When it comes to reducing our carbon footprint, I find that the ideas and systems that get the most attention are always the big, expensive ones. They are always about electric cars, solar panels, wind turbines and other big ticket items which most of us can’t afford. Often the necessary work of changing how much energy we use gets lost in endless circles of ‘meta’ type discussions and nothing ever really gets done. There isn’t a lot of interesting information out there about what individuals and families can do in their real lives to reduce their personal footprints. Well intentioned people often have little to no idea about how or what they can do on a daily basis to conserve resources other than using compact fluorescent light bulbs and recycling plastic but there is so much more to do than that.

My family and I have been particularly focused on reducing our footprint, conserving resources, and living more simply for the past five years or so. Gradually we have implemented one simplifying and natural system after another with considerable success. Several months ago, my wife came across an incredible way to cook food that uses 20% - 80% less energy, increases nutrition of the food, saves time, space, money, resources, and electricity plus it lets you come home at the end of a long day to warm, well cooked food you don’t have to do anything to but serve. This way of cooking is called retained heat cooking, fireless cooking or cooking with a cook box or hay box. We use it practically every day now and it has made our lives a lot easier.

Scientifically speaking, “cooking” food is not really what most of us think it is. “Cooking” isn’t necessarily boiling or simmering food on your stove top, for instance, because technically food is being cooked whenever it is at 180° or higher. No matter what method you use to keep your food at a minimum of 180°, that food is cooking. You can accomplish this conventionally by setting your pot on a hot burner and continuously forcing heat up from the bottom of the pot over a long period of time until that food is completed cooked OR you can recognize that stove top type cooking is really done best as a two step process. In step one, you create a low insulation set-up in which you add heat to the pot and its contents until they are over 180°. In step two, you transform your set-up into a high insulation arrangement whereby that built up heat is retained in the pot so that it can proceed to cook the food gently and evenly with no additional energy input until that food is completely cooked. All the energy required for complete cooking has already been provided. You are just retaining it within the pot until it has done its work rather than allowing it to dissipate into the surrounding air. In other words, put ingredients in a pot, bring them to a boil, boil for 15 minutes or so, take the pot off the stove and then insulate it in a simple cook box or basket until the cooking cycle is completed. Depending upon what you are cooking, in anywhere from a half hour to several hours later, you can take a pot of piping hot, perfectly cooked food out of your cook box and serve it up just as it is.

My wife has just completed a 50 page e-book about this process entitled Retained Heat Cooking … The Wave of the Future Again: Discover how easy it is to make and use your own off-the-grid cook box to cook uncommonly good food of all kinds. It includes detailed instructions on how to assemble your own retained heat cook box as well as sections on the history behind this method of food preparation as well as the scientific principles behind how it works. She not only includes recipes and other cooking instructions but also a section on the importance of retained heat cooking in developing countries which are so often characterized by deforestation, shortages of potable water and grinding poverty. My family strongly believes that the resources we over-consume here has everything to do with the lack of enough resources elsewhere. So we feel happily compelled to use retained heat cooking regularly in our home as well as any other measures we can manage to reduce our load on the earth’s resources.

Putting together your own cook box can be as simple or as involved a project as you want it to be. Design specifications and ideas are in the e-book. You can make your own from boxes, baskets, drawers, or coolers and insulate with anything from hay, cardboard, or blankets to rice hulls or Styrofoam. Cook boxes are very simple to put together and can be made to fit your kitchen, your wallet and your design sense. You can probably get up and put one together right now from items lying around your house and use it to make a meal right away. That is what my wife did and we are still using that instant cook box she put together months ago. If you have a laundry basket or a similar sized box, an old comforter or sleeping bag or blankets, a few old towels and a trivet then you can can get started right now at reducing your energy bill.

