Welcome!

Hello and Welcome to my rant! I have created this blog to share my experiences as a new stay-at-home mom and homemaker (and student, but that is beside the point.) I love surfing the net, but I get tired of reading blogs by all those perfect people- you know, the people whose kid never cries because she's being worn in a sling while mother perfect whips up a low-fat meal with a salad. Father Perfect comes home from his office job and does the housework so Mother Perfect can stare adoringly into her baby's eyes. (GAG, PUKE, GREEN WITH JEALOUSY) So if you want to hear Mother Perfect talk about life witht he Perects, now would be the time to hit your BACK button.

I'm blogging about a real family. My family is me, the returning to college SAHM with a bad horse addiction, my hubby, the over-worked and working out construction worker, and the Bear, who is ten weeks old and a wonderful smiley snuggly who is still trying to figure out her world (can you imagine what a headache that must be? I'd want to scream, too!) I can't imagine how angry it must make her to be so helpless. She latches onto every chance to do things like a big person. She want's to sit up and play video games with her Daddy, and she grabs for that orange that Mommy is eating but just won't share (mean Mommy, not even a taste for the Bear!) My "other kid" is my horse, Sunday. He is the sweetest appendix QH gelding in the world. He's got a pretty good life other than being a highly trained and talented horse who is near bomb-proof saddled with a neurotically under confident owner who really likes the quest to fix his hoof problems more than riding him. (Success draws near.) We also have two dogs, the sweet and silly Grimmauldus (named after a Black Templar captain out of Warhammer 40K) and the Roka, my spitz-mutt. Their best friend is POY, a cat whose stripes spell P-O-Y and who likes to eat dog food and try to bark at stink bugs.

On top of starting college again, and probably re-opening the horseshoeing business, we have decided to embark on a plan of healthy eating, so I am going through a good bit of the Nourishing Traditions cookbook, by Sally Fallon. Again though, I lack the pseudo-religious devotion that so many have towards their food. I make bone broth and soak grains, but I also try to cut down on costs. A $250 a week grocery budget? Even with the husband making the big bucks, that's just excessive. So I don't buy everything organic. I buy meat from the local slaughter-house which is owned by a friend. He gives me liver and bones and heart for free. Most of his stuff is local, and to be honest, I think it is better than most "organic" stuff. My horse lives with his cattle, which are turned out to pasture 24/7. They get a little grain to fatten up for slaughter, but that's all. His suppliers are the farms in the area that I can't drive by and see cattle grazing or sleeping in the sun.

My eggs come from the woman across the street. Her chickens and ducks run around and pick bugs out of her Appaloosa horse poop and eat the grain that drips out of their mouths. Her eggs are delicious, better than the "organic" eggs at the store.

In the summer, I buy produce from the farmstand. In the spring I plan to start a garden, though it will be a bit of work because I have to go with raised beds. Veggies don't grow so well on hard-pan on the side of a mountain.

Well, that is what I will be writing about- my boring life. And my rants.