Nicole Alderman

steward
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since Feb 24, 2014
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Biography
Five acres, two little ones, one awesome husband, 12 ducks (give or take), and a bunch of fruit trees and garden beds. In her spare time, Nicole likes to knit, paint, draw, teach kids, make fairies & dragons, philosophize, and read fantasy. She doesn't HAVE spare time, but does like to fantasize about it!
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Recent posts by Nicole Alderman

My husband is on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) for his Crohn's, and eats largely meat, cheese, and some fruit and cooked vegetables. Stocking up food for him is hard!

We usually have a month's worth of cheese in the fridge, and that amount of meat and frozen berries in the freezer, but those require refrigeration. Here's some of the shelf-stable paleo/SCD/GAPS food we store (not all may work for you, and some are pricey!)

  • Canned fish & other canned meat
  • Lorrissa's Meat Sticks (these don't have anything funky in them--just meat and some herbs. We found them at our local grocery outlet store for really cheap and bought all of them. Now we buy them for an arm and leg at Amazon because it's one of the few foods my husband can easily eat)
  • Moon Cheese These are just baked, dried cheese. They're a snack he can eat. They also cost way too much when we can't find them at Grocery Outlet (we buy all of them when we find them at Grocery Outlet)
  • Dried fruit, like raisins. We also dry our own peaches and apples. This probably won't work for you, though
  • Canned fruit (probably won't work for you, and are pricey. We could can our own, but life has not afforded me that time)
  • Canned cooked beans (This likely won't work for you, but my husband can eat them in limited quantities. Soaking and preparing my own beans would be better, but I never manage to do that)
  • Dried medicinal tea ingredients (mint, Oregon grape root, quercetin, turmeric, ginger, green tea, yarrow). We don't want to run out of these when he needs them. I try to dry as many as I can from our own property.
  • Nuts (he can only eat a few, but it's a nice supplement/snack)


And third is that when we have canned meats on hand, those tend to get eaten quickly, especially if my back is acting up, because it's easier to open a can than to cook. So I need to think about how to do this.



I'm currently of the mindset that this is the sort of thing I'm preparing for. It's like a minor disaster. We need to be prepared for the times we can't cook (because life is too busy or our health is too bad). My kids just eat gluten-free & organic, so I try to keep some organic, gluten-free frozen pizzas and burritos and mac & cheese on hand for those when there isn't time to cook. And, because those (A) Cost more, and (B) Aren't as healthy, I make myself cook dinner whenever I am able. I save those "convivence foods" for our "minor disasters." My husband's meat sticks and Moon Cheese fit into these categories as well. Most of the time, I try to cook steak or eggs or ground beef or some other meat for him. But, it's hard to do that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner--especially since we both work. So, I have to be okay with spending a bit more to have food he can just eat without cooking or refrigeration.

I guess what I'm saying is, if your finances can afford it, don't stress about eating easy, canned food when life is hard. You need to eat to stay healthy and care for you and your kid(s). Part of the prepping is cooking dinner when you're able, so you can eat the canned food when you aren't able to cook.
3 days ago

R Grier wrote:
I have also taught my daughter how to make flower chains, which she has taken to the next level. They love gathering organic teas with me. I was thinking about teaching them about Mordants and natural dyes, I found a stand of fragrant sumac and there are numerous dye plants around us. I was going to use white twine.



Dyes stick best to animal fibers (like wool and silk). If you have any white wool yarn, you'll probably have a more successful dye than with white twine. If the wool is "natural white" rather than bleached, it will work even better (bleached wool seems to be more resistant to dying).

In terms of what dyes well, this seems to be the generally understood order of best-to-worst for dying:

- Silk
- Wool
- Plant fibers like cotton, hemp, nettle, jute
- Synthetic fibers

A mordant will also help the dyes stick better, too. If you can get your hands on alum (like is used for pickling), that will work well and is generally regarded as safe. You could also do the dying in an aluminum, copper, or iron pot, which will give a slight amount of mordanting. The copper will making things more teal, the iron more brown/greenish color.
4 days ago
I've found that one good way to get my kids to do a craft--rather than just me doing it--is to have them learn it while part of a group. These sorts of projects work well in playgroups or homeschool co-ops. The added benefit to this is that the work you spend on preparing supplies, etc, helps more than just your own kids. It always feels a bit disappointing to spend an hour preparing for an activity that the kids might do for 15 minutes. But, if you have a group of kids, it doesn't take that much more prepwork, and it feels more worthwhile because a lot of kids learn. And, your own kids get to have fun doing stuff with their friends.
4 days ago

R Grier wrote:You said "tallow flakes" but then acted as if they were soap? Was it straight tallow or tallow soap? I have tallow. And I have plants with sopapians (ot what that word is) and I have wood ash, and roses, mint, rose water. I was trying to find how to transform the tallow into soap. Do I need to start by leeching the wood ashes? Or is there a way without lyme?



Oh, sorry! I made this post in a hurry because someone had asked about the soap balls. I'm sorry if I didn't explain things well! I used these tallow soap flakes that I bought off of Amazon. They're just soap that's made from tallow. You could use Castile soap (which is made from olive oil) I have not made my own soap before--working with lye always seemed a little scary to me. I believe the first step is to leach the lye from the soap. Sally Pointer has a great video on leaching lye:



She also continued her tutorial to talk about making soap:



Once again, I've never made soap (just soap balls made with purchased soap), so I don't have much advice to give!

Maybe make a new post about making soap? You might also find more information in these threads about soap making: How to make soap without lye, soap making, Grease Cutting Lard Soap.

I hope that helps!
4 days ago

Pete Podurgiel wrote:Awesome find! ....looks like Jabba the Hutt.



Ha! I posted without seeing your post. Great minds think alike...or at least both see Jabba the Hutt!
3 weeks ago
I just added nettles to the list! Being a wild food, I hadn't really thought about it as a crop. But, I've been tending my wild patch for years, and now have enough to eat a meal or three each week during the season of nettles. They're so yummy! (They're a fun source of fiber for spinning, too!)
1 month ago
This is frankly one of my favorite topics--and there's some awesome threads on it, too.

Staple Crops

How Many Of Each Plant To Grow As A Percentage Of Total Calories

The Annual Staple Crop Calculator

Practical 1-Acre Staple Foods

Human Energy Spent Versus Kilocalories Harvested.....

Ideas about Growing All Your Own Food

Most productive perennial vegetables?

Staples

Perennial Sources of Starch and Protein

I thought it might be fun to have an apple poll...which also ends up being a spiffy way to list all of the different staple crops mentioned by people over various threads, so that those crops can be seen in one spot. I tried to organize them a little, but our apple poll program makes it really difficult to rearrange things. If you have more crops you'd like added, post below! There's no closing date on this poll, so hopefully we'll be able to adding to it for years to come

[applepoll]

1 month ago
I went and reminisced on my old thread, and noticed that, after just one year, my comfrey was already taller than my 2.5 year old!

1 month ago