Homesteading?

    Why am I even thinking about the possibility of having a little more self survival and "living off the land" in my life when I have been freaking out about being pregnant, having morning sickness, and working to boot, you ask?  My multi-faceted answer is that A) I believe I will enjoy the challenge of it and I am a firm believer that you should put as much work into playing as you put into working.  Having spent the last five weeks or so flat on my back watching mind numbing amounts of documentaries, movies, and tv shows found on netflix I am confident I will never want to rest again once I feel better!  B) I raised rabbits when I was little and found it very satisfying.  C)  I look forward to feeling smug when my canned soup and rabbit farm sustains me and my warrior ninja family and comforts my hungry cousins and aunts and uncles after "The Big One" finally hits Los Angeles and we are thrown into utter chaos.  ...and it never hurts to be prepared, right?  Last but not least even if we never actually NEED my canned soups and rabbit skin blankets...oh yes, I plan on skinning, curing, and sewing blankets with my rabbit furs left over after I butcher them for my canned rabbit stew...I will feel like I hold valuable experience that will up my skill level and desirability to be a valued member of a team should we experience any sort of end times survival scenario or the zombie apocalypse.

     Now, a great deal of my inspiration comes from my older sister, The Country Contessa,  who is living the life I thought I would have when I was little.  While my Mother pulled me and my other siblings to work hard on our acre so that it would look like no weed ever thought of growing the now Country Contessa stayed in the house listening to music, baking, and cleaning.  The reason for this was two fold.  1)  She was good at cleaning and my mother was more than happy to leave it to her and 2) She did not like to be dirty...more on this later. From my perspective my mother believed that our one acre in the country should be so well maintained that anyone who came to visit never even thought of the possibility that a weed would dare show its face or that a bush have any wayward branch stretching farther than the others on the bush.  The result was a beautiful yard that visitors accepted without acknowledging the extraordinary effort of "Mother's Helpers", as she called us, the hours of weeding, hula hoeing, raking, trimming, mowing, planting, watering, etc.  To give credit our mother was right there besides us, pushing us to give everything we had, teaching us to sing joyfully while we worked, instilling in us the luxury of a coveted rest under the shade of an orange tree, and trying unsuccessfully to keep me from shaking the dirt from my weeds onto my sisters and throwing worms at them to hear them squeal.

     I spent my days playing at being an Indian or Cowboy, complete with staining my face and clothes with "dye" from green walnuts and pomegranates I had mushed by hand with rocks.  I stole tools from my dad's shed to take into the acres of overgrown Christmas Trees behind our house so that I could build strategically placed and camouflaged forts.  I endeavored to light fires by rubbing sticks together and trap wild animals I never saw but believed wholeheartedly surrounded me everywhere.  In truth there were only feral cats and the occasional coyotes but I spent years laying in wait for the foxes, wild rabbits, and whatever else might enter my traps.  I built a rabbit cage from chicken wire and pieces of old rotten lumber I found laying around after my mother refused my request to get rabbits.  I figured even if she had said no having a cage would be one step closer to a yes.  I suffered innumerable scratches and blisters on my youthful hands from sawing, hammering, working with wire, and ultimately building professional grade rabbit cages with j-clips, wire cutters, and appropriate wire for rabbit cages as my dad took an uncharacteristic and treasured interest in my stubborn project teaching me how to build cages.  After I had three cages built my mother relented on the rabbit issue.  I ended up with seven cages, including my crooked yet functional first attempt, and up to 13 rabbits at a time.  In addition to this I gutted the old wooden shed on our property, directing my younger siblings, tore up a floor board to reveal the dirt beneath in order to provide a living space for the chickens we would have for years to come.  All of this before the age of 13.  Meanwhile my dear Country Contessa was cooking, baking, cleaning, looking mature and lovely, cutting out pictures of Mel Gibson and placing them under her mattress, and day dreaming of the man she would one day marry.

