Just wanted to let you know that I am indeed still here. Still on the farm/homestead. Still raising chickens even though we're only getting an egg or two every other day or so, which makes raising them kind of pointless in my opinion. We've butchered and eaten them in the past, but because they're free range birds they tougher than shit. And that means you have to use them for stew and such. We're going to be looking into getting a local butchering plant to butcher them and turn them ALL into ground chicken burger meat, which we'll use for burgers, tacos, spaghetti sauce, etc. Our birds are NOT meat birds. In fact we've weighed them after de-feathering and de-gutting them, and they way on average about 1/2 pound. Hardly worth even butchering.
Before gas prices went way up (pre hurricane Katrina), it wasn't too bad living here. Since then however, we can't afford to go anywhere unless we practically HAVE to. Driving a van that gets up to 14 miles per gallon sucks and we can't afford payments on another vehicle, so we feel STUCK :-( No kids/teens/young adults in the neighborhood that we ever see outside, and we suck at going door-to-door looking for kids for our kids to play/socialize with. And yes, I DO feel guilty/depressed about that :-( But it's just the way I am and ALWAYS have been, even before I had kids of my own. *sigh* Hence why when we can sell the house for enough to break even (or win the lottery), the plan is to get to a more populated city or town. It won't be to Buffalo, MO since their largest employer (chicken factory) went out of business and layed off around 400 people. So there aren't many places to work there that pay well enough to support a family of four with growing teens. Although I suppose the kids COULD work at a fast-food place to help pay the bills. But our DD has decided to get her GED and start college when we can afford it. My wife's bio-dad SAYS he has set aside money for the kids higher education, but until we get closer to a city, we're not asking for any. In our opinion, 16 is too young, especially for a farm girl, to move to a city on her own to attend school without we parents living in the same city/town. Before anyone suggests enrolling our kids in the local public school system... parish the thought, as the schools are having serious problems, hence why we'll be home-schooling them until they go to college or whatever they decide to do.
2 comments:
Have you read the book College Without Compromise? Written by a St. Louis homeschool family with seven kids who tried to figure out how to pay for college education for all their kids and keep them out of bad college situations when they were first starting out. Lots of info on CLEP tests (to test out of college classes and yet still ahve it count towards your degree), distance learning, financing, etc. Our 14 year old is wanting to start studying for a couple of CLEP tests and hopes to ahve passed some by the time he graduates from homeschool high school. Just a thought. Oh! And the College Without Compromise people are speaking to the Lebanon Area Homeschoolers October 14th at 7 PM. :) Harold and I heard them at the homeschool convention last year in Springfield and they were very good! Even though we both went to college (and I was homeschooled) we both learned some tips and tricks to getting a college education cheaper, faster and safer.
~~Melissa~~
No, haven't read the C-W/O-C book, yet. Thanks for the reference :-)
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