Simple Savings

I have made a couple simple changes in the house to save energy and money and I thought I would share with you. First, I have been installing energy saving compact fluorescent light bulbs. These use a lot less energy to put out the same amount of light and they put out less heat. They save an average of $35 over their lifetime which is 5 years. So far I am using 14 in our house. They do cost a little more than conventional bulbs. By my calculations of savings minus the extra cost over the life of the bulb I am saving approximately $500 over the life of the bulbs I'm using now and I have only switched about half of the bulbs in our house. These also use 60% less energy which cuts emissions and helps with the whole global warming thing (for those of you who believe in global warming and for those of you who don't, you are wrong, just kidding).



The other recent change I made was to install a digital programmable thermostat to replace the manual one. With these you know the exact temperature and don't have to guess based on where the little metal piece is on the temperature gauge. They are programmable so you can set the temp to change at certain times of the day. For instance, currently we have ours set to get warmer during the day when we are not home and then start cooling off around 4pm so when we get home it is cooler. You can even make it control the weekends differently because you are home and there is an override button so you can change it at any time if you want it cooler or warmer. They are pretty amazing. Anyway, they save on average $100-$150 a year which also means you are cutting your energy usage.



Whether you think global warming is real or not, these two simple things save you money and cut energy use which means I am using less electricity which is made using fossil fuels which pollutes. Just imagine if everyone made these simple changes. Here is a good website to help you reduce energy usage and save money. http://www.energystar.gov

Live and Learn

For those of you who keep up with us and our blog, we bought a used Toyota Corolla a while back to use as a back and forth to work car. The plan was to sell my truck and use that money to pay for the car and buy a bigger, older truck to use as a farm truck. Well, it's been a month and a half and I have not sold my truck which sucks. I really thought it would sell. I used all of our savings plus some to buy the car until we sold the truck. But, since my truck is not going to sell and I can't keep both, I have decided to sell the Corolla. I should have sold my truck first and then bought a car, that would have been the wise thing to do but you live and learn. So, if any of you know someone that needs a good car send them my way. It is a 2000 Toyota Corolla. 50,000 miles, automatic, power windows, power locks, cruise control, 35-38mpg. It is in perfect condition.

Veggies

We are now getting corn from our garden. It is so sweet, it is like eating candy. Maybe I should call it candy corn.



We are also continuing to get lots of tomatoes. Yesterday, I picked my most impressive tomato I have ever grown before. It is ginormous. It is an orange colored heirloom tomato and it weighed in at just under 1.5 pounds. It is a sight to behold. We may have to eat like a watermelon.

Here it is next to my driver's license for reference.

Saucy

Tonight we canned spaghetti sauce and salsa. We finally had got enough tomatoes from our garden (and we got a few from Margo's parents) to make a batch. The onions, peppers, and some of the herbs came from our garden. We had to buy garlic at the farmers market because I didn't get any planted in my garden this year. I thought I would share the canning process and recipe with you for the spaghetti sauce we make.

10 pounds tomatoes
3 onions, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon each of basil, oregano, and italian seasoning
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
bottled lemon juice

Prepare pint canning jars and lids according to manufacturer recommendation

Wash tomatoes. Boil whole for 1 minute and immediately place in ice water. Remove peel, core and seeds. Blend in food processor to desired consistency (chunky or not). Place in large pot. Saute onions and garlic in olive oil in skillet, add to blended tomatoes. Add rest of seasonings to pot. Simmer uncovered until desired thickness (approx 30 or so minutes)(you can also add a tablespoon of cornstarch to help thicken) stirring often. Place 1 tablespoon bottle lemon juice into each pint jar. Ladle hot sauce into jars leaving 1/4 inch head space. Place lid on jar and screw on lid ring until tight. Process 35 minutes in a boiling-water canner.
Makes about 4 pints.

The tomatoes in ice after boiling, this process makes the skins come off easy


Tomatoes after peeling, coring, and seeds removed, before blending


Blended tomatoes and spices simmering


Jars of sauce boiling in water canner


Finished product

Cabrito

I finally did it. I killed one of our goats and butchered it. I did one of the little ones (the brown one) that were born a couple months ago. I have had goat several times before but I have never butchered one myself or done a young one. It is supposed to be the best if you eat them when they are young because the meat is more tender and tastes better. I am planning on barbecuing some of it as early as this weekend. I had to have my neighbor Mark come over and help me skin and butcher it. I have not skinned enough stuff to know what I am doing. He was really good at it and very helpful. I shot it in the head and it died instantly and never saw it coming so it wasn't a cruel death for all of you that have a concerned look on your face right now. Let me know if any of you want to come try it out when I cook it up. Here is a link to the pictures of us butchering it for any of you who want to see it. Just be warned, they are very graphic. Click here to see pictures. Please don't share with any people involved with PETA. I found a place online that sells cabrito and they charge $291 for a whole kid goat butchered. By the way, goat meat is the most eaten meat in the world so all of you should come try it so you can experience what the rest of the world eats.