     This all being the case, how is it then that I live in an apartment with my wonderful warrior ninja, in a suburb of Los Angeles, expecting a child and working while she has a beautiful house in the kern county, with a chicken coop, slaughtering her own chickens for dinner, cats, a producing garden, and plans for a rabbitry in the near future for breeding meat rabbits, while raising and homeschooling six children!  She already has a plan on how to slaughter, skin, and breed them.  All information which I had have been gathering since I was 11 she gets to practice.  I still cannot believe that my older clean and tidy sister assisted in the slaughter of a chicken.  At any rate she is the reason that I am now pursuing the idea of being a bit more self-sustaining even though I live in the city.  I have always loved that sort of thing and although I may not be able to have a chicken coop I believe I can have a functioning rabbitry in the city and canning is also something I could do.

     SO!  Welcome to my adventure of pregnancy, motherhood, homemaker, working woman, self-sustainer!  Yea...I might be in over my head...

   This may be the first recipe I try with rabbit meat!  Taken from the Homestead and Homekeeping blog listed in the right column.  Thanks Kat!

Creamy Rabbit and Rice
1 rabbit cut into pieces
1 cup sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 package of onion soup mix
Salt and pepper to taste. Place salt and peppered rabbit pieces in crockpot. Then mix the other ingredients in a bowl and dump on top of the rabbit making sure that all of the rabbit is covered. Cook on low for about 6 hours or on high for about 3 1/2 to 4 hours. When the rabbit is tender it is done. I served this over brown rice with a side of asparagus and sliced tomatoes. I also served with garlic bread. Super yummy and oh so easy.

Here are some of the websites I have been looking at for ideas in canning and rabbitry:

Right now I am going to focus on canning soup as I like soup and the process seems a little more simple than making jelly.  Also don't particularly care for foods with vinegar.
http://pickyourown.org/canningsoups.htm

I like this video as it shows some nice nesting drop boxes and a variety of different cage set ups.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufBWrSdlwTM&feature=related

Having looked at a lot of different sites and ideas on how to tan hides this seems like the most simple route to go as well as being able to accomplish without any electricity at all.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Modern-Homesteading/1983-01-01/How-To-Tan-Rabbit-Hides.aspx

My Life as a Platypus

  I feel awful.  I gag as I write this, between sentences, words, letters.  I type as I can.  I thank God that I am not vomiting. I wonder 'if I did would that make me feel better?'.  I am starting my ninth week of pregnancy...or eleventh depending on how you look at it some people tell me.  All I know is that nine weeks ago a new life was brought into being.  About five weeks ago I found out.  I want to say that I am thrilled beyond words for this new life, for my first child.  And I think I was...now, to be honest, it is hard to understand how women do this multiple times.  I do not have the experience of having a child before to bolster me through.  I am sure it is absolutely worth it!  I AM so excited to have a toddler someday...please give me the toddler.  Or an infant...give me an infant, I will rejoice!  But this process of "growing your own" leaves me feeling exhausted, sad, constantly nauseous.  My warrior ninja husband is so excited but he has a sad look in his face when he looks at me.  I can't stand the way he smells...shoot, I can't stand the way anyone smells.  Everything makes me gag.  I feel like a platypus.

  I am a Platypus.  I am part duck, part beaver, a mammal that lays eggs.  No one else in my family is a platypus.  I have no platypus history to look at and ask "How did you juggle all the demands of being a platypus?"  "When you were a platypus and pregnant what did you do?"  No.  My family, my history, my frame of reference did not prepare me for my undertaking of being a platypus wife.  Let me explain lest I leave you in confusion.  Let me start with my background, culture, and faith.

  I am a Roman Catholic, true to all the teachings of Rome.  I grew up in a blessed Catholic home with six sisters, two brothers, a stay at home mom and employed dad.  My mother bravely took on the task of educating us.  I first stepped foot in a "real" classroom when I started taking community college classes at 16 to supplement my home-school high school classes.  I guess you could say I hit the ground running and didn't stop until I got my Masters in Occupational Therapy in May of 2011.  My adventures occurred throughout the years but ultimately my formal education was completed there.  Growing up I was surrounded by big happy Christian and Christian Catholic families that home-schooled their children, for the most part, but all of which had mothers that were stay at home moms (SAHM).  Sure, all these families made financial decisions to sacrifice in some way so this was possible...but it WAS possible.  And now here I am.  Catholic, married, expecting our first child, and working because it is necessary.

