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Here is an excellent article written by Marilyn Moll and a link to testimonials following:

I received the following letter of inquiry about baking and grain storage:

Dear Marilyn,

“Looking at the prices for the grains, I don’t think it would be cheaper to buy and grind your own flour, so I’m wondering what the benefit would be. How would you store that much grain without bugs or vermin or mold getting into it? It seems like a fabulous idea, but how do I do it?” Connie G.

Here is my response:

Dear Connie:

Thanks for writing and asking great questions! Let me answer your questions one by one.

First of all, I do believe that when you compare homemade whole grain bread to commercial equivalents you will not only have significant cost savings but you will have the satisfaction of filling your home with a fragrant aroma and beautiful, nutritious loaves of bread that can not be compared easily to commercial bread.

Whole grain bread offers significant nutritional benefits because it contains at least 26 naturally occurring vitamins and minerals along with good quality fiber and wheat germ oil missing from commercial breads. The grain refining process removes the bran, and the wheat germ oil and most of the nutritional value. White refined flour has four B-vitamins left in it which are not in the original proportions. That’s It!

Consuming white flour product is like being robbed. Your body needs nutrient dense foods and refined flour baked goods are devoid of health enhancing nutrition.

Your body needs nutrient dense foods for good health. The term “nutrient dense” refers to foods that naturally contain a high spectrum of vitamins, and minerals. Spending our family’s precious grocery dollars on items that are largely manufactured and processed from inferior ingredients is associated with a number of common degenerative diseases, such as hemorrhoids, constipation, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and allergies which are associated with low fiber diets along with the consumption of refined and processed foods.

Economics of Home baked bread

Recently, I calculated the cost of making Marilyn’s Famous Whole Wheat Bread. My cost came in at just over a dollar even at the higher cost of grain. There is probably less than 25 cents worth of grain in each commercial loaf of bread. Today, a 1 1/2 pound loaf of whole grain costs at least $4.00.

By using your own quality ingredients you will be able to make superior tasting bread for a lower cost because you will be eliminating the cost of the plastic disposable packaging, the bakery’s overhead for producing the bread, the transportation costs to ship the bread from the bakery to the store, the bakery manager’s salary, costs of undesirable ingredients and other costs of purchasing ready-made breads.

Depending on the size of your family and how many loaves of bread your family consumes each week, you can calculate the annual savings. For example, in my family, we consume four loaves of sandwich bread a week. Commercial equivalent bread costs $4.50 in my area. Compare $18.00 a week with $5.00 a week! If you make cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, homemade pancakes, waffles, biscuits etc., you can quickly add up the savings over commercial flour.

Health Benefits

Several years back, a customer told me that she quit baking her homemade bread for a while, and that is when her son had an appendicitis attack. She believes it was related to returning to a white bread diet. The emergency surgery and hospital bills were covered by insurance, but their portion of the bill would have more than paid for a brand new mill and mixer.

The point I’m making is that when we take responsibility for our family’s health, medical bills can diminish dramatically. Another customer contacted me recently and reported that making nutritional changes in her family’s diet during a one year time period had cut their medical expenses in half that year compared to the previous year. This resulted in savings of over $1,000 for her family in medical and pharmacy bills. Our family has not needed to see a doctor for other than emergencies (a broken arm, a bike accident) or sports and camp physicals for many years.

Satisfaction

A mother who is busy at home cooking and baking from scratch for her family will enjoy the fruit of her labors not only financially and nutritionally but also in terms of better health. Her children will arise and call her blessed. Her husband will also. She will enjoy the intrinsic rewards of knowing that she has been a wise steward of her family’s resources and provided well for her family (Prov. 31).

Grain Storage

Whole grain can be stored for hundreds of years as long as it is stored cool and dry. The bran, or outer coating of grain, protects the each grain from deterioration until the bran is broken and ground into flour. Once flour is made, every particle of the flour is exposed to oxidation and nutritional deterioration.

I have always stored grain in six gallon plastic food grade pails or buckets in the coolest part of my house and never had any troubles with pests or mold. A cool place and a dry place are key. Storing whole grains is not only economically wise in uncertain times but nutritionally superior.

I also believe it is biblical to store grain as you recall the story of Joseph who was lead through dreams to store seven years worth of grain for a famine that lay ahead. I’m not predicting a famine, but I do believe in uncertain times grain and food storage is our protection against economic hardships.

More . . .

Don’t feed the goat alfalfa while milking. ~ The alfalfa ended up in the milk, so it wasn’t a good combination.

Don’t touch an electric fence, even with gloves on. ~ It hurts!

Duck tape doesn’t stick in freezing temps.

People will actually buy roosters. ~ This was a fruitful discovery.

Make sure the trailer hitch is locked, or you will lose the trailer. ~ A mistake that I was thankfully able to handle.