Pickled Pickles

The garden has still been producing good so far, we have been getting lots of rain which has helped a lot. We have started getting tomatoes and okra this past week which is exciting. I am getting a plethora of cucumbers. We get about a wal-mart bag full every other day. I decided to make pickles with some of them. I have never made them before so I hope they turn out good. I have made 18 jars so far. Probably this week I will start canning spaghetti sauce and salsa.

5 Years

Holy Crap. We have been married for 5 years today. It seems like a long time looking back at all we have done and been through in the past five years. God has blessed us so much over the years. I wouldn't trade all our time together for anything and I can't wait to see what the future holds for us (children?). Thanks to all of you who have been a part of our lives and helped us along the way.
Below is a picture slideshow of us over the past five years starting with when we were dating to this year (I put them in order the best I could remember). Just click the play button on the picture below or double click it to view them bigger and in it's own window.

I LOVE MARGO.

Harvest Time

Not a lot of excitement at the Hale Farm. I have mostly been clearing brush, which doesn't make for exciting blog posts. However, the garden has been producing pretty well for it's first year, so I thought I would post pictures of some of the veggies we have been getting. We finally got our first tomatoes (roma) a couple of days ago and the corn should be ready before to long.

Sugar Snap Peas


Green Beans



Squash and Zucchini


Cucumbers


Tomatoes

Top 10 Movies

Last night on tv, in case any of you missed it, the American Film Institute did their top 100 movies of all time. They ask tons of critics, producers, actors, and executives and compile a list of the top 100 American movies. This was their 10th anniversary addition so the list changed a little from when they did it 10 years ago. It was very interesting. There were a bunch of movies I had not seen, so I now plan on trying to watch them sometime. Anyway, I can't say that I completely agreed with their list, but unfortunately they did not ask the all-knowing Farmer Hale. In honor of the show last night I decided to post my top 10 favorite movies, this is not what I think are the top 10 movies overall but just my top 10 favorite. Feel free to add a comment with your top 10 listed. I would be interested to know all of my friends top movies, you can learn a lot about someone from knowing their favorite movies. By the way, it is very hard to narrow down to just your top 10.

10. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

9. Forrest Gump

8. Last of the Mohicans

7. Dumb and Dumber

6. Star Wars Trilogy

5. O Brother Where Art Though

4. Braveheart

3. Good Will Hunting

2. Shawshank Redemption

1. Lord of the Rings trilogy

A few of the movies that just barely missed the list but need to be mentioned: The Graduate, Love Actually, Signs, Rocky, Babe, Billy Elliot, Big Fish, Dances with Wolves...there are so many.

Garden Update

Just so Brandy will stop bugging me I thought I would put up some updated pictures of the garden. As discussed in an earlier post, I am trying a new kind of gardening - no-till raised beds. I wasn't planning on planting much this year because I really needed to work on improving the soil but I thought what the heck and planted some stuff. I only used about half of the beds. I was a little worried at first because it did not seem like things were growing well but it has finally started to shape up. I can't wait until next year when I have the whole garden planted and the soil in good shape. As of right now, I think I am definitely going to stick with the new type of gardening.

Cucumbers- I am growing them on a piece of wire fencing


Tomatoes-They aren't doing so well, lots of plant but not much fruit.


Squash and Zucchini-we ate our first squash tonight


Sugar Snap Peas-also ate our first peas tonight


Green Beans


Corn


The whole garden

Rocky Top

I finished another big project. The past few weeks I have been building a rock wall in front of the house. It is one of the major parts of my landscaping plan. The wall isn't very tall but it is pretty long, it goes across in front of the house. I also built some steps leading up from the shop to the house. All of the rocks came from our property, Margo and I hauled them all out in the truck. It turned out pretty good, I just hope it doesn't fall down anytime soon. Now I need to get plants and mulch to put in the big flower bed area between the wall and the house because I took out all the other crappy landscaping that was there.

