Even if you have grid power here are some helpful ideas!
   Wow, it's hot! Temperatures  here in middle Tennessee are soaring into the upper 90's and 100's with humidity almost matching. Thought we'd share a few tips about staying cool!
  Try not to cook inside your home. Grill outdoors, make a camp fire, set up a "summer kitchen"- we have a small wood cookstove on our porch and we start the fire real early in the morning and get any cookin' done before the heat of the day. 
  Eat sandwhiches, salads and fresh raw veggies from the garden.
  Make fresh vegetable and fruit juices- these will keep you cool and give you energy!
Something we learned from our Amish neighbors years ago- in the evenings when the air has cooled off a bit, open all your windows and doors for the night through. Then in the morning before it gets hot again close them up and "trap" the cool air in for the day. It really works! Our house can generally stay 8-10 degrees cooler that way.
  Take cold showers!
  Go to the creek, river, pond, or garden hose! We have found that the best way to cool down is water. The colder the better!
  Eat lots of watermelon. It has electroclytes in it and can help replace any you lose from sweating.  Here are a few drink recipes we really enjoy during the summer:
"Live" Water
To 1 quart fresh cold water add:
1 slice of lime
2 or 3 slices of cucumber
2 or 3 sprigs of fresh mint. Keep cool in fridge and drink as needed.

 Vicki's Lemonade
In a quart jar add:
1 fresh squeezed lemon
1 pinch of cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tsp. maple syrup {or more for your liking}
Fill with fresh, cold spring water, screw on lid and shake real good. Enjoy!

Have A Happy Heat Wave Y'all!

   

My adventure with cooking on a wood stove started years ago when the children were still very young.  We had just bought a wood stove at an auction to save money on our heating bills (that was before we were totally off the grid like we are now) and that little stove put off great amounts of heat.  I remember being so proud about being able to start my own fires!  Well, that stove top was so hot that we put kettles of water on to humidify the air and use for tea water. Then I thought that maybe I could heat up some beans on the stove top, too! Now that was a big hit - heat my house and heat my beans at the same time! Talk about two birds with one stone. Wow, what a stove! So heating beans led to cooking beans, soups, stews and more all on that little wood heater bought at an auction for little or nothing. I loved it and I was hooked on cooking on a wood stove. 

A few years passed and we were able to get a real wood cookstove-a Kitchen Queen.  It is huge, takes about 6 or 8 men to move it, but it is the homesteaders dream of cooking and heating efficiently and frugally.  We love it!  I have been cooking on it for 15 years now and not a season goes by that we haven't used it to its full extent. That stove has been the heart of our home and has done more than heat our house. It has provided warm meals on the stove top, hot bread from the oven, boiled our water for washing dishes and taking our baths, dried our herbs, simmered the tea, raised the bread, heated irons for wrinkled clothes, baked our beans, baked our pies, melted bees wax for our candle making, dried our clothes, warmed new born puppies, chicks and more! Most of our recipes have been tested and tried on our cookstove, but they have been written in a format easily used for any type of stove you may have, although, if you have never tasted food cooked with wood the old fashioned way - boy, are y’all missing out.   There is definitely a delicious difference in the taste.

Find this, and other stories, in our Homestead Blessings Cookbook!
Also watch Homestead Holiday Pies to see us using our wood heat oven.

Y'all stay warm!
 Vicki for Homestead Blessings

In the recent past we have been frequently asked the question, “how do you actually live without electricity?” In response to those who asked and to any of you who may be also wondering, here is our answer.
  We have been off grid for about 17 years now. For 7 of those years we had our water hand pumped {from a spring} on the back porch {summer kitchen} and had an out house too.  We now, with gravity flow spring water, have a wonderful in-house bathroom! Most of the time we use kerosene lamps for light  and of course the natural sunlight in the day. The nearest power lines are about 4 miles away! Our wood cook stove is for heating {our only source for heating} and of course cooking, heating water and more. We have learned that we don’t really need all the gadgets that we are condition to believe we need. Also, that electric meter {like we used to have} is running {charging you money by the second} whether any appliance is being used or not! Big wheels keep on turning! The bill you pay, pays for more that just the energy you use. Think about it- better yet do research on it! We prefer alternative energy- water, wind, solar etc.,but we don’t have or use allthese sources. We learned at first that a good wood cook stove, gravity flow water, and a few oil lamps will get you going. We do juice a lot and use a vita mix. These do take power- in the last few years we attained 3 small solar panels and a few batteries to run these useful tools. We also have a generator that we use only at certain times if we need to. It’s nice, but we are not dependent on it, good thing with the price of fuel these days! We sew totally on foot powered, treadle sewing machines. We wash our dishes by hand and we have a James Washer to wash clothes that we use in nice weather {you can find these in Lehman’s Catalog}. We do use a wonderful old wringer washer {a Speed Queen} let me tell you, those machines were made to last, folks! We use it when it is very cold, it’s powered by our generator for now, but we are looking forward to adding a few batteries to our little solar system and getting our wringer washer going without using gas! We grind our wheat with a Country Living hand-cranked grain mill. We had a neighbor attach it to an old exercise bike so now we can all take turns peddling our grain mill! It works great and you can get great exercise! Before you know it you have beautiful, fresh ground whole wheat flour ready to bake with! For the few things that we do freeze, we rent a freezer space about 4 miles down the road at a neighbors house {where they have electricity hook up}. But we mostly can and dry our store of food and of course harvest fresh right out of the garden in season. We love to work and make things with our hands and use our heads when we go about using energy. We are for tools of all kinds, and we are learning to be good stewards of what resources we have been blessed with! Hope this had been helpful to y’all!
                                                           Vicki at Homestead Blessings