Happiness

I woke up with that silly little kids song "If your Happy and you know it" rambling in my head this morning.  And got me thinking about happiness.   Some of us are born happy.  But the rest of us have to work at it to get there.  I was a bitter self serving individual when the gospel walked into my life and slapped me into reality.  Satan will pull out all stops to make us miserable and unhappy.  He knows in the end he will lose and wants as many of us as he can get to be miserable and unhappy with him.  So my dear friend, BE HAPPY!  

I know its hard some times but you can do it.  I joined the church in 1974.  It was hard and it took time but the gospel light now fills my soul.  Back then I was an alcoholic and that might of been my best quality.  My church family gathered around me and prayed and fasted and took me into their homes and I gave up the drink cold turkey.  It was bad at first, DT's, the whole ball of wax.  But I did it.  Satan tried hard to win me back.  For 5 years, every sign of trouble I could taste beer.  I rarely drank beer, I had gone straight to hard liquor.  But Satan still tried to get me to just take another sip. In case you are wondering, 5 years was my refiners fire.  I had been married for 4 years and my husband had lost his job and we were reduced to $403 a month unemployment with a $400 on Deed mortgage.  If we were 10 days late, we lost our farm.  So we were living on $3 a month.  My sister got into trouble and loaned us her 3 kids during this time too.  We thought we had a year supply but adding in 3 teens wiped it out in just a few months.  We passed the kids over to grandpa and went into survival mode.  It got so bad we were gleaning fallen corn out of harvested fields to eat.  Fallen corn is usually moldy and very nasty.  I turned to the Lord and Satan finally gave up on me.  More of the gospel light filled my soul.  I was getting there but had a ways to go.

We found a family wanting to move into the country so we traded homes with them.  We moved into their home in Kansas City.  We were there for 2 years.  We fixed up their home and sold it and moved into a rental until we got another house in the country.  We ended up buying a piece of land and building a small home.  We were up to 2 boys at this point.

My husband worked for Ford Motor Company, making cars in their KC plant.  The 1979 lay off was the longest one but they always called him back.  And to show you that prayer works, a month before our first son was born my husband got called back to work for 3 weeks and then got laid off again.  That gave us insurance again for 3 months, enough to cover the hospital and doctor through the end of the pregnancy.  I recently ran across the hospital bill for that event and my husband and I both smiled brightly looking at it with the big stamp at the bottom saying "Paid in full by insurance".

Our next refiners fire happened in this house.  My husband was unhappy at work, really unhappy.  I was expecting son #3 in 1989 when my husband suddenly showed up at home when he should of been at work.  He had gotten so mad at work that he quit.  But he had gone and joined the Army a couple of weeks before so it was ok, he said.  This was more of my husbands refiner fire then mine. He had to redo basic training.   My doctor and I decided we didn't want to deal with the military insurance so she induced labor 2 days before my husband shipped out.  He shipped out and I was home alone with 3 kids and trying to sell our house.  I got it sold in time to meet him in west Texas.  I had to pay off some guys bar bill and his wife's bill at the dress shop so they could qualify for the loan but I got it sold.  And we got a 4 year vacation from Ford Motor Company.  Yeah they took him back 4 years later when my poor husband learned there was something worse then the assembly line.

 
We finished up that 4 years in Maryland just north of Washington DC.  It was an educational experience for our sons.  I took them to DC 3 times a week.  I volunteered  at the Smithsonian so we got to see and do things that others couldn't.  We were all ready to go home to Missouri when the 4 years was up.  The Army wasn't willing to totally turn lose of him so he had to join the Army Reserve.  They had 3 day drills and was a million times worse than the real Army was.  After a few months I told my husband to stop going.  I knew that would earn him a letter being put into the inactive reserves.  I had him then to run up to my old unit of the Missouri Air National Guard and join there.  He had cut the tie to the Army and was back in the Air Force.  BTW I returned to Missouri expecting twins.  My husband was back at Ford (Go UAW!) and doing once a month drills with the guard and life was back on track.

