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Thursday, November 8, 2012

Learning Real Life Practical Skills

There is a lot of new skills being practiced around here. I'm learning to crochet. My Grandmother taught me how when I was about 12 but it's been many, many years since I've crocheted. She taught me the basics and I started a baby blanket but I never finished it. So I'm relearning? Or refreshing my skills? I started making a dishcloth but now I'm not sure why I chose a dishcloth. What am I gonna do with the thing? Anyway it's fun to learn something new. What I really want to learn though is to knit. It just looks so hard, I want to see if I can do it. Lacey has been watching me crochet and she wanted to learn so now I am teaching the little girls to crochet. Lacey is really enjoying it. She is doing pretty good. It's kinda hard for them to hold the hook and thread properly but they are patiently plodding along. Lacey about has the method down, she is working on making her loops even. Lily can't quite hold it herself and she wants me to sit by her holding the thread while she works the hook. I've been reading a good many blogs about homesteading and living frugally. I am so inspired to live more green, more off the land. We have about an acre of land and my parents have a little over three acres next door so between us we have over four acres. My dad already raises chickens, rabbits, goats and he has one horse. He always plants a garden. So I talked to him about teaching me to farm and garden. He asked where I wanted to start and I told him to teach me to milk the goat. HaHa! That was super fun. I'm so bad at it. But I will get better. It's harder than it looks! He has one goat that he milks, right now he just gives the milk to his puppies and kittens but we are going to start saving it to make butter and maybe some soap out of it. I also want to try to pasteurize it for drinking and cooking. I know a lot of people drink raw milk but I'm leery of that. I figure once I learn to milk it pretty well I'm going to try to get my own goat. I want to teach the kids and especially Kyle to milk the goat, if they are interested in learning. My dad, we all call him Pap, said he would start tilling me  garden of my own, so I have been researching what to plant and when to plant it. I figure that not only will this teach me all kinds of skills that I can pass to my kids it will also give me time with Pap. Now that he is working again we don't get to spend much time together. Kyle has been helping Pap to build cages and rabbit pens lately and I have been teaching him to cook. He likes the cooking. He made banana bread the other day. It was pretty good.  I've been having him work with me in the kitchen at dinner time, learning to peel potatoes and things like that. He helped me make the shepherd pie for our dinner last week. Actually, it's kinda nice having a second set of hands in the kitchen.

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