Update

Wow! I haven't written in this since August.  I wanted to let everyone know that we are okay.    We've had a lot of changes happening around here and almost nothing has fit with our goal of self sufficiency.  Last year I worked two pretty demanding jobs from home and in exchange MrLivingOurWay was supposed to be watching our children and working on projects around our house.  That wasn't working out too well as we discovered that the Bible may be onto something when it commands women to take care of the household and men to be the breadwinner.    We spent a while transitioning to more traditional roles.  There was some rearranging of both household items and schedules to be done.  It took a while for me to get everything arranged for my convenience and it took awhile for MrLivingOurWay to leave the kitchen and homeschooling alone so that he could actually get his work done.  As I've mentioned before, we are very different so it was hard for him.

Just after we began this process, we found out that we are expecting another FindingOurWay in late spring/early summer.  This was very much planned as I'd been working on my diet and preparing in other areas for a year, so we are very exited. However, with all the other changes in our household, it has left little energy to write or even do many of the things I'd normally write about here.

MrLivingOurWay did maintain that garden a little this winter and we did get a small amount of broccoli and cabbage out of the garden.  He took care to plant the onions and the garlic.  We grew carrots for the first time somewhat successfully last year and we learned some lessons at harvest last fall.  The first was that our beds were too shallow and we ended up with flat tipped carrots.  The second was that we might not want to wait so long into the winter to harvest them as many of them did not make it  all the way to the exact temperatures they were supposed to be okay in.

Last week, I finally got back out in the garden.  I weeded and planted peas.  It was later than I have planted peas the last two years but it felt good to be out there.

I will probably just do an entry every week or two this spring, but I do plan to start keeping up with this blog again.

Goals for this spring:

• Strawberry picking with the FindingOurWays.  I can't wait to can jam and freeze some stawberries for smoothies.
• Finally make an appointment to have my old canner checked out so that we can begin canning bone broth.
• Make coconut yogurt for my FindingOurWay who has a milk intolerance of some sort.