Millie is a Barred Rock and the other two are Buff Orpingtons.  They are all loveable chickens, especially Millie. 

They all free range in our backyard and give us great eggs. Wherever we are in the back yard, the ladies want to be there also.  Right under our feet.   This is a form of slowing down, the need to be watchful of not stepping on any of them.

Being raised in the city and on a military base for most of my life, I never imagined the joys of having chickens.  They are quite comical creatures.  When my husband and I come into the backyard, they look up from wherever they are and run as fast as they can to us.  Watching a chicken run that fast always generates a smile and chuckle from us. 

Chickens love to free range and eat all the bugs, grasshoppers, slugs in the yard.  We use to have a nice array of bugs in our yard but they have taken care of those critters.  Our yard attracted all sorts of insects because we never used any type of insecticide and we try to keep things natural.  We had frogs too but I think the chickens got them too.  Now the only place that has insects and frogs is our front yard.  Which is perfectly fine with me. 

We have a rather large compost pile in the backyard that the “ladies” would love to have access to.  We went from three pallet compost piles to one large one, made also with pallets.  The ladies “assisted us” with this move.  While we were shoveling compost in our wheelbarrows, the chickens were scratching away also, eating all the worms, grubs, insects to their delight.  They would even fly up on the full wheelbarrow and scratch inside it to make sure they didn’t miss anything.

Chickens are easy pets.  My husband built them a nice coop and every evening they go into the coop without any prodding and go right to sleep.  They do not like being outside when it is dark.  The few times that we were “late” closing up the coop, they were looking out the window of the coop waiting for us.  I think they just feel more secure locked up at night because we all know most everything loves chicken. 

Yes, I do love to save money but saving is really relative person to person.  We all know the person that “saved $40″ while buying that $100 purse.  My version is can I pick up a purse from the local thrift store, Craigslist, Freecycle, WalMart, etc under $10.  There really are nice ones to be had from these avenues and who cares what brand name it is.  When people use brand names, it always bothers me.  It really does.  Who cares!   

Frugality to me means taking the time to do very simple things like line drying my clothes.  It only takes a few minutes but I find it relaxing and I just love to do this.  It is my time.

Frugality to me means accepting other people’s versions of what is frugal and deciding if that would be acceptable to me.  Some things are and some are not.  I don’t have to tell anyone that I won’t be following their example.   It is only about what would work for me  and my family.

My husband and I make a very good living but I know we could weather any storm if our circumstances changed.  We are pretty quiet about our finances but when we pay bills, we keep track of the amounts going to different utilities.  Just because we can afford to pay our electric and water bills doesn’t mean we want to spend a ridiculous amount of money on them every month.  Why work so hard to pay the utility companies?  

Forget peer pressure.  It doesn’t make you happier.  Usually miserable.  I like what I like and you can like what you like. 

Sometimes I think people’s version of the “good life” is money, fame, material items, drinking, traveling, cars, boats … you get the idea.  Is that really the good life?  I would beg to differ (for us).  The good life to me is spending time with my family, making homemade items that are good for us and more nutritious, not impairing my senses by overdrinking, enjoying local events, enjoying good reading material (romance novels just don’t cut it), waking up early every morning and enjoying birds singing and the day beginning.  I could go on and  on. 

Many moons ago, I was the type of person, rushing to work, always working late, spending money always eating out, never seeming to get ahead, never able to put money away or have time for myself.  All I can say, I will NEVER let myself become that person again.

I do my work and leave.  My personal/family time is more  important that my job.  I cook at home, bring my lunch, have no debt because I refuse to get burdened by that beast again, have a savings, live simply and really don’t care what other people think.  

It took awhile for me to get it but I am much happier and at peace with my life.  If I died today, I could honestly say … I don’t know what I would say.  I love life!  So let’s not even go there. 

Yes, it is important to me to remember those in need, locally and worldwide.  We volunteer our time every month and it just helps us to keep things in perspective and keep things real.

This truly is our frugal way of life and it is the real “good life.”

We did the basic model of one five gallon bucket, another modified five gallon bucket and a toilet seat.  Total cost for two compost toilets was less than $20.  We have used them and added them to our compost piles and haven’t looked back.  We initially had a separate pile for our humanure but somewhere along the line decided that compost is compost and it all breaks down anyway. 