Here's before the rock wall and before taking out the old landscaping


After taking out the old landscaping and before rock wall


Finished




The steps


*side note- the video of the day on the right is really good, I highly recommend checking it out. If you double click it, it will make it bigger

New Addition

As discussed in the previous post, we are trading around cars and selling my truck to get a new (used) car and a farm truck. Well, yesterday we went ahead and bought a car. Our goal was to buy a small used car that gets good gas mileage to drive around and put miles on. I found a doozy yesterday in Bella Vista, this one would even make Steve Schulte proud (for those of you who know him). It is a 2000 Toyota Corolla. It was an old lady's whose husband died and she is selling some of their stuff. It was as clean as a whistle, gets 38mpg, had all the service records in the glove box, and it even had carpet squares on the floor mats so she didn't get the floor mats dirty. But here's the kicker, it only has 47,000 miles. I think we got a good deal and hopefully it will last us a long time. Now we just need to sell my truck.

For Sale

That's right, you could own your very own piece of memorabilia from the Farm of Hale. I am selling my truck. My plan is to sell it and use the money to buy a small used car (Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla) that gets good gas mileage to drive to and from work and take on trips, and to buy a older larger truck to use as a farm truck that will be able to do more. So, if any of you know someone looking to buy a truck like mine send them my way or if you know someone trying to sell one of those cars let me know. My truck is a really good truck and is in great shape.
Here is a description of my truck:
2002 Nissan Frontier XE, V6, 4x4, extended cab, 83,000 miles, auto, tow package, bed liner, running boards/bars, cruise control, CD, sun visors on hood and door windows, new tires put on last year with 30,000 mile warranty left on tires, belts changed in February of this year,
all for only $12,000

Interesting Quote

Here is a quote by John Piper that was on a friend's blog that I found very thought inducing.

"The critical question for our generation—and for every generation-is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?"

Biggest Surprise Ever

We had a huge surprise this morning. We were leaving for work and Spot (the cat) was laying against the screen door and wouldn't move out of the way. When we finally made it out the door laying there with spot was a newborn kitten. We had no idea she was even pregnant. She has always been a little plump in the belly area but she didn't look or feel any different that past few weeks. Here is the crazy thing... she only had one kitten. Have any of you ever heard of a cat only having one kitten? We were so shocked. The kitten is really cute (in a ugly rat-like way), it is a calico like it's mother.





On a side note, for those of you who haven't noticed, I have added some features to my side bar. There is a current animal count, video of the day, recently watched movies and my rating of them out of 5 stars, and a picture slideshow.

We are official citizens of Redneckville

Not much going on this past week. We did have a lot of fun this past Thursday. Our church went to locomotion for a family fun night and we had unlimited passes for 2 hours. As many of you know, I love to race so I rode go carts most of that 2 hours. It was a blast but I was very sore the next day. The other thing a lot of us did, that Margo and I had never done before, was ride a mechanical bull. I never thought I'd see the day but it was actually really fun to see everyone get thrown off. All I need now is a cowboy hat and boots to start wearing around. If you ever do see me start wearing those, please beat me up.






Here is our group that went.

They're Here

They are both males so when they get older I will sell them. Congratulations to Myrna at work for winning the office pool. For all of my non-work friends, we had a pool going on when the goat would have her babies. Everyone put in a dollar and picked a date. Myrna guessed right and wins $12.

Daily Bread

Our friend Brandy has started weight watchers to try to lose weight. To try to keep herself accountable she has been posting on her blog what she has been eating each day and how many points she uses. I find it very interesting to see what someone else eats during a day. I decided that just for fun I would post what I ate yesterday. I am not sure how the points work so I will just make up points according to how good the food was, the higher the points (up to 500) the better the food. I think all you fellow friend bloggers should post what you eat for a day also, just for fun.
Monday May 21
Breakfast
Sweet Tea -1 cup: 300 points
Orange Juice- bottle: 200 points
Bagel with Butter: 350 points
Lunch- at the VA cafeteria
Tea- large cup: 150 points
Pork loin- 250 points
Black-eyed peas- 250 points
Mashed potatoes and gravy-200 points
Supper- Margo is out of town so I had to cook for myself
4-5 chicken strips: 200 points
Hash Browns-large helping:350 points
2 sister shubert dinner rolls:450 points
Large glass sweet tea:300 points
Late Night Snack
2 hard boiled eggs: 250 points
2 handfuls of teddy grahams: 300 points
large glass milk: 500 points