While you are reducing your carbon footprint with retained heat cooking, you will be reducing your energy costs as well. Cook box cooking saves 20% - 80% of your energy costs over stove top cooking, with the most savings coming from long cooking foods like grains, beans and meats. The food in a cook box is cooked slowly over a longer period of time which is actually the most beneficial way to cook many foods. Cooking at a lower temperature preserves nutrients, releases flavor, and increases digestibility. We have learned through personal experience that food cooked by the retained heat method comes out perfectly every time with each ingredient done just right.

The only real adjustment that most people will have to make to use a cook box is to plan meals in advance and start cooking them ahead of time. In the instantaneous microwave world that we now live in, this may appear to be difficult but it really isn’t. Besides it is a small adjustment to make so you that you can help to reduce your contribution to global warming, overconsumption of water and other negative environmental damage. Any little changes many of us make can add up to big changes that can reverse our current disastrous course. All of us pitching in with such small changes is basically mandatory at this point. We are going to have to make adjustments. Making the adjustment to retained heat cooking is easy because it costs nothing to implement and makes the food taste better anyway.

In terms of our 50 page e-book, Retained Heat Cooking … the Wave of the Future Again, it is available at our Bamboo Grove Press website for $5.95. My wife is an incredible researcher and a great cook. Her e-book has all of the information you need about how and why retained heat cooking is the best available method for cooking most of your food. My wife has also released a shorter 10 page e-book about solar cooking entitled On Your Way Towards Solar Cooking:The Why’s and Wherefore’s of Solar Cooking in Brief priced at $1.99. In this book you get a brief overview of solar cooking along with over 50 links to all the information you need about solar cooking, buying a commercial cooker or building your own, solar cookbooks and more.

Please forward this post and links to these e-books to anyone you know who might be interested in cooking with a cook box, improving the taste and nutrition of their food, and reducing their carbon footprint with virtually no start-up investment. It will improve their lives and help the earth tremendously.

Below are two videos we made about our experiences with fuel efficient, retained heat cook box cooking. I hope you enjoy.

All the best,
Paul

Bamboo Grove Press is the publishing arm of Pockets of the Future and today we are releasing our first in a potentially nearly endless series of e-books on a wide range of subjects related to natural living, homesteading, herbalism, homeschooling, old paths/new ways of thinking, innovative building techniques, frugality, preparedness from the inside out and the outside in and so on. I am so excited to have our first two e-books ready for you that as I share this, I am trying to type and jump up and down at the same time!

Our first e-book is:

Retained Heat Cooking … the Wave of the Future Again

by Leslie Romano

Discover how easy it is to make and use your own off-the-grid cook box to cook uncommonly good food of all kinds. This is a frugal, time honored method of cooking that saves time, space, money, resources, nutrition and electricity. Includes sections on the history and science of retained heat cooking, how to make and use your own cook box, tips and suggestions based upon personal experience, recipes, related homeschooling ideas and ten incredible advantages to cooking highly nutritious, perfectly cooked food with this natural, easy to implement retained heat cooking method. Only book of its kind on the market. 50 pages. $6.99

Our second e-book is:

On Your Way Towards Solar Cooking: The Why’s and Wherefore’s of Solar Cooking in Brief
Plus Over 50 Links to Solar Cooking Information, Reviews, Directions for Building Your Own, Places to Buy Commercial, and Cookbooks From Which to Make It All Happen

by Leslie Romano

Once you discover the significant benefits of cooking in ways other than on an industrially made stove in an electrified kitchen, you just can’t stop! Here on the farm, we have become so enamored with retained heat cooking that we are eager to learn more ways to cook alternatively. Solar cooking will be our next endeavor. Become more prepared and more self-sufficient through solar cooking. This e-book will get you started with a brief overview of the why’s and wherefore’s of solar cooking as well as over 50 links to all the resources you need to make solar cooking an effective way to save energy and cook nutritious food for you and your family. 10 pages. $2.50

More titles in the works:
We have several more e-books already in the works on a special herbal tea you can forage yourself that provides surprising benefits, easy to make herbal personal care powders, and the wonderful benefits of raising rare breed livestock on your family farm or homestead. And those are just the titles we have already started writing.

