Beer Rebates and Free Money

I call myself "The Accidental Homesteader" because I feel like I came upon this homesteading thing quite accidentally.  What first motivated me was saving money.  My family struggles a lot with a seemingly never ending stream of bad luck and financial difficulties, much like may American families these days. I started many of my homesteading projects solely out of the need to save money. It was after I started doing these things that I fell in love with being more self sufficient, making things with my own two hands, and just finding a better way to do things. So in the spirit of saving money, I am sharing a tip that I recently learned from my aunt.

I am always seeing elaborate displays in my local grocery stores that advertise various brands of beer. Most of the time those displays hold rebate cards that offer things like "Get up to 10$ by mail" and similar rebate offers. I have always just walked on by, but as I recently learned I was walking right on by free money! I live in New York State, and in this state you do NOT have to buy the beer in order to get the rebate. One of the rebates I recently got offered up to a 10 dollar rebate on Halloween supplies. This includes decorations, costumes, pumpkins, etc. Things I am already buying anyway!

Now, this does not apply in all states. Here is a list of the states that do not require a beer purchase for the offered rebates:
Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah, and West Virginia

Cheap and Easy Crock Pot Chicken

I call my blog "The Accidental Homesteader" because I have never been much of a hippie, crafter, cook, gardener etc.  I found myself suddenly getting into these things earlier this year without realizing I was becoming a homesteader. When I started getting into this stuff last spring, it was a way for me to keep busy.  Now here, at the end of the summer homesteading has become a necessity. 

Thanks to the changes in our government, my family has lost our health insurance.  I guess as the story goes we will supposedly have more options available to us after the first of the year, but that still leaves us for about 6 months without any form of affordable health insurance.  This is alarming to me because my 4 year old daughter suffers from mild asthma which gives her bronchial spasms in cold weather.  She coughs like a 90 year old man who smokes two packs a day.  She does not sleep because she coughs so much.  This often leads us to multiple doctors appointments where she can receive up to 5 nebulizer treatments in one visit.  The doctors prescribed her inhalers that are 75 to 100 dollars a pop, and she desperately needs them. What are we going to do?  I have no idea.  But saving money has become a huge motivating factor in my continued study of homesteading and survivalism.  Since I anticipate many very expensive doctor's visits and prescriptions this fall and winter, I need to start saving as much money as I can. 

But enough of my sob story.  I know I am not the only one out there struggling with these things, and this is what motivates me to share my information with all of you.  I have recently found a simple and cheap recipe for chicken that I tried today that I would really like to share.  I found it somewhere on the internets, but I don't remember where.  I didn't have to save the page because the recipe is that easy. 

You will need:

One whole chicken
Seasoning of your choice (I use either seasoning salt, or just some sea salt and ground pepper)
A crock pot
Cooking spray

This is a crock pot recipe that does not take any water.  All you do is season your chicken, spray the inside of the crock pot with the cooking spray, stick the chicken in there and turn it on.  That's it!  It's that easy!  Cook for 6 hours on high, or 8 hours on low.  The chicken cooks in it's own juices and the result is tender, fall off the bone chicken that tastes just as good as it smells.

When I tried this today I used sea salt, ground pepper and a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary.  Since in my area I can get a small whole chicken for under 5 dollars, I have a feeling my family will be eating this often.

Mosquitos Don't Like Rosemary

This summer has been pretty rainy in my corner of the world.  And with a lot of rain come a lot of mosquitos.  In my yard they have been so bad that my kids have had to be confined to the house after dusk since my daughter seems to be a favorite meal for blood sucking little fiends.  To make matters worse, mosquitos infected with West Nile Virus have been found in the county I live in this year for the first time. 

I usually resign myself to coating myself and my children with DEET and other chemicals to keep us from becoming a moquito meal but I don't like to.  So this weekend I thought I would give a new solution a try.  As we sat on the front porch, as we often do the mosquitos started to swarm as the sun dipped below the horizon.  So I pulled out our mini charcoal bbq grill and set it up with some wood to make a little campfire.  I got out some dried rosemary and threw some on the fire and the mosquitos disappeared!

We eventually moved to the back yard where our big fire pit is, and it did not work as well.  This solution works best on a small open fire.  Fresh rosemary is better to use because it will take longer to burn and will smoke for a longer period of time but if all you have on hand is dried rosemary that will work too.  The dried rosemary needs to be reapplied often because it burns up very quickly, but it still works really well. 

Lemon Fresh Fleas

Recently I saw an article about flea control. Unfortunately this year my home has had it's first outright flea attack and as anyone who has dealt with this knows, it is very difficult to eradicate the problem once it has taken hold.  I am always searching for ways to combat things like this while using as few harmful chemicals as possible, and most mainstream flea control products contain large amounts of potentially dangerous chemicals.  So I tried a supposed solution which called for citrus, and claimed that the citrus would instantly kill fleas.
So I took some lemon rind and I infused it in some water.  I concentrated the citrus oil and used it on my dog.  It did nothing.  It did not kill the fleas.  It did not repel the fleas.  All it did was make my dog smell lemony fresh. 

Perhaps I infused the citrus incorrectly.  Perhaps I applied it to the dog incorrectly, but whatever the case, this solution was proven to be ineffective.

If you have an experience that is different, or if you have your own homeopathic flea remedy please do share!

Some Words for My Readers

Homesteading has become quite popular in the past couple of years.  It seems like blogs like this are a dime a dozen, and all they seem to do is pass around the same information.  I admit that these websites are where I get a lot of my ideas from. So what makes this blog any different?