  I am in no way against working but as this pregnancy has progressed I have come to a deeper realization of why for most of history women did not work.  I am amazed by the devotion and love of mothers who go through this pregnancy sickness time and time again.  I wish I could be them.  I wish I could curl up on my sofa and try to ease my stomach slowly with crackers, water, small sips of soda.  I wish I could be miserable at home.  Instead I get up each morning and throw up (like so many of SAHMs...but then I dress, try to make it look like I brushed my hair, forgo the makeup (as I am sure they are also doing) and drive to work at a skilled nursing facility (some people still call it convalescent hospital) to rehabilitate the elderly and breath in all the smells that comes with it.  At least I get to wear scrubs.  I just don't understand.  I don't understand how other moms do this.  It is SO HARD.  I tear up just thinking about going back to work after the weekend.  I am uncomfortable and nauseous at home but at least I am not gagging in front of the whole world.  At least I am not having to excuse myself from a patient as my super sensitive nose picks up every smell associated with the act of living to discreetly gag.  I have taken to hiding in unused rooms to lay on the bed around lunch and I can actually fall asleep I am that exhausted!

  I know this sounds like an awful diatribe...but really I am confused.  How do working women DEAL with this?  I've never had an example of this...I feel alone, sad, angry.  How many times in a day are people going to ask me how I feel??  The SAME PEOPLE!  I want to scream at them...I FEEL AWFUL!  I FELT AWFUL WHEN YOU ASKED ME AN HOUR AGO!  YOU CAN OBVIOUSLY TELL I FEEL AWFUL SO WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING ME!?!?!?!?!!?  Instead I tell them what I did an hour ago with a weak smile "Okay!" "Fine.".  Or all the trite sayings..."It will all be worth it."  yes...thank you...

  I am a Catholic.  I HOPE and BELIEVE (if those can go together) that when I am puking my guts out on an already empty stomach, my stomach feels likes it being punched, and only stomach acid is coating my throat, that in those moments when I say "This is for my husband, for the holiness of my unborn child" it is gaining extraordinary merit.  Because on the one hand I believe it should and on the other hand I am so unhappy with the situation I can't see how God can accept my pathetic cry for graces for my family.  I realize am not the best at smiling joyfully through suffering, but I am trying really hard to still be loving to my husband, to NOT say all the sharp things I want to say to well meaning condolers,  I am TRYING to still find ways of making my warrior ninja smile like I used to do so often before I felt sick all the time.  It is very discouraging.  Very draining.  Very sad.

  Hello little life inside me.  I don't want you to feel like I am angry at you.  I don't want you to feel that I am sad that I am expecting you.  I LOVE YOU.  I WILL LOVE YOU.  Mama's just going through a hard time right now.  I want you to be a child of joy and laughter.  I pray specifically for these things and that God will pour his Holy Spirit down upon you even now and FILL YOU with the gifts of the Holy Spirit!  I pray that He will give you Wisdom and a Compassionate Heart!  I pray good things for you my baby.  I put my hand on my abdomen and imagine you in there.  Try and make it feel REAL.  I smile at you.  Your daddy puts his hand there and smiles at you.  Its hard to imagine you but deep down I do KNOW that this is all worth it!  I can't wait to see what you look like, who you are.  I am sorry this is so hard.  You are growing so fast it must be exhausting to you too.  The tears I cry are not because of you but rather for you.  I offer them as a sacrifice of praise.  I PRAISE you JESUS for this life within me,  I offer my pregnancy sickness as a SACRIFICE, a self-giving for this life you have created within me.  This LIFE which is a testimony to you!  This LIFE which IS A SONG OF PRAISE by its very existence.  This is hard my love, my Jesus, it feel unending and lonely.  I praise you in the storm!  I bless your holy name!  Help me.  Help me continue to sacrifice with a steadfast and willing heart.  Blessed be your name when I am found in the desert place, when I'm suffering - blessed be Your Name!

I am a platypus.  I am not just one thing.  I am more than what other mom's I admire are.  Not more as in better, I just have an extra role that does not seem to combine with motherhood.  I want to be a good mother.  I want to be available for my baby.  I have no idea what the future holds and this is a time of uncertainty.  Jesus, YOU led me on the path I have taken.  YOU told me you had ALL THE MONEY in the world!  Provide for our family.  Let your perfect will be done and my will conformed to it.