When babies are sick, don’t plan on getting anything else accomplished. ~ But I did enjoy the cuddle time.

A mattress is so much more fun than any of the hundreds of toys.

Farm kids learn about the birds and the bees way earlier than I would have liked.

Mommy’s and son’s have strong bonds, even in the goat world.

Avoiding gluten is extremely difficult to do.

I love the flexibility of homeschooling and the learning opportunities it affords, for kids and adults alike.

And friends are a priceless gift from God!

Does what we feed our children affect their school work, behavior, health, etc? Let me begin with my story.

4-5 years ago we started changing the way we were eating. Mostly myself due to some stomach problems, but soon my son and then the rest of the family. The real concern started when a doctor said two things, all in the same appointment, that made the gears in my head start turning. It was an appointment for my oldest daughter because of a sudden illness, but while there he looked at my 2 year old son and told me he could get me some ritalin for him. What?? Then, focusing back on my daughter, he finally had to break down and tell me that he thought she had the mumps. Again – What?? Didn’t she have vaccine for that? He explained that due to the large amounts of antibiotics she had been on over the course of her short life, they pretty much made the vaccines void. We late found out that she just had a weird reaction to strep throat, but I was really trying to process of this new information. What was the point of pumping her little body full of medications that were just counteracting each other? And why would I put my busy little boy on medication just to calm him down? This began the research . . .

I have learned many things since that day 7 years ago. And I won’t be able to cover them all here, but I did want to share with you how it impacted our lives. The first thing we cut out was white sugar. That stuff is awful!! I even did an experiment with it on my son. He was constantly hungry (still is) but it was getting out of control. I went one week and recorded everything he ate and included 0% any kind of refined sugar. I made everything from scratch using sucanat or honey. I was just trying to prove that the refined sugar causes increased appetite. By day 2 or 3 he stopped asking for food incessantly. He ate like the rest of us by the end of the week. It was amazing!

The next thing we eliminated was anything artificial. Granted, it took us a while to figure out what all those ingredients were, but we slowly took out all food colorings and flavorings. And of course, if you can’t pronounce it you probably don’t need to eat it. Wow the difference it made! We really only first noticed a difference in our son. He could think better and he was capable of standing still longer than 5 seconds. After a year or two I started to notice that my oldest daughter had mellowed a bit. And when we slip and have some junk, she becomes moody. Looking back, I have always been an emotional basket case. For at least 4 years I have been normal! I didn’t know what normal felt like! I gave birth to our fourth child in 2008 and was even tempered, felt great, gained little weight, lost it all and some after the baby, and didn’t have any emotional breakdowns! My husband considers me a whole new person. Yes, sometimes we slip. I was real strict at first because I wanted to protect my family, but the kids always felt like they were missing out on something. So we made exceptions, like birthday parties. You may have one of whatever is being served, but only one. The kids still like to treat themselves, but they understand what it does to them and most of the time make the decision to not eat it themselves.

Over the years we not only avoid artificial ingredients, but try to fill our bodies with the best quality. Whole foods are best. Eat as much raw as you can stand. Drink lots of water everyday. We use extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil instead of the standard version at Wal-Mart. I cook almost everything from scratch to avoid hidden ingredients and offer my family the freshest meals. Eat animal products void of hormones. Eat organic if you can afford it, but if you can’t make sure you wash it well. Just give your family the best you can with what you have. You will be glad you did!

Another area we have seen vast improvement in has been our health. My oldest daughter is deaf and a dwarf which created chronic ear infections. She lived on strong antibiotics and repeated ear surgeries. That day at the doc’s office ended all that for us. I refused to give her more antibiotics and was trusting God to heal her ears from each and every infection. We used all kinds of natural remedies and changed our diets. After about a year of no antibiotics, she decided she wanted a cochlear implant. She can have no fluid in her ears to be eligible for the surgery. So after months and months of telling me that she had a severe infection and needed surgery, they finally got to go in and place her 4th set of ear tubes. To their surprise, it was full of fluid, but it was not infected. She received the implant and went on with life. Seven months later she started to develop another ear infection in the ear with the implant, which meant she had to have it taken care of immediately. That was her last set of tubes and her last ear infection, 5 years ago.

My kids very rarely get sick. I truly believe it is because of our diet. Their bodies are better able to defend themselves because they are fed wholesome foods. As I am writing this, I have to admit that they are ALL sick right now. But that is actually what got me to thinking about this topic. I get that feeling, “What do I do?” because they aren’t sick very often and I forget what to do sometimes. I imagine that they would be much worse off than they are if they didn’t have strong, healthy bodies. It was obviously something contagious because they all have it. The baby is actually fairing the best. We use natural remedies like juice, essential oils, rest, and soup.