We bought a house back in Ray County on 10 acres in the country.  The year was 1993 and it was the year of the flood.   I felt like a beached whale.  I was so huge I could not drive and my husband had to open both side doors on our van to get me in.  The only hospital that would take me was Research Medical center in Kansas City.  We got a call from the high way Patrol telling us that the levees along the Missouri were about to break so if we thought it might be time we should run fast to Kansas City now.  We did.  We made it and it saved my baby girls life.   She was in distress and I had no idea.  They did an ultrasound  as soon as I got to the hospital so they admitted me and did an emergency C-section   The date was July 8,1993.  The levees actually broke on July 7th.  My husband was given a cot in the lobby, he wasn't going anywhere for a few days.  My very dear Mother in law had moved in with us a few months before this.  My husband is a twin, she knew I'd need help.  I really miss my mother in law and my mom.  After we left the hospital we drove to the Kansas side to share these new born daughters with my dad as he was in the hospital too.  We then had to go out of our way finding the few bridges that survived over the Missouri river to get us back home in northern Ray county.  We had friends in harden Missouri was ended up being out of their homes over 8 months due to this flood.  This was the town that lost most of their cemetery.  But I'm getting lost in my point!

Lots of things happened to put us through our refiners fire.  We need these things to make us stronger.  The more time we spend reading and studying our scriptures and in prayer the brighter the gospel light will shine in us.  Light always over takes darkness.  Satan will never win, he knows it.  So turn away from his darkness and be happy.  Turn away from the tools Satan uses, doubt, discouragement, lack of worth, lies.  He pulls all the stops out and try's to throw us off track.  Don't let him in!  Turn to the light!   Turn to Jesus.  

A few years ago we got a call from my husbands doctor telling us the cancer was back and spreading.  I was so over come I had to run.  I had to take me away from my husband so he couldn't see me this discouraged.  I grabbed our small tent, the cot bag, the sleeping bag and  anything else I could carry and fled to the other side of the lake.  Over there I was able to cry a mountain of tears and pray my heart out.  It took me 3 days to work through it but I returned to my husband with the bright gospel light glowing and knowing all things are in Christ's hands and with Him I can handle it.   We've been led to doctors who were willing to share with us and we are hopeful that we can defeat this cancer with diet and herbs and what ever happens is in His hands.

I'm in the 7th reading of the scriptures.  Reading them all the way through each year is the greatest thing I've done.  I have a terrible memory so I can't quote scriptures but I know when someone quotes a scripture if they have it right or have taken liberty with it.  Every year when I reread the scriptures I continue to have new incites and understanding.   I'm in my 60's so my body is wearing out.  I know to do any work I have early in the morning.  By afternoon I am worn out and just can't do anymore.  But I get done what needs to be done and realize I have entered a stage in my life where I can't do everything anymore.  

With the gospel light glowing brightly within me and I have peace.  I am content and I am happy.


Blessings to you each,
Cherlynn
brchbell@yahoo.com

Rambling today

I woke up to fog and its still quite foggy out there.  This has been a strange autumn.   We had lots of rain so the leaves don't have that brilliant Fall color.  But the Fall colors are a deep dark hue that changes with the days light.  Fog brings another thing to the autumn viewing.  It was lovely to walk outside and hear all the birds this morning.  Their sounds are magnified and scattered about.  It sounded wonderful and all I could see was the fog.

God created a beautiful world for us.  I love to go explore in all kinds of weather.  There is so many things to experience that gives me greater appreciation of all we have been given.

What have you found to explore this week?

Cherlynn

What do you really need if everything crashes?

We've been warned for years that things might happen and we need to have supplies set aside just in case. Not just our church authorities but the Red Cross and our government have warned us and told us to set aside supplies. Most have heard but see no reason to do so. Its one of those items you think about and then set aside because you are to busy with other things to deal with something that might happen.