If there are subjects you would like to see addressed by us in e-book format, please leave a comment and let us know or contact us personally.

This is so fun! Come join us. There is much to learn and share.

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie

A week ago Saturday, I was in the kitchen considering what kind of dinner I could make with the ingredients I had on hand while simultaneously ruminating over fellow bloggers who were suddenly disappearing into the mysterious landscape that lies off the grid (see last post). Interestingly this combination thought process spontaneously resulted not only in my cooking up a new lentil soup recipe but also in venturing into cooking it very efficiently in our living room!

One of my favorite cookbooks of the last six months or so is Eating Off the Grid, Storing and Cooking Foods Without Electricity. (You can get this cookbook on Amazon via the link below but I frankly found it more cheaply at USA Emergency Supply.) It has a very useful array of simple recipes across twelve categories together with interesting historical information, menu plans, nutritional information and other practical information for off grid living with regards to food.

Anyway, I decided to try one of her lentil soups I hadn’t tried before AND to try cooking it in a way she mentions which I haven’t done before. Both were great successes. I will first give the very simple cooking explanation for cooking in an insulated box followed by the recipe.

COOKING INDOORS USING AN INSULATED BOX
(Please view the video linked at the bottom of the post for visuals for all of this.)
I have used this method with great results now with soup, beans and grain. In a heavy bottomed pot with a tight fitting lid, start cooking your dish in the usual manner. Bring it to a boil, put on the cover and cook at a fairly high boil for about 15 minutes. I adjust the heat here depending upon what I am cooking and how big the pot is.

In the living room (and this is simply because it was the only nearby spot I could find that wouldn’t be in the way), I set up a laundry basket. In the laundry basket is an unzipped twin size sleeping bag with the center of the sleeping bag squashed down into the laundry basket. Inside that I put a travel blanket that used to be in the car. Inside that is an old bath sheet (you know those giant bath towels?). At the bottom of all of this I put a flat, stable hot plate.

After the lentil soup boiled for 15 minutes, I carried the pot into the living room and set it into its insulated box. I wrapped the towel around it and then the blanket under it. I then wrapped another heavy cotton blanket around it all from the top and tucked that it all around but inside of the sleeping bag. Then I wrapped the sleeping bag up all around the whole thing. The sleeping bag is nylon so I was careful to have only cotton blankets and towels actually touching the pot. Nylon would melt.

About three hours later my husband unwrapped the pot for me and brought it into the kitchen. It was still so hot that steam was coming out of it and the lentil soup inside was perfectly cooked. And when I say perfectly cooked, I really mean perfectly cooked. This particular recipe has flour in it which could otherwise have easily burned but didn’t at all from being cooked this way. The lentils were soft but still held their shape and yet everything else was tender. It was kind of amazing to me.

The soup cooked up so beautifully (and it was such a balm to my soul to cook something mostly off the grid…) that I have since cooked up a big Dutch Oven full of fava beans and right now have a pot of barley cooking away in there. I can’t say this arrangement adds much to the decor of the living room at this point but it surely feels great to only use about 15 minutes worth of electricity to cook meals that usually cook on the stove top for hours.

Meanwhile, this particular lentil soup recipe turns out to be a nice addition to my repertoire of lentil soups. It is a bit different and a keeper.

NEW YEAR’S EVE LENTIL SOUP
Author Denise Hansen, MS, RD explains that it is a Greek and Italian tradition to eat lentils on New Year’s Eve to “assure prosperity and good fortune.” I figure we can use that any time of year!

This is my adjusted version which does not include soy bacon bits or beef bouillon. I also made it a bit thicker and tripled the recipe. I doubt many readers will want a recipe quite that size so I will try to scale it back a little. You are welcome to scale it back further or freeze the extra from this for another day.