Total Points 4500

New Home

We have a new home!!!! Now don't get all excited and get your panties in a wad. We still have the same home, we just made it look like new today. Today was the day of treating the outside of the house. For all of you who don't know we live in a log home and every 2-5 years you have to treat the logs if you want to keep them looking good and to last longer. If there is anyone reading this that wants to try to find the least possible fun thing to do on a Saturday, I highly recommend treating a log home. Here is a rundown of what we had to do: powerwash the whole house to get the dirt and mildew off, apply two coats of exterior wood toner/stain. The stain stuff is supposed to repel water, mildew and UV light which are all bad things for the logs. I applied the stuff with a sprayer and back-brushed it with a push broom. We finished the whole house today and part of the deck and it took about 7 hours. So, that leaves the rest of the deck and the shop to be completed hopefully tomorrow. The difference between before and after truly is amazing. I want to give a shout out to Cathy B. at work for letting me borrow her power washer.

Here are some pics.

This is before washing, the black is mildew stuff.


This is me applying the stain, the backpack held the sprayer.


Left is after applying stain and right is before. Amazing difference.


Here it is finished.

Oh Mother

I hope all of you remembered Mother's Day on Sunday, if you didn't go call your mom right now. For our grand celebration we had both sets of parents, my brother and nephew, and Margo's brother and his wife and kids at our house. We fished a little and then grilled and ate supper. Overall, it was a pretty good time. I just thought I would share some pics with all of you. Click here or the link on the side to see more pics of the evening.

This is Margo's family, the picture turned out really good I thought.

Beef, it's what's for dinner

Raise your hand if you like beef. Seriously, raise it and wave it around like you just don't care. I know I sure do. Today we got another addition (temporary addition) to the farm. We got a calf. Margo's dad hooked us up with a Holstein steer from one of his dairy farmers. It is still pretty young. We are going to get it big and then get it butchered and eat him. The beef we raise will be so much better quality then what you can get at the store. Anyway, we are getting closer and closer to the old mcdonald farm. We probably won't get any more new kinds of animal until next summer though. I hope you can all come see the new addition soon. We are trying to decide on a name so any suggestions would be welcome. A couple we have thought of so far are Jody and Carl.

Snakes on a Farm

Well, summer is here. You know what that means. Besides me wearing a speedo. The snakes are out. I don't want this to deter any of you from coming to visit us, but I have killed 3 snakes so far. I guess that is what happens when you live in the country. The good thing is that none of them were poisonous. I have killed a black snake, a spreading adder otherwise known as a hognose, and a milksnake. I killed the milksnake today but I got a pic before I did.

Very Interesting

Here is a quote from a interesting story Martha posted on her blog that I thought I would share (click on the quote to read the full story. "Last year, spending in Iraq amounted to less than 1 percent of the total economy — about as much as Americans spent shopping online and less than half what they spent at Wal-Mart" It gives a little perspective. I find this interesting on two fronts. First, it is interesting for all the people who complain about the money we are spending on the war. Second it is crazy how much money we have compared to the rest of the world. I wonder how much good we could do for the less fortunate if we would quit spending so much money on stuff we don't need.

Anyone got any Pitocin?

One of our goats is about to burst like a huge pimple on a teenagers head. She is pregnant and we thought she should have had her babies a week or two ago but she still hasn't. She is huge. Here is a great pic to give you an idea. It is pretty impressive actually, usually a goat is about as wide as its legs are apart.

We're Growing

We went to the Centerton Livestock Auction last night. We took three of our goats to sell. We made good money off of them but I spent more than I made. I bought some ducks and 4 goats. I am very happy with the goats. I bought 2 older nannies, 1 real young nanny and 1 young billy. I did not intend to buy the billy, I bid on it thinking it was a nanny and after I was the winning bidder I found out it was a billy. It's okay though because I decided to just keep it and use him as my billy for this year since I got rid of the other billy. The two older goats are heinz 57 brush goats and the two younger ones are boer cross. The funniest thing we saw at the auction was a mexican guy bought a turkey and to transport it home he put it in the trunk of his Honda Accord, it was awesome. I highly recommend checking out the Centerton Livestock Auction the next time any of you get a chance. Here are some pics.

Here is the goats I sold in the goat carrier I made.


The Ducks


The two older nanny goats


The young nanny and young billy (the close ones)