Like I said before, I can’t get into every detail here, but wanted to get your gears to turning. Think about it. If you put junk into your body, its gonna come out junk. If you put good stuff in your body, you can have healthier skin, less health problems, and a better mood. I resolved stomach cramps, moodiness, migraines, low blood sugar problems, and more just changing my diet. Try a new recipe this week – an all natural one! I’ve got some great recipes posted on the website and on my facebook page. Check them out and let me know what you think.

Pineapple Sage is really a beautiful addition.

My parents owned and worked a nursery and landscaping business and we were always getting in new plants. And every year my mom would order Venus Fly Traps. What a wonderful discovery for a kid! Now you can get them at wal-mart. They can be a little tricky to keep alive so follow the directions carefully. And if trapping flies is in your agenda, check out the Dragon Arum. And you won’t want to keep this one in the house! My mom bought one, one time. They are very intriguing, but very stinky!

One year we were given a bunch of discarded tomato plants. About half of these plants were Mr. Stripey’s. At that point I had never heard of this variety, but planted them anyway. Oh what a surprise! They were interesting looking and very tasteful! The only trick was knowing when they were ripe. They are not a dark red tomato, so we let the first ones stay on the vine too long.

I’ve never grown any, but I have sure enjoyed experimenting in the kitchen with different varieties of potatoes. You can get fingerling potatoes, blue potatoes, and the all red potato. 4th of July here we come!

And one of my more memorable plantings was a moon flower. My mother mailed me seeds from her plant and for a year we enjoyed the beautiful white flower that you had to get up early to catch. Another one of my mom’s gifts was a potato vine. It’s heart-shaped leaves are unique and lovely.

What have you grown that was different?

I already have my garden plotted out and as soon as I get a pretty day I will get out there and clean it up. You know, use a piece of machinery to tear up the ground! Of course I need to wait until its not frozen anymore.

Have you ever gotten into companion planting? I have tried it, but never gotten too into it just because of lack of time to research it. But I found this great website with lots of helps for companion planting. I do plan on adding some of this in this year.

Another great addition I am going to do this year is rabbit manure. I have a load of manure that I am gonna mix into my sandy soil. Thank you my bunny friends!

Another part of planning your garden is figuring out what you are going to plant. What do you eat throughout the year? How much do you need to plant? Can you can the excess produce? What will grow well in your area and what won’t? How much access do you have to water? How many people do you need to feed? Do you want to save your seeds for the next year? After you have answered all these questions, you can start shopping!

Here are my favorite seed catalogs:

Burpee Heirloom Varieties

Heirloom Seeds

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

Seed Savers

Please feel free to share your favorite shopping spots.

I would like to share a few tips I have, but look forward to your tips!

Outside toys stay in a rubbermaid tub outside. It has a lid so that keeps the rain/snow out. Just keep it out of the sun so it doesn’t get brittle. The real trick to this is reminding the kiddos to put their toys back in the tub! But this keeps them outside and not in my house, but they aren’t all over the yard.

We have lots of wind here, so trash can be a real problem in our yard. So I pay my son (or daughter) to go collect it. Sometimes they will use the wheelbarrow and think it’s great fun.

For homeschool, I found 3 plastic magazine racks at the dollor store. Since they are skinny, they fit perfect on the school table across the back. Each child has their own. This has been a great way to keep up with school papers that uses a space otherwise never used.

In the kids bathroom, I also found 3 cute plastic baskets for their individual stuff. They fit on the shelf above the toilet. This gives them each a place to store their personal soaps, deodorant, hair clips, etc.

I’m anticipating all your ideas!

Homemade Fish Sticks

2 c cooked rice

1 t chives (optional)

1 can drained tuna in water

2 eggs

2 T arrowroot powder (or cornstarch)

1 T beef boullion

1/2 c parmesan cheese

flour

Mix all ingredients together except for the cheese and flour. Sprinkle cheese over bottom of jelly roll pan or casserole dish. Press tuna mixture into pan. Chill. ( I have skipped the chill part when I was in a hurry, but the chilling helps hold the mixture together.)

Cut into strips and roll in flour. Pan fry in hot oil until crispy brown. Drain on paper towels.

You can freeze the cooked fish sticks and heat them in an oven for a quick meal. I made a triple batch one time and froze two meals worth so my hubby could feed the kids easily while I was out of town.

First thing you need to do is organize your freezer space. You can’t use it, if you can’t fit anything in there. If all you have is an above fridge freezer, don’t fear – you can make great use out of that space too! If you are blessed to have added freezer space in the form of a chest or upright, be thankful! I’m gonna focus mostly on the above fridge freezer since that is what most have. My freezer didn’t have any shelves in it for whatever reason, so I bought plastic shelves from Wal-Mart and placed a large one that was the same length as my freezer space. This gave me double room instantly! The next best thing you can do to conserve freezer space is the containers you use. I have never been a fan of buying matching square containers, but if that is in your budget or you already have some – enjoy! I actually use freezer bags. I fill them up, then lay them flat to freeze. They remain in a flat, stackable form. And you are using only the space you need. If you fill a square container half-full, you still have to use the whole space of the container.