You have no problems buying insurance for your car, house and even yourself “Just in case” but most don't realize that setting aside supplies is just like having insurance. How can the Lord bless you in a crisis if you never heeded the warnings to put things aside? Can he provide a miracle of letting your oil extend much longer if you never bothered to get the oil to start with?

I have personally seen miracles happen in crisis. A friend in Japan heeded my warning to lay in rice and water just in case. He was able to feed over 2000 each day for weeks with the little bit he set aside just in case. 2 cases of bottled water and 200 lbs of rice never stopped being there until they were able to get regular supplies again. He told me that was almost 2 months after the earthquake and tsunami struck before they had regular supplies again.

If you will prepare, the Lord will bless you if you ever do have to face a crisis. That doesn't mean you have to have everything you ever would need set aside but just do your best to set aside what you can.

I suggest you keep a daily list of everything you use. This will help you over time to realize what all you are really using. You might set a side food but forget to set aside toilet paper or medications you use regularly. So keeping tabs daily for a couple of weeks will help you know exactly what you are using and what you should set aside.

Each family is different and has different likes and needs. So store what you need and like so that you can eat and have what you want in a crisis. In a crisis, you are already stressed and not having the comfort foods you are use to is very important.

Store for 1 week and then extend it as you are able. Working toward having a 1 or 2 year supply is good but having what you need in 1 week supplies can help you do this in small amounts at a time. We built up to a 1 year supply and then started living on it and everything we bought at that point was replacing what we were using. This helped us rotate our supplies.

Also make sure your storage is spread out in several forms. You don't want to have everything in the freezer. The power fails and then you get the added stress of dealing with a full freezer worth of food on top of dealing with the crisis. Don't get all freeze dried meals. You will be stuck with what you got and will need way more water to use it. Having a variety and making sure it's stuff my family wants and will use is so very important. Having some easy meals for the start of the crisis is important so that you can deal with what you need to deal with and not worry about cooking.

I make up huge pots of soup and than can it into pint jars. It's already cooked and if we had to we could eat it cold. Same thing with canning up meats or fruits and vegetables. Having some freeze dried meals can make it easy for you also. I try to dehydrate some meals but I never have more that a few weeks worth in our storage.

I like to do dehydrated soup meals up into canning jars that can be vacuum sealed to use later. Also make sure you keep a wide variety of grains stored. So many are becoming allergic to soy, gluten and corn so having a variety of other grains can help you in case someone becomes allergic.

As we have been living on our food storage we discovered several of us were allergic to these grains. We've been able to use up those grains and store the ones we have learned to use in their place.

Storing what you eat is so very important! You will already be use to eating the food and you will not have the added strain of getting use to strange foods.

If you use a lot of plastic wrap you will know to store that. As you keep track of everything, you will learn over time what you should store. Not just food but everything else you use also. Don't be in a big hurry, do it right. But start today!

Blessings,
Cherlynn
 

Water

How safe is your water supply?  Most of us just assume whats coming out of the tap is safe clean water.  But the fact remains we never really know what we are drinking.  We assume its safe until something happens.

Most don't store water or just a little bit.  Most of us have no way to get more when the taps run dry.  We can't survive more than 3 to 5 days without water.  It's much more important than food. 

What if something happens that you no longer have good safe clean water coming out of your faucets?  What are your plans after your case or two of water is gone?

 Are you aware that they only test for at most 100 different contaminants?  Are you aware that our government keeps changing allowable levels of pesticides & herbicides?  They have to keep raising it because more and more of it is getting into our water supply.  That doesn't mean they think the new higher levels is safe, they just have to make it higher or none of us would have a clean water supply.  

I hear on the radio all the time about such and such community  has a boil order for various reasons, usually because a water pipe has broken.  This happens a lot in communities that have older water lines.  The summer heat, changing seasons, freezing and thawing of the ground and they just give out over time. 

