Remember a couple of weeks ago in the discussion about homesteading - whether you considered yourself a homesteader or not? I posted that I didn't really consider myself a homesteader because I was too "spoiled" and compared to the life my grandmother had I was definitely soft?

Well, in the last two weeks I have built garden beds, (still not planted yet, but ready for it as soon as this sprinkling rain lets up!) we are building a new chicken coop out of RECYCLED materials -largely some of those fencing materials I mentioned in the "frugal fencing" post (imagine my surprise to pick up the latest copy of Countryside and find an article on recycled outbuildings - I got a good laugh out of that one!), and I now have two baby chicks living in a 35 gallon aquarium in my LIVING ROOM!

I think I'm a homesteader this month!

-- Christine in OK (cljford@mmcable.com), April 12, 2002

Answers

Just kinda sneaks up on a person .. does it not? Keep up the good work! You are a homesteader..

-- Sher in Ia (riverdobbers@webtv.net), April 12, 2002.

You go girl!!! Ha, Ha... Congratulations!!

-- Melissa in SE Ohio (me@home.net), April 12, 2002.

Christine, your on the road in the right direction but there is an ritual of passage: 1. You must treat two goat kids for skin problems in your bath tub. 2. You must cancell a beauty shop appointment with your sisters wedding being tomorrow so that you can help your neighbors cow give birth. 3. You must dispatch a snake while holding a child less than 2 years of age. These must be done before 11 am. on a Thursday prior to a holiday weekend with two witnesses and a barnyard animal present. A neighbors amourous Basset hound present adds two piont for over all scoring!!!!!!!

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), April 13, 2002.

Hey Mitch, how about these - 1) I don't have any goats, but I have called three vets trying to find out if there is ANY WAY to keep chickens who have eaten diazinon granules from dying, and how long you have to wait to eat the eggs from the ones who survived (there's nothing you can do if they've eaten enough of them, by the way) - as far as the bathtub part, I have a dalmation bathed in it (somewhat) regularly who sheds more than a balding male! 2) What's a beauty shop? (I did have my hair permed last month, the first time it had even been touched in a year) 3) That's what shotguns are for! (and dalmations!)

-- Christine in OK (cljford@mmcable.com), April 13, 2002.