1 large chopped onion
3 carrots
about a cup’s worth of frozen greens or the equivalent in fresh greens (the recipe suggests Swiss chard including diced stalks - I used mustard greens because that is what I had on hand)
oil for sauteing
1.5 cups flour
7 quarts water
2 or 3 potatoes, diced
3 cups lentils rinsed (and soaked if possible!)
5 tsp. salt
4 bay leaves
2 tsp. thyme
about 1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

1. In a heavy bottomed stockpot, saute onion, greens and carrots in oil until soft.
2. Add the flour, stirring constantly to make a roux. Unbleached flour works best (she says notes this although I used Golden 86 for this kind of thing all the time).
3. Slowly add the water, stirring constantly. Then add the remaining ingredients.
4. Simmer for 2 - 3 hours. (Alternatively put boiling hot pot put into your insulated box and tuck it in for three hours or so.) The flavor improves with longer simmering. Just before serving, remove the bay leaves and add freshly ground pepper.

This soup is thick and saucy. It also makes great leftovers. We ate this soup for a couple of days plus over a week later we are still enthusiastically using our insulated box for long cooking. Try it - it is extremely easy and is just plain common sense once you start to think about it. Besides, if you happen to have a large family and just a regular smallish stove like I do, it frees up a burner. We are so taken with this recipe that I have added it to my menu plan and we are so taken with this form of cooking that we made a video about it to inspire you. Enjoy both!

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie

We have been hand washing all of our laundry for about six weeks now and it is going pretty well. We are still fine tuning how we do things but we do have enough of an effective system going to share what we have learned so far.

Equipment: For our wash tubs, we are using two large Rubbermaid bins. We use these simply because we already had them. Having used them all this time, however, I can say that we are looking forward to getting some real wash tubs some day - preferably ones on legs. Anyway, we use the two large Rubbermaid storage bins for washing and scrubbing (which my husband set up on cinder blocks for me to help spare my back) and we use two 5 gallon paint/food storage plastic pails with bale handles for the two rinses. You can get these at hardware stores. We find them to be a perfect size and the handle is really helpful for hauling the water away to dump on select garden locations.

For agitating the wash and rinse water, we are very happy using the Rapid Washer from Lehman’s. It works much, much better than a regular hardware store plunger as it moves much more water with each plunge and it fits perfectly into the 5 gallon pails. You occasionally need to use a mallet to pound the handle back down into the metal head of the plunger.

For scrubbing, we are using a glass washboard also purchased from Lehman’s. They note that the glass washboards last the longest and that they are by far their best seller so I went for one of those. I have always been “stain removal” challenged. I don’t like using chemicals and I have never found anything that really works all that well at removing stains anyway so I just sort of gave up ages ago. Using a bar of soap, water, a washboard and elbow grease, however, is like magic. Honestly! So many stains just disappear before your very eyes. I have read others comment upon the fact that items they would have otherwise thrown away were saved through the ministrations of a washboard and a few minutes of vigorous effort. The washboard at the bottom left of the photo is the one we use. (I might mention here that brass washboards are used primarily as musical instruments, in case you were wondering.)

Wringing as much water as possible out of each item shortens drying time dramatically. I read many comments here and there on the web about women wrecking their hands and wrists from years of wringing out clothes. Well, one of my wrists is already wrecked so official equipment was called for. I bought this wringer which Lehman’s sells but got it here instead for about $70 less. Apparently these wringers are used at car washes so you can find them for sale through various businesses other than just Amish ones.

