Our New Home

I thought you might be interested in seeing our new home! We love it! The above picture is the interior, or the view as you step in the front door. Lots of windows and they all open! I can just feel those cool ocean breezes blowing in off the Pacific! The back sofa area makes into a bed, as does the table at the right. There are various water and waste storage tanks. The fresh water tank is 35 gallons!

This is the camper all set up with the awning rolled out. It's a large awning and can be adjusted to sit at any angle. If it is raining, for instance, it can be lowered. We also have a huge screen tent to set up just outside the camper.

This is the bathroom, complete with shower. It's small but has everything we need. It also has a very large cabinet behind the mirror and storage under the sink.

This is the fridge and furnace.The furnace, stove and fridge are propane powered so the fridge runs all the time, even during travel. We can switch the fridge over to electric, if desired, when (and IF) we plug into a site with 15 amp service.

It looks like a small fridge but will hold quite a bit and even has a small freezer inside.


There is a lot of storage in this camper! Places to stash stuff everywhere!


This will be our main dry storage. It holds a lot! It will hold most of what we own, actually. All of our material possessions are packed now into storage containers, buckets and boxes. Everything we own! It's so hard to believe that we will be ready to drive away to a new life within the coming week!


We are so excited about our new life and can't wait to get out there!

Henna Hair Colour Update

It has been six months since I posted about using organic henna hair colour and I got a large response to that post so I thought I would do another update now. I still love it!!

I coloured my entire head twice right away. I have only coloured the roots since the second full head dying in March. The above picture is what my hair looks like now, July 2012.

I have not coloured the ends since March! If I feel it needs it, I will do so to darken them but I am hoping to just trim them off eventually.
You can read the first henna post done in Jan 2012 here:  "Organic Hair Colour - Henna"
The second post, an update written in March 2012 here: "Organic Henna Update"

This is what my hair and skin look like now. The copper red hair looks very natural on me, or so many people tell me, since I have the freckled very fair skin tone and green eyes to go with it. I should have been born with red hair! I am very happy with how well it endures and coveres the gray and I'm outside a lot but usually wear a hat if I am in the sun for long. I like the natural looking highlights with the lighter gray hairs too! My roots are starting to show in this picture. You can tell from the gray :-(  
This is an ear cuff that I made. I am going to make a lot of them for sale while camping. I will add a page for the jewelry with a tab at the top. I won't have internet access much until late spring but will add them when I can and respond to emails when I can.
I have already added some hair videos to the "Hair forks & Videos" page with the tab at the top.


Did anyone use the henna after my first post and keep using it? Are you still happy with the results?

As I said earier, I love it!

I bought enough in advance to do several root applications to take with me.

Painting Sale

  

I have two small paitnings left that I need to sell, so I'm having a sale! These two paintings are both 12" x 16" on stretched canvas and sealed. They were both handpainted by me in acrylic and signed.

I am asking $20 plus shipping each for them :-)  I will only charge you what the shipping cost me. Within Canada it will probably be around $15. To the Continental USA it will be about $20. If you want them both, it will cost you just $35 plus shipping, which will be around $5  more than the cost to send one.

If you are interested, just send me an email and I will send you a PayPal invoice for it.

These are the two paintings I am selling. I love them both and it's har dto par twith them, but I can't take them with me.

"Plums & Glads" 

"Purple Roses"

I have since sold both of these papintings, so they are no longer available. "Thank you" to all those who inquired!

 

 

Our DIY Solar Oven

This is our first solar meal: Beef roast, carrots and onions. It's simple and effective! We put this in our solar oven at about 8:30 am and took it off at 5 pm.

We made our very first solar oven and it works! We looked at many designs on the 'net, several Youtube videos and came up with this.

See pictures and description below the video.



First we started with an old tire, cut the top back and gave it a wooden base. The base is screwed to the bottom tire rim. We trimmed the wood to a circle but you can just as easily leave it square. 

After attaching the wooden base, we made curved inside walls with cardboard and used a good quality duct tape to attach them to the tire. They are stapled to the wooden base at the bottom. The inside of the oven will be sealed with aluminum foil and foil tape so you can use cardboard for this part. It's not exposed to the heat or elements. 

This is the oven after lining with foil and sealing with shiny foil reflective tape. You can get this tape in the plumbing section at Home Depot . 

