Awesome Husband and Crazy Panda

Have you ever had some goal or skill that you've always wanted to accomplish, but just didn't see it happening?

Well, I have a bunch of those.

I've always wanted to have a self-sufficient family farm. Now more than ever, with the economy spiraling in and out of control, crime rates sky rocketing and government micromanaging peoples' lives, I'd love to have Scott at home instead of riding the streets looking for thugs.

There are so many skills that I have wanted to learn for a while. Handcrafting, old fashioned, almost forgotten skills that might disappear within my lifetime. Sewing, crocheting, preserving homegrown food, organic gardening, making butter, raising your own meat, making soap, herbal remedies, etc.

Scott and I have so many drams that we're working toward, if God blesses us with the years to achieve them. We have two girls to teach the gospel to, a corrupt society to escape from, a million doors opening and opportunities presenting themselves that we have to choose to follow or turn down.

Life is crazy, exciting, and full of wonder!

That being said, I'd like to share some of the things we've been working on lately.

We live in a rental house on a pecan orchard.

Typically, pecans being falling just after the leaves start falling, so here lately we've experience the beginning of pecan season.

My neighbor, Reba, the girls and I have been wandering around the neighborhood picking up pecans almost everyday.

We have almost 40 pounds so far and Reba has over 50!!!

So I put my baking skills to the test and made a pecan pie:)

As far as teaching the girls about the bible, I'm no scholar so I've had to do some reading on early childhood development and the basic truths that I need to start teaching them to give them a foundation for when they begin to understand more.

Our first "lesson" (it was a pretty relaxed, unstructured thing, so really it was just fun time) was all about "God made me". We read the creation story, talked about some bible verses that describe God's creative powers, and looked at some crocheted items I made to see how God knit things together from nothing!

Then we did a handprint craft that was all about Maddy and Lillee. They were supposed to just stamp handprints, but it pretty much turned into "wipe the paper down with the paint".

Over the last week or so I've been learning to crochet. I've wanted to do it since sometime in high school and always thought it was too complicated. I finally bought a beginners book for $5 at walmart, and let me tell you, it's the best thing I've done for myself in a while!

I've made quite a few successful projects already:)

And I'd like to get some products made up to try to sell, so stay tuned for some of the cutest baby items EVER!

This next picture...this is a funny.

I am in the middle of making a panda set for infants and I have everything done except the panda face/ears. Basically I had to crochet all the separate pieces and then sew them onto the hat.

Well, to make it easy on myself, I turned the hat inside out and proceeded to sew from the hat side, rather than from the eye-patch side.

Unfortunately, when I flipped the hat back around, this is what I had done...

 Luckily, it comes back apart easily and can be restitched.

The next thing is something I am SUPER happy with.

Our dream of a self-sufficient family farm is going to take quite a bit of planning, saving, preparing, moving, etc, but I discovered the concept of urban homesteading, where, with just a small patch of land and things around your home, you can easily raise your own meats, veggies, fruits, etc.

So our initial thought was chickens.

Two problems: loud and smelly.

I put that dream on the backburner, thinking I'd just have to wait til we could buy a farm in a billion years. THen one day I came across an article about rabbits!

They're super easy, breed like crazy, and grow into eating-size VERY quickly with very little financial obligation.

Scott and I discussed it, he thought I was crazy, and I thought I was having to give that dream up too, until a few days later, Scott presents me with his wonderful idea: let's get rabbits.

You see, Scott tends to be incredibly inspired by my ideas:)

So two months later, here we are with two males and two females, a wonderful homemade cage setup, and the prospect of babies in the next 30-45 days!

Top left:Dinner Dinner. We got her for free and she's very malnourished. We're getting her healthy so she can have babies next summer! Top right: haven't named him yet. He's about 5 months old and not ready to breed, but will be soon! Bottom left: Big Papa. He's our buck. He'll be making all the sweet little rabbits babies that will hopefully get fat and taste delicious (sorry). and the bottom right is Mama Breakfast.

I'd like to point out this beautifully constructed rabbit cage.

First of all, just a basic, dinky metal cage at the pet store is $50.

Second, everything on craigslist was either too old, too far, or too extravagant for our space.

So, with no plans, we hopped in the car and headed to tractor supply. That was a bust so we drove over to the home depot. 

After about an hour, lots of arguing, almost giving up, and being inspired by simply walking around looking at things, we headed home with our supplies.

Scott spent all afternoon putting things together, cutting, bending, tying, twisting, etc.

And by the end of the next day, we had a wonderful cage and 4 beautiful rabbits!

The cage may seem simple, but to me it's awesome. Each cage has a wire mesh floor to allow droppings to fall through, a metal tray below to catch the droppings, is completely surrounded by wire, has a simple to use front door, a water dispenser, a food bowl, and is rabbit friendly. There's even storage above the top cage!

So there you have it. I've been working on quite a few things lately, and next up, I'm experimenting with a back to eden garden for next spring. For more info on that, check out backtoedenfilm.com and watch the documentary!

What are some goals/skills you've always wanted to accomplish? Have you achieved any of them lately?