Regular compost takes us about 6-8 months before we can use it anyway so we just add it all together.  We keep adding to our pile and when the bin is full, we let it sit and then use it.  Everything just breaks down nicely.  Especially the compost on the bottom of the pile.  Works wonderfully.

What is humanure?  Well it is the result of decomposing or composting human urine and feces.  When we began this journey, we were using peat moss, but learned a little about that and now use sawdust.  We found a very cheap supplier that even delivers to us without a fee so we are very pleased.

It is amazing that there is no smell with this process.  Everything stays covered and there is no usage of water, except of course to wash your hands afterward but you do that anyway, right?

We have two bathrooms and there are two of us and we fill two buckets (one per bathroom) about once a week.   We then put it into our garage and let it sit (covered with a lid) and use a second bucket in each bathroom.  When the second buckets are full, we take all the compost materials and add them to the compost pile (one of three piles).  We are pretty active people and it only takes a few minutes to do this, clean it thoroughly with soap and water and in the summer we allow the buckets to sit out in the hot summer for a few hours for a more natural disinfectant and then set them up to be used again.

There is always a compost bucket toilet set up though.  We received many buckets from Craigslist for $1 each.  They each came with a lid.

My husband is already planning to remove the regular, conventional toilet from one bathroom completely because the bathroom is already small and having two toilets is taking up too much room.  We never use the conventinal toilets anyway.  It is on his to do list.  Just hasn’t gotten around to it yet.  I’m sure it will be done within the next month or so.

There hasn’t been an issue with guests.  None at all.  It just works.  After explaining to people how to use the compost toilets, they do it and that is the end of the matter. After all, we are not asking them to carry their waste out to the composter.

Just think about it.  It’s natural, uses no water, no smell, easy, super cheap, no plugged toilet isssues, no septic tank issues … what else could you ask for?

We have set up a barrel on each gutter around our home.  There are six total.  Each morning we spend about an hour watering our garden.  An hour, did I say? Yes!  We do this by using buckets and watering pitchers.

Of course, there are much easier and less time consuming ways to water your garden with rain barrels such as using drip hoses, however we enjoy the time out in the fresh air and just taking our time in our yard.  It is a great start to the morning.  Plus we get to talk to our plants.

During the winter , we just leave the barrel spigots open all the time and attach tubing to the ends of the spigots and just let the water go into the yard.  No problems at all.

We aren’t big fans of our grass so we don’t water it at all.  Never.    The benefit of not watering our grass is that it grows very slowly and we don’t have to mow as often.  We are slowly converting the grass area to either parts of our garden, greenhouse or native plants.  Just taking our time.  No rush.  We are planning to be in this home for a very long time.

Other uses for the rain water that we collect is to clean our cars, wash our hands while we are outside, and add water to the compost piles.  All while trying to keep in step with our frugal, sustainable ways.

We recently bought thermometers for each of our three piles.  The piles stay about  125 degrees.

You can go online to buy compost thermometer or look for turkey thermometers.  You just need something with a long stem that will reach a decent depth in the compost pile. 

Although our thermometers start at 100 degrees, you might find it more useful to get one that starts at 0.  Especially if you are just begining to compost and want to track the progress of your pile.

You have to believe me when I say, there is something natural and fulfilling about rotting, decaying matter.  Compost is a way of giving back to the earth in a healthy way. 

We have three compost piles in our backyard.  Two strictly for kitchen scraps and yard debris and the third one for the same items plus humanure (that will be discussed in a later post).

There are alot of reasonably priced and high priced bins out there for people to use.  We chose to use pallets because they are free and my handy husband is… well “handy.”  He used four pallets to make each compost bin.

What do we compost?  Just about everything.  Everything includes normal kitchen scraps such as fruit peels, bread scraps, vegetable peelings, leftover foods, coffee grounds, etc.  We go a step further and include all our meat scraps, oily items like butter, cheese, and all types of paper.  The only thing that is not included is plastic. 

We know alot of people suggest not putting meat items or oily items in your compost.  However, it all breaks down nicely and since we keep everything we add to the piles well covered, we have had no problems at all.  There are no smells at all.   No animal pest problems either.  We are very particular about keeping everything buried and covered with grass, hay or leaves. 

I like to go in the backyard after work every day (regardless of the weather) and just look at the piles.  Not that you can see much when it comes to decaying matter.  All I can really see is the level of the compost that shrinks each week.  It just makes me happy to go out there and look. 