So how safe is your water after you boil it?  Most of us assume its safe because our government and Red Cross says it is.  But I've always wondered what happens to the bacteria after it's killed?  When you boil water it becomes more condensed.  The bacteria might be dead but we are still drinking it and many times the dead bacteria break down into other endotoxins.  So is the boiled water really safe?  Will those dead bacteria really just pass through me harmlessly or what? 

Can I filter them out?  Can I bleach them out?

Chlorination is also very effective at killing biological contaminants, but again it kills them but it doesn't remove them or any endotoxins and it also adds in another poison-chlorine.

Filters:  All filters fail at some point.  You usually are clueless on when they fail.  Filters normally do not kill or remove bacteria.  They  "trap" stuff in the filter where they can grow and multiply.

If you are going to boil or chlorinate your water I would suggest running the water through a bag type filter (even a sock or t-shirt would work) before you treat the water.  Running the water through a bag filter will remove at least 75% of the contaminants so you would have a better chance of getting cleaner water by filtering first. 

So is there a method to get clean water?  Yes

Distillation.  Distilled water completely removes all particulates, bacteria and endotoxins.  It removes toxic metals and even removes radioactive metals from the water.  It removes petrochemicals and even removes salt.

Ok, I know distilled water doesn't taste the greatest  but at least it's very drinkable and you know it is clean.  And I personally think it tastes much better than boiled water.

About a year ago I ran across a nonelectric water distiller that excited me.  Glenn Meder invented his "Survivalstill".  Every once and awhile he offers it at a great price and he also offers paypal payment system so you can get it on the paypal credit plan at 0% for 6 months.   I also ran across a site that compares 3 different water stills: http://www.survivalstills.com/survival-stills/

I love getting emergency prep equipment at great prices and having a painless way to finance it is great too!

Glenn also puts out a E-Book "Water Prepper Safe water is everything"  that explains water in detail.  He also explains how to make a water distiller using a pot with an inverted lid with a cup or bowl tied to it.   I tried this but it took a couple batches to get enough to drink.  But it did work.

Anyway, I wanted to update the blog on water with the new changes and make sure you all had it.  Water is the most important thing we can store.  You can't store a year's supply but you sure better make sure you know how to get more safely to replace your drinking water after what you stored is gone. 

I hope this helps you & your family be better prepared.

Blessings,
Cherlynn

Growing your own animal feed

If you have livestock,  animal feeds are getting very expensive and is full of GMO stuff.  We have been feeding our free ranging chickens our food scraps to supplement their free range diet.  They do an awesome job of keeping the bug count down.  I used to see ticks climbing every where but now with our free range chickens at work we hardly ever see one near the house/barn areas.

Our first home we lived near a farmer that used to grow Milo to feed his cattle.  Milo starts out looking like corn but grows an open head full of the seeds.  He used to use a combine to harvest it and stored it in bags to feed his cattle during the winter months.  Milo is also excellent feed for chickens, goats and hogs too.   It doesn't have to be combined with a tractor.  You can go through your field and cut the heads off by hand and store them in containers to use as feed.  The chickens love this.  Ours don't go out most of the winter due to snow so giving them light during the day and Milo to scratch and play with keeps them happy.  And the bonus is they are not eating GMO garbage.  You will need to add in some form of protein with this but it works very well as an all round animal feed.

Hope this helps some of you!

Blessings,
Cherlynn

GMO's and Round up

I am always wondering why I have food allergies when most in my family don't and it has never been a problem before now.  Round up.  We live in a very rural high farming area where lots of GMO grains are grown.  GMO grains are created so that Round up can be sprayed on them and not kill the grain just the weeds.  But the grain does absorb the round up and takes it into the actual grain.  Thats right, if we eat the GMO grains, we end up eating Round Up.   There has never been any studies of GMO's being eaten by people.  Our government has continued to raise the levels of what they feel is safe levels of round up in our diets.  The reason they continue to raise the "safe"  level  is because we are being exposed to higher levels.  When it rains or snows it's raining down more Round up on us.  The Round up settles in our gut and reproduces itself there and thrives but gives us all kinds of trouble.  Leaky gut, liver and kidney disease and of course food allergies.  When you develop food allergies, every time you eat an allergen you will be tearing your gut each and every time.  Tearing the gut will cause an auto immune disease.  If those don't kill you off eventually the tears in your gut will reach a point that you will bleed to death.  It won't happen fast, but very slowly.  