I am still using (infinitesimally) small quantities at a time of Charlie’s soap for washing. I use so little at a time now that I think my remaining supply will last for another six months at least. However, when the bottom of the container is finally in sight, I will start making my own laundry soap. As for the bar soap to use for removing stains, I still don’t have a good bar I like yet. I will grab a bar of Dr. Bronner’s or something the next chance I get. Someday I intend to make my own laundry bar soap. Someday…

Method: To fill the bins and pails in our outdoor laundry room, my husband rigged up a hose that goes from the utility sink in the basement through a hole in a window screen and out to the outdoor laundry room. I am very grateful to be able to wash everything with warm water that I am neither heating myself nor hauling. It is not always easy running up and down the basement steps to turn the water on and off in a timely fashion but, hey, the children perform that task admirably. So our method is as follows:

1. Fill one bin about a third of the way (too full and we get soaked when plunging). Fill the other bin just six inches deep or so and place the washboard at one end and the bar of soap at the other. Fill the 5 gallon pails about halfway. Put maybe a 1/4 tsp. of Charlie’s soap in and swish it around so that it is well mixed.

2. Sort the laundry to be washed by color, heaviness and dirtiness. Put the cleanest, lightest clothes into the wash water first. Plunge a bit and let soak a little if there is time. Then plunge vigorously for two to three minutes. I have read that you should agitate the clothes and water for 10 minutes, but I just don’t strength enough in me to do that frankly. If any item is stained, toss it into the washboard bin.

3. Squeeze the clothes out and toss into the first rinse pail. Agitate enthusiastically for 25 plunges or so. Squeeze out thoroughly and toss into second rinse pail and repeat. Wring out and toss into a basket of clothes waiting to go through the wringer. Rinsing at least twice is a big deal and the key to success to ending up with sparkling clean laundry. Sometimes we have to rinse certain items more times than twice. We always try to find a balance between clean rinse water, water conservation and reasonable time investment.

4. Work through any clothes that have been tossed into the washboard bin. Rub a very small amount of soap onto any stains or dirty areas and rub vigorously on the washboard. Rinse and toss into first rinse pail. I want to emphasize the hint to not use too much bar soap for this exercise. Rinsing out excess soap is trying and wasteful.

5. Put all items through the wringer. It helps to wring things out in some kind of order so that you can keep the wringer at the same setting. You want it as tight as you can get it for thin things like dish towels and shirts and so on. But you loosen it to wring out things like thick bath towels or jeans or jackets. I have learned to put many items through the wringer two or three times in a row to get them really quite dry. If you fold the item in half, it not only effectively increases the pressure and effectiveness of the wringer, it has the effect of pressing the item. We are now lining up three dish towels together at a time, folding them in half and putting them through the wringer all at once several times. They come out looking ironed and they dry on the line in a hurry. This is a good place in the whole laundry process to experiment to discover more effective methods Cheaper By the Dozen style.

6. Hang everything to dry and feel more satisfied from doing a load of wash than you ever thought possible.

7. Definitely include all family members in this weekly event. Children gain strength and precision. Husband’s feel good lending their broad shoulders. Bonding ensues. Teamwork issues are spotted and ironed out. And then everyone gets to feel incredibly satisfied surveying the family laundry tidily hung from the lines and gently flapping in the breeze.

8. Once the hand done, real soap-cleaned, individually wrung, sun-dried laundry is brought inside on a regular basis, you may notice two positive effects in your home. The first is that everyone will make darn sure that these heroically cleaned clothes are put away double time. The second is that family members may automatically start generating less laundry due to the subtle, natural process known variously as the awareness raising, consciousness expanding, gratitude generating affects of hard work.

To spend some leisurely time with us as we do our laundry together outside, sit back and watch the following videos. Oh, and on the fifth video my husband shares some great thoughts about the moderation that arises naturally from working within natural systems and resources. I really appreciate what he has to say there.

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie

I am getting a little ahead of my narrative about developments here at The Lionsgate School with this post. However, there was such a nice confluence the other day between our “work” and our “education” that I want to share it while it is still fresh.

We have now completed a little over a week’s worth of the Prepare and Pray! curriculum thread of our homeschooling and it was so much fun. I also found that for me it was a much easier week than I usually had following the Ambleside Online curriculum only because the skill building aspects and entire orientation of Prepare and Pray! blend in so seamlessly with the homesteading, preparation-oriented lives we are already living. I will write more about this important aspect in the future.