 

We used glass for the cover because it is what we had but would prefer plexiglass for camping and travel simply because it more durable. Either one will work well for the purposes of cooking food in the oven. You need this cover to keep the heat in. It does make a difference. 

Lastly, we added the parabolic reflector made from an old satellite dish that we painted with silver paint. We may glue a covering of aluminum foil on it since the foil seems to be more reflective than the paint. The dish is attached to a wooden post with a foot that sits under the tire to hold it in place. Another important piece of equipment for a solar oven is a black pot. It must be black to absorb the sun's heat. In truth the non-reflective paint would probably work a bit better than the pan we used, since it seems to have a bit of a shiny surface. 

We are testing it now. After one hour between 10-11 am, the thermometer inside the pot reads 200F! Hot enough for slow cooking!

Some ovens of this design that I have seen on the 'net reach over 300F but I don't know where they are located. I have even seen a video of one used as a slowcooker in the snow on a clear sunny day!

We are very excited about this solar oven! It can be used daily, as long as it's sunny, for most of our cooking without cost! Completely natural! You could even use a couple of these in your backyard all year around. You can make a lot of meals in a slowcooker! 

Free is always good!

Hair Fork Roll

I made this video shorter than the previous one. Hopefully this one won't take as long to load.



I make these hair forks for sale in a variety of colours and prong lengths. This one has 4" prongs. That has been a good length for me for horizontal use.

Foraging in the Wilderness

I have been researching edible weeds for years and eating them too! I have found it to be a great way to supplement our diet with healthy foods that are not only good for you but free, as well. Free is always good! lol!

As we are starting on our new adventure, I have put all the info I have into a book to help others who are on the road to self sufficiency.

It contains a list of 39 wild plants that are usually considered weeds, some mushrooms, etc that are edible, listed in alphabetical order with pictures and a little information.

You can download it here: "Foraging in the Wilderness"

You can also get it from the "Free Books Page" tab at the top. I am writing these books to help others on their journey to a more peaceful life of self sufficiency. Even though I do ask for a small donation for using my books, if you are searching for a life of self sufficiency, free of society's stressors and can use these books, please feel free to download them and use them, even without a donation. They are there for your benefit. Just donate what and whenever you can. The Lord will take care of me :-)   and may God bless your efforts.

Starting to build our Wind Turbine

Declutter, Clearing Out, Downsizing

It is truly a liberating experience to rid oneself of material possessions! It is something that I, as a hoarder, do occasionally anyway, when I get tired of the clutter. Now I am doing it on a big scale, getting ready to move into our camper. Things are flying out of here at an amazing rate of speed and everything is going! I love it when people come to see something and just buy it, without haggle, without question and are thrilled to get it! This has happened so often lately that I know the Lord's hand has to be in this move. Things are moving along so fast, so smooth and trouble free, so far. I keep waiting for the thing that's going to sink it, but so far it hasn't arrived yet. It still seems like a dream that I will wake from any time!

 

Sometimes it's hard to get rid of things but I am being strong. One thing I'm having some question about is my 1916 WWI whistle ( see top picture). It's stamped "1916 J. Hudson & Co Birmingham". It's such a little thing and I can use a safety whistle but I can get a cheap one that works just as well as a dollar store, so I'm selling this one. I gave it a lot of thought and I would really rather have the money, so I put it on EBay. USA. Both are 12" x 16" on stretched canvas and sealed.
 

I have been successfully selling a lot of little odds and ends on EBay and Kijiji. They have both been a great help, as has Freecycle! For those of you who don't know what Freecycle is, you should look into it, especially if you are near a good sized city. It's amazing! It's a local yahoo Group, and there is one for every large city, where you can post things you are giving away and things you want. It's a free exchange site. Everything has to be completely free, no trading, no money, nothing. Some of the things offered on there are incredible but you have to be fast! Some of the stuff I have been giving away on Freecycle is worth a good bit of cash but I just don't have the time or desire to sell it properly. 

I have been selling my jewelry on EBay. I also bought jewelry findings. I'm going to continue to make jewelry and hair forks and sell them. 
 

I did have a large garage sale. That's helps too! I LOVE garage sales, hence the reason I have so much "stuff"...

I enjoy unloading things! It's a great feeling to be free of the weight! Your possessions really do own you and tie you down! If we decide we like a particular place and want to live there, we will settle down but I won't be accumulating this much "stuff" again! (I mean it this time...)