Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Recycle and Build for Free

It's been a while since I've posted. We have been very busy here getting ready for winter. I've cleaned out the garden beds of everything except the herbs that can over winter and one pepper plant that is producing like crazy. I plan on making some hot sauce soon with them.



I added some old hay for mulch and planted some fall crops. Broccoli, beans and peas. I also planted one whole bed of garlic. Because the weather has been crazy here, warm one day then frost the next, it's started growing. I hope it goes dormant soon.



With the help of a friend, I built cages in our new rabbit barn that was done with all recycled or found material. Total cost for a 16 foot by 20-foot rabbit barn is about $10, and that is just for the screws we had to buy.



My husband and I went around our homestead looking for material. We found some good sized trees to cut down for the poles then added used lumber that we buy off the sale bin at Home Depot and already had here. Wire and left over OSB board from other projects finished it off.



My friend and I made built in cages of different sizes to accommodate young does, bucks, grow outs and mother's getting ready to kindle. It's a good thing we did because this morning my friend came over with five more New Zealand Red rabbits. One of them is getting ready to have babies next week, so our rabbitry is exploding in size quickly.

After that, it was time to make my front porch a Tory free zone. Last night she chewed up a foam filled cushion and started to eat one piece of my wicker set that is out there! That wicker set is also recycled . I got it at a thrift store a couple of weeks ago.



It's time to lock her off the porch for good so hubby, and I got an old table that we weren't using and put it on the side of our cabin away from the wind. Tory has a very nice large crate, so we put it on top of the table then wrapped it in some heavy duty plastic to make it waterproof. I had found the plastic at a yard sale a long time ago. We added a board to extend the roof then Bruce said that he knew where an old set of stairs were so we nailed those to the table so Tory can get into her house more easily. I put her food and water underneath and now she can't tear up things on the porch anymore!








What have you recycled lately? 

Sunday, October 11, 2015

How To Save Money at the Dentist



1. Visit Brighter.com to compare prices

2. Pay cash

3. Monday and Friday morning appointments are the slowest times so they will give you a better price

4. Use a dental college with students

5. Negotiate fees

6. Use natural toothpaste without all the chemicals! Get my recipe here.


Not dentist related but more ways to save money on your homestead.


Get real paper books and learn all types of skills so you can do things without hiring someone.

Do it yourself. There are many projects you can do!

Use natural ingredients. They are so much better for you and way cheaper in the long run.

Go to walk in clinics with no office visit fees for your dogs and cats. We had to switch to chewable flea and tick medications for our dogs when the natural recipe just wasn't working. Here in Tennessee we have mutant fleas. LOL One of our small dogs actually developed an allergy to them!

How do you save money?