Well, you might have noticed that I do not publish every day.  Sometimes I go quite some time between posts.  There is a reason for this.  I try every almost every recipe or idea here myself before I post it.  If I post something I have not personally tried, I will inform you if that and ask you to give feedback if you try it.  But my intention here is not to be just another information spewing source of homeopathic and natural items that may or may not work.  I aim to pass on the information about the items that do work, and to inform you of the ones that don't. 

My blog is plain and simple.  Partly because I know very little about how to build web sites and blogs that look like the more mainstream ones.  But this is also because I do not advertise on my blog.  The only advertising you will see is for my Esty shop: Curiouser and Curiouser.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Things you will see in coming entries:
Posts which discuss "homeopathic remedies" which I have found to be ineffective.

Things you won't see:
Shameless self promotion
Mainstream advertisements

I hope you are enjoying my blog thus far.  I am happy you have chosen to join me during this learning process as I discover the world of homesteading! 

Home Made Fabric Refresher/Air Freshener

I recently found this recipe and I am in LOVE with it!  With pets, kids, etc. I find myself having to "refresh" my furniture often.  I have always used Febreeze or some kind of similar product for this purpose, but you can make your own fabric refresher that smells better and works better than any store bought product that I have ever tried.  Here's what you need:

A spray bottle
Essential oil (any scent you like)- 20-30 drops according to preference
Distilled water- 10 oz
Vodka- 2oz

Yes, vodka...

At first glance you might think that this recipe would make your furniture smell like it came from the local bar, but you can not smell the vodka at all when it's all done!  And the essential oil lasts much longer than any commercial product.

Simply take the ingredients, put the in the spray bottle and shake.  The vodka will cause the ingredients to stay mixed together, however you can choose to omit the vodka.  Doing so will cause the ingredients to separate. After all, essential oil and water don't mix just like any other oil.  But without the vodka you just have to make sure you shake the bottle well before you spray.  I do not recommend substituting rubbing alcohol for the vodka.  It will leave that funky alcohol smell that you would expect from the vodka.  The alcohol in the vodka also helps the solution to dry faster.

DIY Cleaners: A Better Way

Every homesteader knows the natural cleaning supply recipes of citrus and vinegar.  Both of these things are powerful cleaner and degreasers but the drawback?  When you clean your house with vinegar it makes you feel like you are living inside a pickle jar.  Some people don't mind the smell, some people even like it, but a lot of people refrain from using natural "DIY" cleaning products because because they can't stand that strong and lasting vinegar scent.

Lately I have been more concerned about the chemicals in cleaning products because we got a very tiny dog, and we have 3 cats.  I read a story (I can't remember where it was now) that told of a family who's cat died from liver failure from overuse of cleaning products.  As people, these things don't affect us as much as they do our furry roommates.  We are on two legs, high up from the floor and other surfaces where these cleaning products fall when they are sprayed in the air and stay.  Think of the corners in your house that inadvertently get sprayed with the chemicals that never wiped away.  They just accumulate over time.  However, our furry friends, with their sensitive noses pick up all of these things as they adventure around our houses.  They get them on their paws as they walk across surfaces that we don't even touch.  This can be especially dangerous for indoor cats because they never get an escape from it. And over their lifetimes their little bodies ingest and store concentrated amounts of these chemicals that we think nothing of using every day.  This is what eventually killed the cat in the story I read.  Long term accumulated concentrations of chemicals found in the owner's kitchen cabinet.

So through some experimentation I came up with this method of heat infusing a citrus concentrate with vinegar for a unique DIY recipe for cleaning products.

What you need:
White vinegar
The citrus fruit of your liking
 A jar
A pot of water
and a spray bottle for when it's done

I have tried this with lemons, lemons and limes, oranges, and grapefruit.  Each turned out equally as effective.  To make the concentrate, you take the jar and fill it (fill it to the top and pack it in there as much as you can) with cut up chunks of the rind of fruit you choose  and pour in as much vinegar as you can.  You can leave some of the flesh of the fruit on for a stronger scent, but the more flesh you leave the more your chances that the cleaner will actually leave a sticky residue.  Take the jar and put it in the pot of water to make a kind of double boiler.  What you want to do is heat the contents of the jar through the water in indirect heat.  Turn your stove low and let the water in the pot heat up. 

Let the fruit break down in the heated vinegar for about 2 hours.  Remove the jar from the stove and put the cap back on the jar.  Put it in a cabinet or another dark cool place for about a day.  Strain the fruit out of this and you have your concentrate.  Pour this concentrate in your spray bottle and fill it the rest of the way with vinegar.

Since everyone uses different sizes of jars, spray bottles, etc you will have to experiment with the amounts that work for you.  I use a regular sized 16 oz. spaghetti sauce jar and a 20 oz spray bottle.  Since the fruit takes up so much room in the jar, you end up with a lot less vinegar than you would think when it's all done.

I have had a lot of success with these cleaners.  They work just as well as any store bought product that I have tried.  Even though when you use them, they will smell like vinegar, the citrus makes the smell a little weaker and the smell does not stick around as long as with conventional citrus and vinegar cleaners.  When I use the ones I have made, the vinegar scent is gone within 5 minutes.

If you do make the mistake of leaving too much flesh on the fruit rinds or infuse the vinegar too long you may end up with a sticky residue caused by the cleaner.  In this case, it's really not a big deal. You just wipe down the area you cleaned with a wet paper towel real quick before you are done.  Yeah, it may be an extra step in your cleaning routine, but I'd take it over harming my beloved pets any day! 

The specific recipe I use is as follows:

3 lemons
3 limes
24 oz spaghetti sauce jar
20 oz spray bottle