Hello from Prince Edward Island, Canada

[shepherdskin]

Hi,

I'm Tanya, my husband is Gary and we're living a very self sustaining/sufficient lifestyle. We have a herd of dairy and meat goats that provide us with all our dairy needs, ie. kefir, cheeses, milk of course, sour cream, yogurt, ice cream, soap. We use the meat goats for meat and breeding purposes.

We have chickens and ducks which we use for eggs, meat and compost production (the goats help with that as well.) We're starting to train the goats for packing and pulling a cart. We have 55.5 acres of woodland and farmed areas. Dogs, cats and guppies round out our pet list.

We have lots of kombucha, coffee kombucha, milk kefir and water kefir going at all times. We've noticed a great deal of detoxification since we've started on them, an increase of energy and stamina (which my husband readily admits he needs help with), and he's not nearly as hungry as he used to be. We've never snacked in between meals but no longer crave foods like we would have. I'm a woman who loves chocolate but seriously don't even care if I have it anymore. When we try to think of what we'd like to have for a treat, nothing comes to us anymore. We're satisfied.

We make all our food from scratch and love the versatility that comes with the milk kefir. We use it to make sourdough starter and then use it for pancakes, breads, rolls, crackers, pizza dough, etc. We also make a fresh cheese with it and some amazing cheesecake ice cream. The only things we presently purchase are toilet paper, salt, oil, oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder. Sugar, tea and coffee for the kombucha and feed for the animals. We shop for those things about once a month, sometimes not as often.

We gather root vegetables in the fall to carry us through and preserve our fruits and so forth. Our freezer is full of duck, chicken, goose (we have a hunter friend), goat, and fish. We're building a rocket stove water heater to have hot water (we shut off our water heater when we moved here on our honeymoon two years ago and heat our water on the woodstove in the winter, solar bag in the summer (for bathing) and heat our dish water on the electric stove because it's cheaper than keeping a tank of hot water going. Our clothes are presently washed in cold water with soap we make ourselves.

Our studio will also be heated with a thermal mass rocket stove this winter but our house is mortgaged so will have to make due with typical wood amounts being burned because our insurance doesn't cover rocket stoves. We heated our house with 1.5 cords of wood last winter, not bad at all. We know many people who burned over 12 cord. Blankets over doors and windows keeps in a lot of heat. Our walls are also 14 inches thick, so it makes a great mass to hold the heat. We bank around the house with seaweed to keep out the chilly drafts.

We have fruit and berry trees/bushes that we gather from, do vegetable and fruit gardening and will be increasing the amount of orchard trees over the next several years and I like to forage a bit for my food... my darling husband isn't quite there yet, lol. He'd say it's because he's a city boy and I'm a country girl, but I'd beg to differ, he's just not bold enough to try a lot of wild foods - YET!

[southeast-isher]

Welcome along!

[spider8]

Hello Tanya and Gary and welcome

[Milims]

Hi there and welcome

[Millymollymandy]

Hi and welcome!

[MuddyWitch]

Welcome to ISH

MW