Among many other subjects and activities included in Prepare and Pray!, each chapter of features extra reading suggestions covering highlights of American history to study. Chapter 1 focuses on the Pilgrims, for instance. Our library system only carries one of the books the Bashear’s suggest for Chapter 1 reading so I just went to the 974’s on the library shelf and started pulling any Pilgrim books that looked at all appropriate. Of course, most of these are very familiar to me because I do this every November anyway. One nice book I have read the children for several years is The Pilgrims of Plimoth written and illustrated by Marcia Sewall. One thing I especially appreciate about this book is that it details the lives of the “Menfolk,” “Womenfolk,” and “Children and Youngfolk” in separate, interesting sections. The art work is also very engaging and this year one of the paintings in it was a special treat for us to see with fresh eyes.

Readers of our web site and blog and, especially viewers of Paul’s many videos on the subject (see #5 POTF YouTube channel button on the right sidebar to see videos), know that we have an outdoor wood fired earth oven that looks quite like this! Why, we even have a paddle that looks just like the one the little boy in the foreground is holding made by my very own enterprising husband! We don’t have the roof over it yet but Paul has two of the poles up for it so far. I ran to show him this page when we came across it in our reading. It was somehow quite meaningful to identify with the Pilgrims and their lives on such a personal level.

As it turned out, we fired up our oven just a day or two later. We were preparing to take Will down to Mabry Mill for another blacksmithing tutorial. We were going to have to leave pretty early in the morning so we had to organize well the previous day. Anna made her usual corn bread so that it would be ready next morning, only she baked it in the earth oven for the first time. When it dawned on me how her doing this this went along with our studies, I raced inside, got the camera and got back out in just time to get one picture of her taking her incredibly fragrant corn bread out of the oven.

Meanwhile I had been inside making stuffed loaves for the lunch we would have out at Mabry Mill. This is just my regular whole wheat bread recipe (which already comes out anything but regular when baked in the earth oven) with a stuffing rolled up in the middle. Paul made a savory stuffing of finely chopped and cooked spinach, parsley, garlic, onion and black olives together with feta cheese and quite a bit of shredded mozzarella cheese. Faith helped me shape these loaves and claimed ownership of one of them. She patted it and shaped it and put it in the pan. She carefully covered it with a special towel and watched over it tenderly while it rose. She carried it herself from the kitchen out to the earth oven, hung around while it baked and then proudly took it out of the oven by herself and turned it out to cool.

Both the corn bread and the stuffed bread were tasty and sustaining the next day and now both girls are a little more prepared to bake “off the grid” as well as personally relate to other people full of fire and conviction from times gone past. This is just one of many confluences now between our studies and our lives for which I am most grateful.

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie

A few weeks ago, Will came to me in the morning and told me about a dream he had in which he was pounding metal out into different shapes. That sounded sort of like blacksmithing to me so the next time we went to the library, I got him every book on blacksmithing they had. They actually had one juvenile book and a couple of adult books. I checked out all of them and he started reading them avidly. I read one of them too so that I would know some of what he was suddenly talking about non-stop.

Shortly thereafter, we stopped in at Mabry Mill on our late way back from seeing about some Great Pyrenees puppies. We didn’t know if any of the crafts people would be there demonstrating that day or not or if they were but had already closed up for the day. As we all walked up the path towards the cabins, however, I heard the ringing ‘ping,’ ‘ping,’ ‘ping’ of a hammer striking an anvil. I turned to Will and said, “RUN!” He ran. We ran after him. We poured into the blacksmith shop and immediately took up all available spectator positions in order to watch every move the smithy made. The smithy was working on fireplace tools that afternoon. He explained things to us as he worked and Will was beside himself with excitement. I indicated to this gentleman smithy that Will was intensely interested in this skill and (I had hoped for this but didn’t know if it would happen for a boy as young as Will) he invited Will into the work area with him. He set Will to some tasks, quietly explained things to him, showed him some tools and then gave him an iron hook as a parting gift. Oh, and this gentleman smithy was also named Will. How about that!