During the summer, I love to put my hands on the pile of compost leaves and grass and feel the warmth of the pile.  It is truly amazing.

We have great compost!  We put thermometers in them recently to see about how hot the piles got.  You can read more about our thermometers later.

If you can find the space and time to compost, you should try it.  We went from a weekly garbage pickup to a  monthly pickup about ten months ago and haven’t looked back.  I think we could even get by with a bi-monthly pickup.  I will have to check and see if that is even an option.

What types of things do we like to grow? Anything with a seed! Really! While we are out shopping for groceries or eating a meal, if there is something that we think will grow for us at home, we try it. Anything! We  just disregard the gardening zone we live in (which is zone 8/9 by the way).

Here are some things that we have put in our garden:

1. Aloe Vera
2. Asparagus
3. Avocado
4. Basil
5. Beans
6. Bell Peppers
7. Blueberries
8. Broccoli
9. Cabbage
10. Chamomile
11. Cherries*
12. Chives
13. Cilantro
14. Coriander
15. Cucumbers
16. Dill
17. Eggplant
18. Elephant Garlic
19. Fennell
20. Garlic
21. Ginger
22. Grape tomatoes
23. Green Onions/Chives
24. Horseradish
25. Kidney Beans
26. Kiwi
27. Leeks
28. Lemons
29. Lemon Cucumbers
30. Lettuce
31. Limes
32. Marigolds
33. Nasturtians
34. Oregano
35. Paprika
36. Peaches
37. Pears
38. Peas
39. Pickles
40. Pinto beans
41. Plums
42. Pomengranate
43. Potatoes
44. Pumpkin, White & Yellow
45. Raspberries, Golden
46. Raspberries, Red
47. Rhubarb
48. Rice
49. Roma tomatoes
50. Rosemary
51. Sage
52. Spinach
53. Strawberries
54. Sugar Cane
55. Sugar Snap Peas
56. Sunflowers
57. Sweet potato
58. Tea
59. Thyme
60. Tomatillo
61. Tomato (Roma, Yellow, Zebra, Grape)
62. Walla Walla Onions
63. Watermelon
64. Zucchini

To grow later:

1. Kumquats
2. Peanuts
3. Corn
4. Carrot
5. Persimmon

I will send time over the next few weeks posting about each item but if you are interested in anything in particular, let me know and I’ll respond.

Homemade accomplishments

1.  alfredo sauce
2. apple plum butter
3. bagels
4. baguettes
5. bread
6. brown sugar
7. butter
8. cheddar cheese
9. coffee creamer
10. cranberry chutney
11. cranberry juice
12. cranberry sauce
13. cream cheese
14. cream of … soup
15. English muffins
16. extracts (various)
17. fermented veggies
18. ghee
19. ginger ale
20. goat cheese
21. granola
22. extracts (lots & lots)
23. hot sauce
24. hummus
25. infused oils
26. jerky
27. kahlua
28. ketchup
29. kefir
30. kombucha
31. marshmallows
32. mayonnaise
33. mozzarella cheese
34. mustard
35. nut butter
36. parmesan cheese
37. pasta
38. pickled eggs
39. pickled watermelon rinds
40. pita bread
41. powdered salt
42. powdered sugar
43. preserved grapefruit
44. preserved lemons
45. pretzels
46. ranch dressing
47. ravioli
48. relish
49. ricotta cheese
50. roasted coffee
51. roasted garlic
52. roasted peppers
53. roasted tomatoes
54. roti (Indian bread)
55. salsa
56. soda
57. sour cream
58. soy milk
59. syrups (various flavorings)
60. tomato sauce
61. vanilla bean paste
62. vanilla extract
63. veggie stock
64. vinegar (apple cider, wine, various)
65. wine
66. yeast (sourdough)
67. yogurt

Non food items

1. all purpose cleaner
2. deodorant
3. glass cleaner
4. hand soap
5. laundry detergent
6. lotion
7. pantiliners
8. shampoo
9. shaving cream
10. toilet paper
11. toothpaste

 To do

1. Tea
2. Jam/jelly (grape, etc)
3. Dosas
4. Bubble tea
5. Soy sauce
6. Miso
7. Tofu
8. Tempeh
9. Ice Cream
10. Soap