs rain to produce food for us. A good balance would be fantastic right now!

I think this has been the most yo-yo weather I have seen this early in the season. Our last possible freeze date has always been about April 1st, but we had a really hard freeze just a couple of nights ago, followed by another light freeze the next night, then hot during the day. As I type this post, it is in the mid 80s! Yet another problem all of this creates is that, although some of the trees are beginning to leaf out, not all of them are and the ones that are are just starting to leaf out. This means that in the hot, dry sunshine, there is no shade for anything to escape the heat in the middle of the day! So I am finding myself dragging out every old sheet (and some not so old) and large pieces of lightweight cloth I can find to try and create some shade for all of our critters (and us). I have to wonder how much of this odd weather is created by Mother Nature going through changes . . . . and how much of it is created by man's stupidity.  I have read that, even though El Nino is pretty much through, it is supposed to get worse in our area before it gets better, but then I also have to wonder how much is blamed on that to shift the blame away from man's stupidity. We may never know. I think we need to just make sure, now, that we are always prepared for ANY kind of weather, any time of the year.

Thanks for stopping by and reading our post. Have a FANTASTIC day!

PHARMACY FRIDAY - Gotta Do Some Checking

 Howdy, Everybody! As you have seen this week, we are back and trying extra hard to get back on track with our blog. I absolutely love doing this Pharmacy Friday segment, but lots of things can change and happen when you are away for even a short time, not to mention a long time.

There seems to be a lot of crack downs all over the net and in person (here in the USA) as to what we can and can't say .... talk about .... claim .... etc, when it comes to discussing anything in the way of natural and/or self healing. Personally, I think that is a HUGE violation of our Freedom of Speech, but there just aren't enough people fighting it, so until then, they are getting away with it.

It angers us (to put it mildly) that this is happening, yet at the same time, we do not want to end up in jail, lose what farm we have, etc, so before we continue this segment of our blog, we need to research and catch up with how we can/can't word our posts on this subject (grrrrr.....!!!!), what we can and can't discuss, etc. UNBELIEVABLE!

Basically, it looks like it is all in how you word it. (yep, another freedom lost) But I will continue this segment of our blog .... continue to bring you great posts filled with ideas and information that you can use for yourself. For crying out loud .... last week I was told by a friend that I can't even reference sites that have done scientific studies on an item and say that it was scientifically proven to have "the following" benefits. Anyone know more about that?  I am not liking all of this. It is just wrong!

Thanks for reading and have a fantastic weekend!