I talked with “Will the Blacksmith” about where one might learn blacksmithing skills and he gave me some ideas. The next morning, I brought young Will to the computer and opened a Blacksmithing bookmark folder for him. Starting with the suggestions we had been given, we discovered many wonderful sites and schools across the country. It was exhilerating for Will to look through all of these resources. It was fun for me too because a lot of the blacksmithing work going on these days is extraordinarily artistic and beautiful.

So Will went back to reading his blacksmithing books and we made plans to head back to Mabry Mill for another tutorial. We arrived at the end of last week. The Will’s reacquainted themselves with each other and got right down to work. Stupidly, stupidly, I forgot the camera. Young Will had goggles and leather gloves on and he looked mighty fine and productive in the smithy making an eye hook. His brother and sisters were squirming with delight watching him work in there so everyone had fun.

We received the sorry news that the season closes at the end of October so Will only has two more chances to go work there. We are scheduling all of that now. Meanwhile Will the Blacksmith mailed great blacksmithing information to young Will which made our son inordinately happy. A large envelope arrived addressed thusly:

When Will read the words “Resident Blacksmith,” the expression of quiet happiness and manly pride that crossed his face was dear indeed. Inside was a letter from Will the Blacksmith in which he expresses admiration for young Will’s interest in blacksmithing and a willingness to work with him before the season ends. He extended his hand in friendship which, to me, is the finest thing the older generation can do for the younger generation. Everyone benefits when elders guide and young ones listen.

Also included in the packet were web site addresses and catalogs. I will include those addresses here for any readers who may also be interested in the very important and historic skill of blacksmithing.

Suppliers:
Ozark School of Blacksmithing Tools Store
Kayne and Son

Blacksmith Workshops
John C. Campbell Folk School

Organizations
ABANA - Artist Blacksmith’s Association of North America

Books
A Blacksmith’s Craft: The Legacy of Francis Whitaker available from Kayne and Son

I will also add here that our local Jacksonville Center for the Arts offers blacksmithing classes. They are over for this year but we will see if there is a way to get Will into one next year. Also young Will’s current favorite book on blacksmithing is the original edition of Charles McRaven’s The Blacksmith’s Craft: A Primer of Tools and Methods. (See link at bottom of post.) Will narrates to me daily from this book. We also discovered during our internet travels that Mr. McRaven lives and works not too far away from here and teaches workshops. Look at his interesting web site here.

Well, that is it for now. We will post more photos and videos as Will’s passion for blacksmithing develops.

Isn’t it interesting how a real passion for something brings resources to your door? As applied to education, children can naturally mold their individual education to their own needs, skills and potential if their passion is allowed expression. We parents/teachers need only cooperate and be giving and excited! That invariably turns into a “win” for everybody.

Thank you, Mr. Will Foster, gentleman blacksmith.

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie

Astonishingly, I find that I am now washing all of the family’s laundry by hand! There is a story about how I got to this place and there is a still unfolding story about how I am learning to develop the strength to make hand washing laundry a permanent part of the family routine. I will get to both of those stories in future posts. For now I will just share one very telling small event.

When I started to experience how rigorous hand washing laundry for a homesteading family of eight could be - especially for me who is not as physically strong as I used to be - my husband and I agreed that we needed to invest in some serious equipment designed for hand washing laundry. Among other items, I picked up a bar of laundry soap and sent for a washboard from Lehman’s. I chose the glass version because they note that it is by far their best seller and lasts the longest.

I had done several loads of wash in the week or so before the washboard arrived. As I recall, it arrived the very moment I finished washing and hanging a rather large load. Oh well. I just used it the next time and, boy, was I amazed. I am telling you, using a bar of laundry soap and a washboard is like magic. Dirt just disappears! Incredible. So I knocked myself out with my hand dandy new washboard scrubbing my husband’s work clothes and then hung them out to dry. They didn’t finish drying outside that day so I had to bring some of them in to hang on our wooden rack in the basement overnight.

