This morning was beautiful and now it is dark and grey and WINDY! We went from 55* yesterday and tonight the wind chill is supposed to be single digits!!! The cows are fed and the firewood is near the stove. They are even talking snow.
I said more on the battery acid tanned hides, it worked great. I wanted to make sure it was gonna work before I endorsed it. We used a recipe from Mother Earth News http://www.motherearthnews.com/modern-homesteading/how-to-tan-a-hide.aspx and it worked great. We used 1 recipe to tan 1 big, 2 med and 1 small hide and the last hide we did, didn't turn out. I would only do 3 next time. The hide turned out white and soft. I need to oil it again but it looks way better than I thought it would for our first attempt! I have more bran flakes ordered from our natural foods coop (clnf.org) and will be doing the coon and possum hides when it comes in. We learned that fleshing the hide doesn't need to to be perfect before you salt it because when it dries out you can just peal the meaty-jerky looking layer off and the hide is ready to go in the brine solution. If you are brave enough to think about tanning your own hides you can do this. It isn't any more scary than making your own soap.
The finished hides are going to be wall hangings and a quiver for each boy. I think that the small hide is thin enough to use my sewing machine. I guess we will see...
Even though we are homeschoolers, I have actually never taken this crew to the library. I told them their treat for 5 good days of school in a row is a trip to the public library. Today was day 5. Tomorrow we head to the Tonkawa library to see what they have. I am a little scared by this idea. Taking this crew to the grocery store is sometimes more than mom can handle! I hope we are the only ones in there and that the librarian is understanding!! Wyatt and Dillin are just SO excited about the possibilities of all the different books that I don't know if I can contain them :) I am hoping that Dillin can find something that he WANTS to read. That might be incentive to work on his reading skills. Jess is kinda in the same boat. He really wants to read but wants to find something the others haven't read before.
My stupid dishwasher finally made me mad enough today that I called Sears back AGAIN. They sent someone out this afternoon and he has decided to order a new control panel and a new motor assembly. Pretty much rebuilding my dishwasher! Thank you Lord for that blessing!! I am so glad that I have the extended warranty and that I was annoyed enough to call again. The squeaky wheel gets the grease!
Still no poultry from scrap metal man but my chickens have started laying again. Thanks to the wheat from our neighbor we are back up to almost 50% on eggs-up from NO eggs.
I am going to go read this crazy crew a story and try to calm them down. The thought of snow has this house in an uproar:) Good night everyone!
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