Merry Christmas Cox's Honey Giveaway

 

I don't know about you, but I love gifts I can actually use. When I receive a gift like that I try to remember the person who gave me the gift every time I use it. What better way to have sweet thoughts of someone than the gift of honey. Yup, I said honey. We have another great honey giveaway going. I like this one more than the others, why? Because if you win your friends or family win as well. The details are below.

The holidays are right around the corner so what better way than to have Coxs Honey involved in a giveaway again! This giveaway is a little different. We will have one winner chosen through our Rafflecopter system. Then that winner will give the names and addresses to Cox's Honey for FIVE of their friends to receive the same giftpack shown above! WooHoo! This is a sponsored group giveaway and we thank Cox's Honey for these awesome prizes. Have you tried their creamed honey....fabulous! Have you seen: Cox's Honey Website? 

If you win I would be more than happy for you to give me one of the gift packs. Just kidding, I know you have lots of people on your list. 

This Cox's Honey Gift Pack Giveaway is open to any resident who is 18 years of age or older who lives in one of the 48 US Contiguous States. This giveaway starts on Monday, Oct. 27th at 5:00 am (MDT) and ends on Sunday, Nov.2nd, 2014 at 5:00 pm (MDT). The winner will be notified by email and will have 24 hours to respond. If we do not hear back from said winner in the designated time period of 24 hours we will choose another winner and they will have 24 hours to respond from the time the notification email is sent. Please check your SPAM email folders. Good luck to everyone! Let's be prepared for the unexpected!

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rural Dreams and Homestead Wishes

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Just a Little Crafty and A Crafting Fail

I am not what most people would call artsy. With me function is king. When my wife told me she really wanted a bedside table I said, "We have those old potato crates that can be stacked and make a real nice bedside table". I thought it would look nice, but that was not the look she was hoping for. She still doesn't have that table, it was not that high on the priorities list.

If I were to try to define my style, I would call it Rustic Chic. Before today I didn't even know that was a term and I still believe it was only coined so folks like me could feel like we are at least a little in style with something. In fact the term is being debated as to whether it is a complement to rural/country people or an insult. Let's see, city people buying things to decorate their homes or offices to look like what they think country peoples homes used to look like. Hum, I don't care. Some people just want to be offended. I wouldn't care if they called it Rural Chic. Hey I may have coined a new term.

It is the holiday season and we are rapidly coming up on Christmas. Fresh cut Christmas trees have arrived by the thousands at local home improvement, department stores, and even vacant lots. Before these beautiful trees go to homes and are decorated for the season the bottom branches are removed and part of the lower stump is cut off and discarded. That is where the gears should start turning in our heads.

As you can see in the picture above I took some of the limbs that were trimmed and decorated the hearth. We had the artificial poinsettia blooms and the painted pine cones already. Total cost of this decoration zero dollars.

On To The Trunk

From the trunk I decided to make drink coasters. I am not sure where I got the idea, but a friend of mine and myself both decided to do the same thing. He was lucky enough to work the Christmas trees on Black Friday, so he was able to use the electric chainsaw and cut pieces to the right thickness from the very beginning. I wasn't so lucky so I took all of the larger pieces I could find. I have found that larger pieces are easier to work with and you can get more coasters out of each piece.

This would be really easy if I had a band saw, but I don't so I am using the fold-able pruning saw that I keep in the truck with me. The most challenging parts are trying to keep a consistent thickness between the pieces (or at least close enough) and keeping each piece the same thickness all the way across. Some variation is acceptable and adds character to the coaster, but I do not want the glass to look like it is leaning. I had to throw a couple away due to uneven thickness.

There you go. Just a little sanding and a coat or two of spar varnish and these coaster will last for years. Great for the home, great as gifts and if you don't varnish them they only cost you some time and sweat. By the way you cannot find coaster like this on Amazon, at least I have not been able to and on eBay a set of 4 runs from $10.00 to $20.00 a set.

The coaster pictured above is large enough to be a pot holder as well.

A word if warning if the 12 coasters I cut 9 cracked. I don't know if this is unique to Douglas Fir. I have never had wood crack this bad before.

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May you have Rural Dreams and Homestead Wishes.

For instructions on making a homemade wreath you can go here. You can always scale it down to fit your need.

http://learningandyearning.com/2010/12/11/evergreen-christmas-wreath/

Rural Wisdom and Know How #4

Thanksgiving has past. Black Friday and Cyber Monday has come and gone. People are spending money like there is no tomorrow. All to buy the latest gadget that will keep them entertained for a little while. I work in retail and had to work on Black Friday. I will say I am more than a little concerned with the trends that I am seeing. We truly are in a consumer based society.

Don't get me wrong gift giving has been a part if the Christmas season for as long as there has been a Christmas. Originally, though the gifts were more personal and most were homemade. Some of the best gifts I have ever received have had the emphasis on thought. These are truly the best gifts. I have included a link below about the birthday gift my wife gave me this year. It was incredible and I used items from that gift weekly till this day. Read The Best Birthday Gift

Part Time Homesteader

I have come to the truly horrifying realization that I do not have enough time or energy to do all of the things I want to do on my homestead. Both my wife and I work full time jobs on different shifts. My job if fairly physically demanding, some weeks are worse that others. This has put a major strain on my body. As a result I am not accomplishing near what I had hoped. I see others doing so much more than I am and I feel as if somehow I am failing on my goals. That is until I take a closer look. Those that are accomplishing more than I am have one or more of the following advantages when it comes to the homestead: (1) They make more money that we do and can thus hire out some of the labor of building an outbuilding for example (2) One or the other of the couple do not have a traditional job, some are contractors and consultants so they only work in spurts or (3) One of the couple works at home.

Rather than throwing my hands up in defeat and becoming just another spoke in the wheel of the system, I have decided that I need to extend my planning period. All of the things that I wanted to accomplish next year, may take two or three years to complete. That is not a bad thing as long as I continue to work toward my goal.

The thing I want you to take away from this is just because you are not getting as much done as you would like does not mean that you are not moving forward. So times we have to re evaluate our situation and change our timeline.

We are pleased to announce that The Rural Economist has a new affiliate. Trayer Wilderness Inc. Please click the link to the right to see what they have to offer the outdoors person on your Christmas list.

Questions for The Week

(1) Have you started planning for next year on your homestead?
(2) What is your favorite Christmas carol?
(3) I ask this on The Rural Economist Facebook page, but if you could have one thing for Christmas and not worry about price, what would it be?
(4) I know this one sounds strange but, what time of year are power outages most likely where you live?

My Answers
(1) I have started planning. We are going to put in a lot more tomato, jalapeno, and bell pepper plants than we did this year.
(2) My favorite is I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day (lots of people have never even heard of it)
(3) I would like to have the land right across the road from our house.
(4) Winter is our most likely time for an outage. Normally caused by ice storms. We haven't had one in a couple of years. I think we are due.

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