Saturday, July 13, 2013

Leftover pulp from juicing and what to do with it.

DO NOT THROW IT AWAY!

If you know someone with farm animals, freeze it daily until you can give it to them.

If you have your OWN farm animals, they will love it!

I add colloidal silver to mine because c.s. is great for wiping out coccidiosis.  My goats AND chickens absolutely gobble this stuff up! And no matter how much I give them in a day they have never scoured from it. Even my dogs eat a little of it.

I am very careful to wash all produce first and soak in vinegar water, even if I will be peeling it.  If it has a waxy residue on it (cukes and lemons) then I scrub it first.  This way I don't feel bad about letting the goats eat it.

Monday, July 01, 2013

Rare Juicing Tips! ;)

We recently started juicing vegetables and a little fruit and after doing a LOT of research, here are some things that I thought might help other people.  This is mostly stuff I learned the hard way, and couldn't find on other websites.

Juicing Tips - yes, you can freeze your juice. Sure, it may lose some enzymes, but it's still better than eating junk food!  I can not get fresh produce more than once a week, MAX, so I have to freeze it, or waste produce which goes bad quickly, especially if it's organic.

I put our juice in quart jars, leaving a couple inches for it to expand so the jar won't break when frozen, then suck the air out with a Reynolds Handi-Vac.  You poke a hole in the lid of your jar with a tack, then place a small piece of electrical tape over it and suck the air out with the Handi-Vac. It keeps the juice fresh longer, whether you are keeping it in the fridge or the freezer.

I turned the edge of the tape under to make removal easier. 
That's why it looks like it is sticking up. 

Think you can't afford to juice? Well, that's what I thought too... until I found a wholesale produce place in San Antonio that sells to the public! Excitement! You can save huge amounts of money buying your produce this way.  BUT, you need to use up your boxes of produce before they go bad, and I personally do NOT have enough fridge space to keep much in there. I do use ice chests for a day or two because my juicer can only do so much before it gets hot and needs to cool off, but my goal is to have all the produce juiced within 3 days of buying it.

We started out with a Jack LaLanne centrifugal  juicer and despite the fact that the manual said you can juice kale with it... well... you can't. At least, not very much. It's going to burn up the motor sooner or later.  I was very careful to alternate harder veggies with the kale, and only push small amounts in at a time, but we still went through 2 JL juicers in 3 weeks.

So, after that we moved to a Fusion brand centrifugal juicer.  This one isn't too happy about the kale either, but handles it better. In an effort to make it last longer, I quit buying kale and switched to spinach instead. Bummer.

Some people say that if you can't afford a masticating juicer you might as well just not be juicing at all. Phooey on that! You are doing the best you can with what you can afford. It is FAR better than eating fast food or processed foods.  We have been saving up for a masticating juicer, and finally were able to order one! It's an Omega J8006 masticating juicer - can't wait to try it out!

Next post - ways to avoid wasting the leftover pulp by throwing it away.

Thursday, June 27, 2013


— from Desiring God by John Piper, pp. 132-134
While I was staying at Nailsworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost though now... more than forty years have since passed away.

The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.

Before this time my practice had been, at least ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed in the morning. Now I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental, communion with the Lord. I began therefore, to meditate on the New Testament, from the beginning, early in the morning.

The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God; searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer. When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me, that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, very soon after, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.

The difference between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer. . .But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray.

I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father, and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for his inner man.

As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time, except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow. What is the food for the inner man: not prayer, but the Word of God, so that it not only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts. . .

I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow-believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways than I had ever had before; and after having now above forty years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials and the temptations of the day come upon one!

— from Desiring God by John Piper, pp. 132-134

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Hunting Season

Bones with a little meat still on them + Veggies = Great healthy broth to use all year long.


Making broth,
canning broth,
processing venison,
packaging and freezing venison,
cutting meat off the bones to grind or can,
trying to hurry before the ice melts in the ice chest...
All of this work creates a LOT of dirty dishes.
And doing all of that while at the same time trying to keep up with my daily routine, and some other extras thrown in as well.
Two trips to town (so far) to try to get a license plate for Erinn's stock trailer that she wants to sell. A trip to town pretty much blows my whole day.
A goat with a broken leg, needing extra care.
Trying to learn the fine art of "couponing" - getting lots of good tips from Elise's blog!
Printed out my grocery lists yesterday, with many items to be nearly free using coupons, but when I got to town I realized I had left the coupons at home!! Ugh.

Monday, October 10, 2011

James 1:27

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.

Isaiah 1:17

What does the Bible say about orphans?




Grab
This!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Thank you Lord!


Our laptop is still in the shop, and I only have a small folder of OLD pics on this computer.

I am so thankful for:

A JOB for Kris, and a weekly paycheck, for however long it lasts.
That Mooky has his driver's license.
That Erinn had several months of feeling not as bad.
That although the hard drive went out on our "new" laptop, it was covered under the warranty and we didn't have to pay for the new one. (Other than gas to drive to SA.)
That although the red and maroon trucks both need repairs, they didn't break down away from home!
That we are current on our house payment after such a rough 2 years.
That the Lord provided the money to pay for 6 cs therapy appointments, in advance, thus saving money.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

14 years old!


Yesterday for her birthday, Erinn was sick. Really miserably, throat killing her, congested, sickly sick. Mooky was feeling nearly as bad, but he is 24 hours behind her into this sickness. Kris had "IT" for about 5 days last week...
We rescheduled the family party for Saturday, but went ahead and gave her the presents from us. Originally she said she wanted to wait and have the cake on Saturday. But, then at 6:30 she said "It just doesnt seem like my birthday without a cake!" She ALWAYS makes her own cake, and decorates it too. It's a family tradition. But, this time she was just too sick. So, I grabbed the Betty Crocker Gluten Free cake mix and whipped up a birthday cake for her. She did manage to make the icing herself, and do the decorating too.

This is pretty much how she looked half the day. Got some extra computer time since it was her birthday.