My Simple Wyoming Life

First off I wanted to let everyone know I have come across a few free kindle cookbooks so here is the link to the page https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNXMK43G?binding=kindle_edition&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tkin a lot of the cookbooks on that page are free (these were free as of posting this).

Well I’m exhausted from the holidays nothing went to plan at all! We all got sick, my son ended up on 14 days of antibiotics and instead of 2 people cooking Christmas dinner it was all left down to me to do which being sick and it being a last minute plan change I was not a happy camper! But thankfully that is all over and we are over whatever hit us thank the lord for that!

Now I am planning this years garden, now I would love to have raised beds however one of my new years resolutions for this year is to save money where I can so buying raised beds or even building proper raised bed is of the table for at least this year. So I will be double digging and fertilizing around six separate 8’ by 4’ sections to which I will be using the square foot gardening method which worked pretty well for me back in the UK when I tried it out, however I’ll admit I did have raised beds then. I do plan on building six girds that are in total 8’ by 4’ (broken down into 2’ by 2’ sections) to place over the double dug and fertilized sections to help me with my sqft garden method. I also plan on double digging and fertilizing around four 40’ by 1’ trenches with each one separated about 36” apart for some early/mid season Yukon Gem (or even Yukon Gold) seed potatoes, I’m going with those as I hear they don’t take too much time to grow and we have a short growing window here in my area which I believe is around 70 to 90 days at most. I do have some plastic row coverings which can extend the growing season a bit so if need be I can use that. We are looking to buy one or two mulberry trees this year as those normally do not take more then a couple of years to produce fruit vs say apple trees, pear trees etc.

We have also been taking about adding on to our chicken and geese run so there is more room from an easier to empty, clean & heat pond for the geese to swim in. We also plan on sectioning off a bit of our small yard to grow some fodder crop this year for the chickens and geese so they can have some fresh greens and what not to peck on for the spring/summer this year.

Now I did touch on one of my new years resolutions above which is trying to saving as much money as possible this year. I also talked previously about making more at home from scratch which I am redoubling my efforts once again and it’s also one of my new years resolutions. Money is most definitely going to be tight for this year and most likely the next two or even three years for various reasons.

Which because I am worried about how tight money is going to be and I need to think about my whole family I have come to the tough decision to stop my path to full conversion to Judaism for the foreseeable future, I however still support the Jewish people and Israel and I always will. With the above said I will be following the Noahide laws and I will still read my Tanach and say my prayers albeit with some minor changes to them. Because I will no longer be following kosher law I will be able to easily take on cooking responsibility for the whole house which means I will be handling pork as most of my family likes pork and nothing drives me up the wall more than wasting meat. I do not like the idea of cooking two different meals as that could lead to food waste and we want to save money and to me cooking two meals is not saving money.

Which also leads me to our ultimate goal of having our own self-sufficient homestead for us and our extended family which as of now would mean raising animals that are not kosher for our family and possibly to sell to others to finish off in order to bring in a little bit of money for the homestead. Pigs it seems would most likely be the most profitable for the homestead as a single sow can have litter of 8+ piglets on average, which they can be weaned by 8 weeks old and those same piglets can be “market” ready in about 5-7 months. So again my decision to stop converting was not done lightly. Yes I like to plan ahead and sometimes a year or more ahead because well I guess I’m crazy.

Because we are coming into the real meat and potatoes if you will of winter there will not be very much going on other than cooking and more planning. But I will say before I end my post if your tightening your belt this year and you have not already try looking at apps like Ibotta, Fetch, Receipt Hog and Coupon24 these are cash back and coupon apps that I have started to use to get some cash back and save on items I planned to buy anyway. If you have not already look into getting a paypal debit card there is a bunch of different way to “load” money onto the paypal debit card and you can choose to get 5% cash back on groceries, I have had mine card for a year now and so far I have gotten about $300 in cash back (I have forgotten to pick my cash back option a few times so I did lose out a little bit). Also if you are looking to save on books I highly recommend World of Books (worldofbooks.com) I have used them for years in the UK and now here in the US, they are currently running two different sales/promos, they have thousands of books going for $2.99 and a buy 3 get 1 free offer which I have taken advantage of both in the last few days. I do want to state I gain nothing from you going to either links I have shared.

I hope you had a great Hanukkah and or Christmas and I hope your New Year is going well and the year ahead is a good one for you and your family.