So if you have food allergies you really need to avoid those GMO grains/foods.   I don't know the answer to this problem.  Being farmers ourselves that use Round Up.  It is our livelihood.   We do try to avoid row crops in areas where it would drain into our ponds.  I have no clue how to get out of our current practices but until the powers that be decide we need to change I guess it will continue.  So if you don't have food allergies yet you can count on it coming to many more folks.  If you do get food allergies please be careful as so many are jumping in with gluten free products and I have discovered that many have hidden gluten or soy or corn also in them. 

Blessings,
Cherlynn
brchbell@yahoo.com

Using cucumbers up

I found an amazing way to preserve extra cucumbers!   We use tons of cucumbers all year round and at 72 cents a piece it can get quite pricey over time.  We drink 2 kinds of drinks to help us lose weight and makes us feel much better.  The first one:

1 small or half of a large cucumber sliced up and put in a gallon container.  Slice up one lemon and add that and then add some fresh or dried mint.  Fill with water and refrigerate.  Drink 2 to 3 glasses daily.  It is a very refreshing drink!

The second one was from Anitra at http://www.simplylivingsmart.com/      Anitra has so many amazing things to share and I highly recommend her site.  It was so worth paying to get everything she has for a year.  Anyway here is her drink recipe she shared with a few adjustments:

Frozen Blueberries
1 peeled lemon
1 to 2 T. fresh ginger root
1 peeled and chunked cucumber
some fresh or dried mint
1 or 2 T. chia seeds
1/4 tsp. red pepper (I added this and it cured my stomach ulcers and DH's reflux disease)

Run all through the blender with some water until smooth.  Drink 2 glasses each day.  I put mine into glasses covered with plastic wrap and stored in the fridge.

My big find was running my extra cucumbers through my juicer for another project which I will share in a moment.  I wondered if I could freeze cucumber juice to use during the winter.  I tried it and it worked great!  So I now run one cucumber and 1 lemon through the blender and freeze it in quart freezer bags.  The one for the water blend I just freeze the juice but the blender one I add in the pulp from the juicer and freeze it all together. 

Now the project that started my mind thinking about this was making up frozen cucumber pads.  I Hair dresser daughter showed me this trick and in May used these pads on her sister.  Her sister's eyes were swollen shut with her allergic reaction to the grass pollen.  We tried all the allergy pills we had on hand but her eyes remained swollen red and itchy.  We put some of the frozen cucumber pads on her eyes and left her laying there for about 20 minutes and returned to discover that they took the swelling and red puffy eyes away.  I was so amazed so with my cucumber surplus this last week I juiced them and got several packages of the cotton pads like you use to remove makeup and soaked each one int he cucumber juice and froze them .  I put them on wax paper on large trays and now have more than 500 bagged up to use this year.  Any way my thoughts were if I could freeze cucumber juice int he cotton pads could I just freeze the cucumber juice?  So now I know I can!  

I am also making pickles but this year everyone seems to have an abundance of cucumbers and now I can probably take some along with what I am growing.  I just figured up how much we spend this last winter on cucumbers  and it was $224.64 before taxes.  That's like a months worth of groceries for us!  We are in process of redoing our food storage and I will look forward to not buying cucumbers all winter long!  I'll have an extra $20 each month to spend on food storage instead of cucumbers.  I will be bagging up 300 bogs of the cucumber juice with lemon added in to see us through until this time next year. 

I don't like to store stuff in our freezer but am very excited to have this in the freezer to use all winter long.

If you come up with ways to preserve your bounty please share with me so we can all find ways to use it all up.

Blessings!
Cherlynn
brchbell@yahoo.com