Change of pace.

No gardening updates as of now. I had to go get blood work done bright and early and then came home to hungry wee ones looking for breakfast. I haven't even had a chance to look at the gardens yet. I will be out there later because I have grass to cut. Thankfully, it's really nice out today. Dare I say cool?

I have been reading some archives lately of the Frau. She is a smart cookie. She is talking about things that my husband has been trying to beat into my head for the last couple of years...but until now, I didn't get it. Our way of living is near crisis. Oil is going to be harder harder to come by. It's insane to think about everything that this will include. Not only the obvious, gas, but pretty much everything that we have as convenience now. Our ways of life are going to have to change. There are a lot of people out there that are smart and have figured this out and started preparing for the future. What can I say? I'm a little slow.

It's hard for me to think that bad things are going to happen. I'm an optimist. I always figure it can't happen to me because as of now nothing has happened to me. I will admit that I'm a pretty spoiled person who is a terrible consumer. I like things. I have always liked things. I love gadgets. I don't know what I would do without my Ipod or my camera or the kid's nintendos for that matter. But, you know what? These things aren't going to even work if we don't get something figured out here pretty soon. We need to start looking for renewable resources. And make them affordable for the every day Joe (or Bee). Tim and I have often talked about building our own house and having it be completely powered by solar or wind energy, but we both know that the expense in that makes it near impossible. Things like this should be made so that everyone can take advantage of this and wean us away from our need for oil.

So what does this mean for me? for my family? Things are going to change around our house. We are going to stop being such consumers. We are going to learn how to do more things on our own. We are going to start preparing for the near future. This means we are going to start stocking up on things that we feel we will need to survive if something major were to happen. I have learned so much in the last week or so from others who are already making their preparations and I'm going to follow in their footsteps. I'm going to have to realize that I can't have every new little gadget that comes out. Back to basics. That is what we are going to do.

Things that we want to be storing:
flour, sugar, yeast, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cocoa, cinnamon, marsala powder, garlic powder, powdered milk, tuna fish, peanut butter, beans, rice, oatmeal, honey, maple syrup, water, cooking oil, batteries, TP, tampons, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo...

This is what we have come up with so far. I am also going to learn how to can and preserve this year. I *think* that I will be getting this in the very near future from a certain husband as a certain gift...nudge nudge wink wink. We are already learning all we can from Nancy on the gardening front and it appears we might have a knack for growing things, although really how hard is it? The sun and plant pretty much do all the work. We just keep the weeds out and the bugs off.

Oh, and I guess I do have something gardening to talk about. Tim and I looked up last night to see if we could grow rice. Apparently you can grow it in 5 gallon buckets. I feel another experiment in the future. I need to figure out how to grow chick peas as well. I think you just sprout them and instead of eating the sprouts, you plant them. We love us some chickpeas.

This should be interesting. It's going to be a major lifestyle change for me. It's one that Tim has been hoping I would figure out for a while. I could become cranky. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I'll be back later to post some pictures from the garden. Have to go make some more bread (AGAIN) and cut some grass.

Have a great day!