Living Life in Rural Iowa

I have been doing a lot of purging again. Some of the purgings I have been doing have been digital and some of it has been physical. Most of it has been helping my sanity in some way, shape, or form. I have a tendency to keep a lot of emails and then never really go back to them to do, make, or practice what that email was preaching on that given day. At one point, after cleaning up all my unread emails, I had 1300 read emails in my Yahoo email inbox. Nevermind what is in the 26 folders that I have to "organize" those emails into subjects. I have over 500 unread and read emails in my Gmail account that I use for business. To say that was insane is an understatement. I have been going through those emails a little bit every day, organizing the kept emails, and writing down/printing the information I want to save for the future. I am down over 300 emails in my Yahoo email. My Gmail still needs work. 

(If you have emailed in the past four months, I am not ignoring you. I simply …

If the quarantine has taught me anything in this last year, it has taught me flexibility. I know I have been saying that over the last few posts, but flexibility has been key this year. I would like to think I was flexible before the pandemic, but I have had to reassess that. One of the things that happened this year was that one of my kids moved back from Sioux Falls and now lives with me. Their situation changed because of the pandemic. Sioux Falls was originally hit hard by the coronavirus and they did not think it was a good place for the little ones to be especially a newborn. Their economy is now feeling the effects of the virus and jobs are harder to find there. With a few other considerations, they made the decision to stay in Iowa for now where they are closer to family. He is still working in Sioux Falls so they are making sacrifices to keep this working.The thing is that I always said that once my kids left home, they weren't coming back. They could come visit, of cours…

Hey Everyone!If this year has taught us anything, it has taught us to be flexible. I actually like flexibility because my life would not run without some flexibility even though I still have some routines too. With more flexibility, I have been rethinking how I want to get information, insights, and opinions to you all. All this summer I have been more than a bit disgusted with the censorship on various social media platforms. While I get a lot of traffic from those social media platforms, I have been making more of an effort to just concentrate on blogging and sending out emails when I get a post published. I also still have been engaging on social media, but I have been putting as much of my attention there.Truthfully, I find most social media mentally draining. I used to use it as a distraction and a mental break. I like to read up on people's lives, see their pictures/videos, and laugh at funny posts/pictures. This year, though, with the virus and the looming elections, I find…

If this year has proven anything, it has proven that people who stockpile goods are not crazy. Food shortages (or the threat thereof) have driven more people to grow and preserve their own food. In turn, this has caused shortages of many canning supplies and ingredients that we have always had good luck in the past finding in the stores. While things seem to be in short supply right now, you can still find these items if you are creative. Thrift stores, garage sales, Amish stores, small-town grocery stores, and some online retailers could still have supplies on hand. If not, all is not lost. These supplies should be coming back into stock in the next year. If you keep a good eye out and be diligent in buying them, you won't be caught in a pinch next canning season.This list is things I find myself commonly using every canning season. Your list may look a little different, but I know I'm not the only person who uses these items. While I have not had trouble finding lemon juice,…

There is a lot of crazy things going on right now. I don't have to tell you that because if you pay one iota of attention to the events going on around us, you can definitely see that. The world is a crazy place and we are not in control of a lot of it. 
What worries me the most is the loss of our freedoms. While we try to prepare for what we can control, we are losing our freedoms at an astonishing rate. We are facing censorship on a mass scale, loss of choice, and disturbing political/ideological movements. Censorship is what I am focusing on today.
If you haven't discerned this already, this is a personal piece. I have been more and more anxious about what is happening than I ever have been before. Normally, I would be one of those people who just put their heads down and keeps plowing ahead. I do what I can with what I have. 
However, I have a pretty contrary streak that runs in me. I do not like censorship on any scale. I do not like being told I have to wear a mask. I do no…

We live in a society right now that values money over almost anything. Money can buy your way into a multitude of things. Money can buy almost anything tangible and a lot of intangible things. You can pay to have almost anything done. So it makes sense when preppers talk about acquiring gold and silver when the dollar is no longer valuable. Many people find gold and silver to be valuable in our current times. However, any currency - gold, silver, dollar - is only as valuable as long as they are accepted by people for the payment of goods or services. If our society changes or chooses to go cashless, most of the currently accepted currency will be of very little value.That will be a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people who are banking on gold and silver being the back-up currency. A cashless society will almost always have a black market to get goods that would otherwise a traceable purchase. Even though there is a black market now, this would flourish into goods and services that …

In my garden, one of the easiest things to grow and to preserve is green beans. They grow without much effort. You plant the seeds, either bush or pole green beans, set up a trellis if they are pole beans, and provide adequate water. They germinate pretty well and they will grow even in my black clay soil. Being self-sufficient means you should be learning new skills all the time. However, I believe that you should pick some easy things to learn first. Canning green beans are one of those easy things to learn. For starters, you will be growing your own food already which is a great skill to learn and practice. Next, you will then be learning how to use your pressure canner which is also a great skill to learn. Pressure canning can seem intimidating. I will admit that when I first started learning how to can my own food, I stuck to jams and anything that could be water bath canned for a long time. I didn't have a pressure canner until my mom gave me her pressure canner. Even then, …