The next morning, I happened to be in another section of the basement when my husband came down to find himself a dry pair of socks. I don’t think he even knew I was down there. A moment passed as he looked around on the drying rack. Then I heard him suddenly exclaim, “Wow, are these my socks???”

‘Nuff said.

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie

The magazine Progressive Farmer started coming to our house several months ago. I have absolutely no idea why and I am not sure how “progressive” it really is. However, I read a great tip in there that I use all the time now for handling our family cow.

In skimming through one issue a while back, there was a short article about how to handle cows so that they don’t get too upset and lose weight from being handled. OK, these articles are obviously aimed at large cow operations and we have just the two cows but still there was an interesting bit. The author said that the cow’s shoulder is her balance point. I think that is what it was called. I can’t remember exactly and I can’t find it on the magazine’s web site. Luckily this works without knowing abstract things like names!

If you want your cow to move forward but she is placidly standing there with no intention of moving, walk calmly straight towards her. Walk past her head and then past her shoulder and like magic, she will start moving forward! Isn’t that fabulous? I wish I could remember all the details and the why’s and wherefore’s but that is the action anyway. And it works every time. You can’t force your wonderful family cow and you can’t quite reason with her but you can work with her and this is a wonderful tool to have in your tool chest for working with her. It is soft and subtle and part of the natural design for whatever reason.

Here is the one article I did find in Progressive Farmer about cow handling entitled 7 Steps to Gentler Cattle. Again I think this is more for larger operations but there are some good principles here. Using your voice effectively cannot be underestimated, for instance.

Well, boy howdy, I just Googled “balance point cows” and found several wonderful links. Check out Understanding Flight Zone and Point of Balance. What a marvelous education there is here and there are even videos linked at the bottom of the page. I am going to take some time to study all of this carefully.

Learning these subtle natural laws is such a gift and brings harmony to relationships and actions here on the homestead. Enjoy learning about the point of balance in your family cow and make your interactions easier and the bond between you deeper (as in ‘greater understanding creates deeper love’). Then you can start figuring out where the point of balance is in your children and everything will move along smoothly both inside and out!!

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie

There is just no proceeding with a thorough Charlotte Mason education without a working printer ever at the ready, right? You never know when you will need to print a revised schedule, some copywork or a newly discovered out of print book that will add the perfect touch to your geography studies. You could stock those phenomenally expensive ink cartridges in your office supply closet but there is a better way.

For several years I ran into comments by people who re-filled their own ink cartridges for their printers. It was one of those things that sounded like a good idea but I would have to think about and research and figure out if it really were an effective strategy. And how hard is it to fill one of those cartridges anyway? Would this really work? There are always hurdles to trying something new, no matter how practical.

Then I ran across Encore Ink. It is owned by a homeschooling family with seven children 9 and under. The mom’s family blog is even linked to their business site. The familiarity of another homeschooling family was enough for me to believe that refilling ink cartridges must be a good thing so I took the plunge. I am really glad that I did. I find that having bottles of ink on hand is as great for my peace of mind as is having bins full of grains and beans waiting for me in the basement. And just as with grains and beans, buying ink in bulk is a great money saver.

Their site is easy to navigate. You find the make and model of your printer and choose the ink that is specially made for your printer. If you can’t figure all of that out, you can email them and they will figure it out for you. And it turns out that filling the cartridges is very easy. Mom’s do much more complicated things in a day than fill ink cartridges, I can tell you. And their customer service is wonderful. I ran into a problem with not having the directions I needed for doing colored ink refills and they emailed them to me immediately.

Knowing that I will always have enough ink on hand to print out whatever project I am working on whether it be homeschooling related or drafts of books we are writing or homesteading research we need to study closely is really good. Taking just one more little step towards self sufficiency and frugality is just great.

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie