Perky Gramma Teaches

Thursday, April 20, 2017

"Butterfly Circus" & Mr. Perky the Druid

Technically Mr. Perky is not a druid. In my family we spin tales all the time. Rather an imaginative group.

When we first met Mr. Perky was very turned off by established traditional church – proclaimed he was the only member of the Church of the Hermitage (a place of religious seclusion), who stayed home on Sundays and watched reruns of Star Trek in his underwear. I was a de-churched Christian.

The story that ensued over the years pulled from classic Celtic legends, was he would pilgrimage to Stonehenge, hugs trees etc. The reality is that he is simply a person whose family had extremely painful interactions with church and churchy people.
One month after we were married, my faith journey grew back into a strong relationship as a follower of Christ.

I believe the most important thing to know about me is that I REALLY love God and Jesus.

This influences my POV and everything I do. It gives me spiritual stability, which I personally feel is the first essential for living life.

You do not need to believe like me to be welcome on this journey; for truly everyone is welcome here. Recognize this is the very core of who I am and God will come up.

A vision statement outlines where you want to be. This communicates both the purpose and values of my life. It answers the question, “Why am I here?”

My vision statement is:

“love God, love others, it's simple” (Matthew 22: 34-40)

A Mission statement talks about HOW you will get to where you want to be. This defines the purpose and primary objectives of my life. It answers the question, “What do I do?”

My mission statement is:

“entice the skeptic, challenge the lukewarm & ignite passion in the believer.”

I believe these statements epitomize my journey here with you on being prepared. My heart breaks for the disenfranchised, those typically marginalized by society. It motivates all I do.

Mr. Perky and I have always maintained a strong mutual respect of each others faith journey.

This video entitled “Butterfly Circus” is worth the viewing. I feel it describes my faith journey well. It's not preachy, I promise.

So now you know a little more about me...

Welcome to the journey.

Perky Gramma's Biscuits Recipe

Butter biscuits is one of the first things I ever baked. This is my recipe from a children's cookbook I got when I was about 4 or 5. At that point I lived in the great state of New Mexico. I got my beloved cookbook for free by sending in the Pure Sugar label on a postcard, as you can see in the video commercial I've posted below.
The best thing is as a prepper, I have 100% of the ingredients stored. I was noticing though I only have one pastry blender. Living on the farm, away from a quick trip to the grocery store, I am saving lots of money cooking again
We didn't have the Food Network when I was a child, my little treasured cookbook is still with me and is over 50 years old. Pretty amazing to me.

Flaky Butter Biscuits
2 C. sifted flour
4 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1/4 C. soft butter
2/3 C. milk
1. Turn on the oven and set at 425 degrees.
2. Sift the flour, add baking powder and salt and sift again into a mixing bowl.
3. Add the butter to the flour mixture. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender of 2 knives. Continue blending until mixture looks like course crumbs.
4. When well-mixed, add the milk all at once. Stir with a fork just til the dough follows the fork around the bowl. Don't stir too much as it will make the biscuits tough.
5. Sprinkle a little flour on a board and rolling pin. Dust hands with flour and knead the dough about 10 times.

6. Roll out the dough until it is about 1/2 inch thick. Cut with a biscuit cutter, or a glass or I actually used a ring from my canning jars.
7. Place biscuits on a lightly greased baking sheet.
8. Bake at 425 degrees for about 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Here is that commercial.

What I do here is simply share our journey of becoming debt free, teach vintage skills and living a new life on our farmette. We would love it if your joined our Perky Gramma Teaches community on Facebook, comment or share. Plus it would just make my day.

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Tuesday, March 21, 2017

No Bake Cookies

When you live at least thirty minutes from any grocery store, it pays to have what you need on hand. I not only have what I need, I have (a lot of) back-up stored. Today was a prime example. I have a friend who is having a very quickly scheduled surgery and our small group is providing meals for the family. These need to be gluten free and have no salt. Easy peasy. My go to gluten free dessert is No Bake Cookies and almost everyone loves them.

My Faded Recipe Card:

Dump the first items in, boil for a couple minutes. While I was adding ingredients I need to replenish my sugar and Hersey's Cocoa. I always have extra on hand. Sugar and cocoa are some of the items that you are able to store for a VERY long time. I have tons of both on hand.

After boiling then add vanilla, peanut butter and oats. I also make my own vanilla extract. It is so simple to do, only takes about 10 minutes to prepare.
Stir, then I pour the cookies out onto parchment. I don't drop them into cookies, I smooth it out and then cut into squares when cool.

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Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Snowmageddon Preperation

I have to confess that I chuckle when everyone is running around last minute preparing for an impending snowstorm. It really is simple and easy to develop your Basic Disaster Supply Kit, unless you LIKE hustling the store with the hoard to pluck that last roll of t.p. from the shelf. With a little time, money and effort you could be prepared next time. This is a picture of what I put together for my mom. It will give you an idea of the types of food and other equipment to put in your kit.

A basic emergency supply kit (I got my mom a plastic bin to store her kit in the closet) could include the following recommended items:

Water, one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, for drinking and sanitation. I actually recommend a gallon & a half to two gallons a day per person. One gallon is barely enough for drinking. NOTE: DON'T get the type of water in the milk carton type jug. It will leak over time.
Food, at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food. Preferably food that doesn't require extra water.
Battery-powered or hand crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries for both

(My mom's hand cranked power radio and her kerosine lantern)

Flashlight and extra batteries, matches or lighter.
First aid kit
Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation
Manual can opener for food
Local maps
Cell phone with chargers, inverter or solar charger
Toilet paper

I would recommend some sort of heat source even if it is just emergency blankets. Through a modern miracle called the internet, you are able to actually buy most of this stuff online.
Go ahead and do it now. When it arrives, put it in a bin and in a closet. Avoid the last minute race to the store next time, because you have everything you need already. Next time you will be able to chuckle like me.

First you can actually shop for food and other items at Walmart. In a lot of areas, you are able to shop online and arrange to pick it up outside the store and they will put your order in your car. It's pretty nifty.

I have done some shopping for you. These are some of the items I have in my personal emergency kit. The first item, a lantern is fantastic! It produces a lot of light & you can actually heat a cup of water, soup etc, on top of it, if need be. You will want extra candles. Your order is so very appreciated, because anything ordered through my Amazon Associate links helps me to be able to stay home and write for you.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

TIP: Save Money With Cloth Not Paper

It is rather amusing to me when I see tips, hacks and instructions on how to make reusable or un-paper towels.
TIP: They are called rags, cleaning clothes, & napkins. Personally it is one of the ways I save a lot of money. As you see here, I use cloth napkins, dish clothes, dish towels and even handkerchiefs. Over the years I have collected some really cute ones and have some wonderful vintage ones from my mother in law. I had to learn how to restore some of the vintage linens.

Next, if you haven't discovered microfiber cleaning clothes, I highly recommend you try them. I have a supply of new ones and when they get ugly looking, I make them with an "X" and throw them in my cleaning basket. These are ones that I use in place of paper towels. These are used for all sorts of dirty jobs like to mop up spills, I even use these clothes when I am cooking greasy foods like fried chicken. if they are used for a really dirty job, I pre-soak them with a little Charlies Laundry Soap before I place in the dirty clothes basket.

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Vintage Skill: Map Reading

I love a road trip! Recently I was traveling the back roads of North Carolina and my GPS wasn't telling me what I needed to know. So, I stopped at a gas station to purchase a paper map. Low and behold, I was REALLY surprised they didn't carry one single map in the store.
Thankfully, I had couple east coast maps, including a book of maps in my vehicle. It dawned on me that we have become so dependent on technology, that paper maps are becoming extinct to a degree. I also realized that this is a skill that we aren't teaching to our children. Now I am determined to teach my grandchildren the art of map reading.
Over the years, I have traveled by car to a lot of places. When my son was about 5, I started teaching him how to read a map. Actually it started out as a way to keep him occupied - this is way before children had Game Boys and phones. It also required him to figure out the answer to "are we there yet?". Because he was in charge of locating where we were AND how far it was to our destination. We made a game of map reading.
North/South East/West: One of the first things he learned is that North/South roads were always designated by an odd number (I-95) and East/West roads are even numbers (I-70, I-66). Roads that circled around cities were roads like 295, 495, 395.
Mileage Markers: My son was always good at math. We would determine how many miles the road was across the state and then used the mileage markers to determine how far we had come or how far we were from the state border. he was way better at this than I was.
Name the States: This was a game he came up with. He would name a letter and I had to come up with the state names that began with the letter. Then I would give him a letter.
Biological GPS: Well, we didn't have a GPS so I would have him determine what our next maneuver would be...like the next road was I-81, his job was to track that road by road signs and keep me posted on when it was coming up and when to get ready to turn off.
These are just a few ideas for games we actually played when traveling. It made our road trips go a lot faster and I don't think he ever asked me "Are we there yet?"
So, buy a road map and make traveling a fun learning experience.

Your order is so very appreciated, because anything ordered through my Amazon Associate links helps me to be able to stay home and write for you.

Friday, June 24, 2016

SEX in the garden...

Well now, did that get your attention?

I like to say “there are questions a newbie doesn't even know to ask”. That is certainly true about gardening.

It's my second year gardening. As with most of the new things that I am learning & asking questions about, I just start researching.

I actually found this a little humorous, so gentle readers I hope you are not offended. Life on the farm is about sex. Life in the garden is about sex.

Mother nature has a sense of humor when it comes to sex in the garden. Take the yellow crook neck squash.

There are male flowers and female flowers both on the same plant. Sort of like Romeo & Juliet, they are so close, yet so far away.

How do you “sex” a flower? It is really easier than you think.

There are two ways to determine which is which. First we will start with the stem.

Boy stems are straight. Girl stems have a little bulge.

Gently pull the petals back and inside what do you see.

Well, check the inside if the inside matches you ah, down below...then that flower is the same sex as you are. A little boy flower looks like a male. The little girl flower looks more like a female.

Now, if you remember the birds and the bees talk from when you were younger, the boys have to pollinate the girls for there to be babies; I mean fruit.

There are more boy flowers than girls flowers. If you are having issues with squashes developing on your plant, you may need to assist mother nature.

You take just the inside of a boy flower and sort of jiggle it around inside the girl flower. That allows the pollen to drop inside and fertilize the female flower.

Well evidently my boys and girls have been playing well together, since I have been getting a lot of squash.
But, I certainly learned a valuable lesson today that will help me in my future gardening endeavors. Skills I didn't know I would need for gardening.

Irems I have used this week:

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