Now that your freezer is looking better, what do you put in it other than frozen pizzas? Here are some of my suggestions:

Spaghetti Sauce – I make a large batch in the crock pot and then freeze meal portions in quart sized freezer bags. Stack and freeze.

Pizza Crust – Make the dough and roll out the pizza crusts. Bake at 400 for about 10-15 min. Then freeze flat. Once frozen you will need to package them in something. This can be tricky, but I found crock pot liners work pretty good!

Bread Rolls – I make a large batch of rolls, then set them on a cookie sheet to freeze. Once frozen solid, I place a meal portion in quart size bags. Obviously these won’t freeze flat, so they usually stack on the very top or in the door.

Veggie Stock – I take the ends of my celery, onions and carrots and turn it into yummy soup stock. Boil water with these leftover veggies with a little chicken boullion and salt and pepper for a few hours. Drain the liquid off the veggies and let cool before placing in gallon size bags. Freeze flat.

Taco or Sloppy Joe Meat – I try to make a double batch of these whenever I make them. Then take and store the extra meat in a labeled quart bag and freeze. It will be ready for a quick meal.

That list should get you started. Think up your own ideas and share!

To begin you will need at least a 1″ binder (I prefer a 2″ binder). Then a word processor and printer will be your next necessary ingredients. With that set, you can do almost anything!

Get creative. Make a cover for your notebook that expresses your personality.

For ideas on what to add to your notebook, think about how your day goes. Do you need a daily, weekly, or monthly calendar? I prefer a monthly calendar for me since I don’t have a lot of appointments per day and I like to look over my month at one time. Do you plan your meals? Do you need a sheet to jot down all meals or just dinners? If you homeschool, do you need a lesson planning section? Do you have (or wish you had) a cleaning schedule? Jot down which days you mop and which days you wash sheets. After you have written down all your thoughts and ideas, now its time to actually create and print out these sheets.

For those of us who just don’t want to or don’t have time to make these pages there are many places to find them online. But if you want something specific to your life, you may want to create your own.

Organized Home

Heart at Home

My friend, Courtney, has done a fabulous job on her notebook. Check it out at The Crosland Family.

There are so many options out there. I will be created mine next weekend and posting pictures soon! I can’t wait to feel organized.

Since this week I am focusing on Mommy-hood, scheduling always seems to bubble up when mommy’s get together and I am especially focusing on such a topic this week. First I would like to start off with my experience, then I will flood you with some great resources.

Schedules change! And will always change! As your children get older and new children arrive, the needs of your family will change and so will your schedule. Once you accept this fact, scheduling becomes a more fluid project than a rigid one. I loved Terri Maxwell’s Manager’s of their Homes, but setting such a rigid schedule was not for our family. But her book is chock full of ideas for making a schedule, like what tasks need to be done and how long should they take. I still use her idea of making a list of what each person’s duties should be to get me started with a schedule.

I break my day up into sections and then decide what tasks should be done during each section. This works for us. Here is our basic schedule for this year:

Our morning block starts at 6:00am and ends at 9:30am. Here are the things we set out to accomplish during that time:

Send oldest to school.

Breakfast for everyone else.

Care for the animals.

Bible Quiet Time and Prayer.

Morning Chores.

Snack.

Middle of the day starts at 10:00 and goes until 3:00pm.

School: Math, Cursive, and Bible.

Lunch.

Quiet Reading Time and Nap for the Baby.

School: History, Grammar, and Science. We also finish anything else we need to catch up on.

Snack.

Afternoon starts at 3:30 and ends at 6:30.

Afternoon chores.

Oldest gets home from school and does homework.

Dinner.

Evening:

Care for animals.

Hang out with Dad.

Bedtime by 8:00!

That is how I schedule! Simple. That leaves plenty of room for flexibility. If I have a specific project that I want to get done, then I will schedule it separately within those limits. My biggest tip today is not to get stressed over your schedule! I do believe you need one, well I most definitely do! But I would get stressed out because I didn’t finish the dishes at 9:00am and it would ruin the remainder of the day. So now I have a guideline I follow and its amazing the amount of things I can get done in one day!

Here are some great resources as you try to plan your day:

Managers of their Home

Stories of Time Unit Study

Go Mom!

Mommy Tracked – printable calendars!

There is this really great book that I read years ago that really boosted my motivation, but now I can’t find it. I will update this post with it when I find it!

Hope that was enough to get you started. Please share your ideas with me!