my husband and I courted. It was a new thing for my husband!! he had dated girls before he met me. my parents definition on courting is that we were NEVER alone. we always had a chaperon, ( all of my 7 younger siblings) wherever we went. my husband found the whole thing very amusing. he said it made everything more exiting:001_huh:. we had a very short engagement (3 months) I think my mum found it to stressful keeping up the chaperoning.:lol:

I use a fork if it is just to break the yolks, otherwise I use a egg beater. it has a handle that you turn, and 2 whisk thingies. I use it for mixing cake batters, and pancakes as well

I have bats that have set up a colony IN MY BEDROOM WALL. they come in above the window and do a few laps around the bed, and then scamper into a crack in the wall. I am not that pleased about it. they come home regally just before dawn every day. my husband put up a bat house just outside , but the bats prefer the wall. I know it is silly, but I am afraid of them getting tangled in my hair. I woke my husband up the other morning to tell him the bats were back, so he took of his pajama pants and stuffed them in the crack above the window!! this stopped them for a few days, but they have worked out how to get past.

we NEVER use sunscreen. we don't go swimming in the middle of the day, and cover up with thin, cotton clothes if in the sun for too long. my children have NEVER had bad sunburn.

we butcher our own meat, so a freezer is essential

Alice in Wonderland by Carroll I read this book to mine a few months back. I couldn't belive how interested the boys were !!

the closest cinama is 60km away , and tickets are $15. way out of my budget.

I have hungry boys. they have started having baked potatoes for lunch every day. I have a wood combustion stove, so all they have to do is wash the potatoes and pop them in the oven. they are eating 6 big potatoes every day for lunch. this has really slowed their eating of other things down. another thing to try is what mu mum did with my brothers ( I have 5 brothers) she made a big pot of rice, and they ate bowels full of rice , milk and honey. this really fills up growing boys, is easy to make, and is a lot cheaper than cereal etc.

we have solar hot water panels, where the water circulates through the panels and warms up. these are completely different to solar panels that make electricity. the solar hot water panels pay for themselves in about 3 years, and then it is free hot water as long as the sun shines:D. I don't know how soon it takes to re coop the amount put out for electric producing solar panels, but I have heard people say about 15 years. Here in Australia, you can produce electricity and sell it to the electric company, running your meter backwards, and then just buy electricity when there is no sun/ or at night. this is instead of getting batteries etc. to store the electricity.

It will only take about 4-6 weeks for the calf to be able to drink enough milk for once a day milking.:001_smile: I have tried freezing milk, and it looked curdled. I found skim milk worked better. but unfortunately I put it into the freezer with the frozen pork sausages. they were heavily flavored with garlic. the milk took on the flavour and was undrinkable.:D Butter is really easy. I separate the cream with a separator. and store it in the fridge. I get about 1 liter of cream per milking. When I have about 3 liters of cream, I take it out of the fridge and let it warm up to room temperature. I leave it out for at least 1 hour. then I poor all the cream into my wooden butter churn and put on the lid. I churn away. it should go through the thick cream stage, then the whipped cream stage then the really hard to turn stage and then the gaining stage. finally it gets to the butter floating in the buttermilk stage. I then pour it into a sieve. and start splodging it with my hands. butter paddles are better, but I don't have any. I splodge and splodge and rinse and splodge. I can never seem to get all the buttermilk out. :confused: then I salt it and put it in the fridge. the churning takes between 5-10 minutes, the splodging another 10 minutes, and you end up with a huge pat of butter.:001_smile: the milk has to be at least 24 hours old to work.

I milk twice a day until the milk volume drops to under 9 liters a day, then I milk only once. the other way of doing it is to let the calf with the mother all day, and separate at night. then you only have to milk in the morning;). the milk isn't as creamy then. and catching the calf can be quite a pain.

you could get a small cow, a jersey has less mink than a Holstein , they eat less too. I have a jersey, when she has her calf( due any day) she will have 16 liters a day. this slowly decreases in amount until about 10 months after having the calf it has dropped to 8-9 liters a day. we keep 2 liters of full cream milk , separate the cream form the milk with a separator, and give all the rest to the pigs. we have 2 pigs called snort and pickles. I don't make yogurt very often. we just don't eat that much of it. and I have tried making cheese. not with much success. I make all our butter though.

my father-in-law turned 85 today. my mother is 49 and my husband is 47:lol:

have you looked at " sense and sensibility" they have some lovely patterns I am in love with simplicity costume patterns. I make pattern no. 9708 for my daughter. she loves it. I have just found an Adult pattern no. 3723 which I made for myself last night. I just love the long gathered skirt and semi fitted bodice. just as well I live in the middle of nowhere and can dress as I please.:001_smile:

my children have a few chores. the 14 year old is in charge of shifting the house cow every day ( tethered) feeding the other 3 cows hay in their paddock , feeding the dog, budgies, chopping the firewood, and keeping the wood box full , mowing the house yard, and orchard and washing all the house windows every week. the 12 year old feeds the chooks, ducks, geese, lets them out and lockes them up every day, looks after watering the greenhouse. helps fill the wood-box. cleans out the cars (inside) helps keep the shed tidy 10 year old feeds the 2pigs twice a day. empties the kitchen scraps. picks up cow poo( bonus computer time for this job) looks after mister 4 quite a bit. and is on call for any job that comes to hand/ miss 8 empties the dishwasher, empties the kitchen bin, and collects kindling for the fire. mister 4 collects the eggs, and "helps" everyone with their jobs. all of the children also keep their rooms tidy, and do the dishes at dinner, they have a roster for this and take it in turns washing / loading the dishwasher,/sweeping and drying. I grew up with a list of chores, and think it is part of training to be an aldult.

I have found that as soon as the children start to argue it is time to start logic. if they continue arguing, we increase the logic from once a week . it works a treat. instead of arguments, everyone is busy looking for fallacies, etc. ( including looking for fallacies in my arguments:glare:). this worked really well with my oldest 2, the 3rd child has just started to try to argue, the oldest yelled out ' he has to start logic":lol:

having 1/2 teaspoon of salt straight can do wonders for a heat induced headace. I have found that you can drink too much water in the heat, and get a very bloated feeling, with water whooshing in your tummy.

mine all call me MUM . this is the usual thing to call mother here in Australia.

what about solar hot water? depends where you live of course. We get free environmentally friendly hot water nearly all year round

without child support I would have to go to work.

my sons regally have cow poo fights. they have never brushed their teeth with it though. they mostly have cow poo fights when they are picking up a wheelbarrow of cow poo each!

I once had a very badly burnt stainless steal pan. I had been soaking it for ages. I went to work one day, and when I came home it was clean, not only clean, but polished. I asked my DH how did he do it. he said easy. he put a pad of steal wool onto a piece of dowel, put the dowel into the drill, and polished away. it only took him a few moments.:thumbup1:.

explorers who got lost by Diane Dreher. we all really enjoyed this book.

I don't know anything really about the whole situation, but is it possible that the girl calling and being at your house is her way of asking for help? maybe she just needs time away from whatever situation she is in, somewhere safe, and has picked your place. maybe just talking to your daughter, and being with her for a few hours a month gives her the strength to carry on. please don't take me wrong, I am not picking on you at all. just trying to help. I personally know people who had very difficult childhoods, and the only thing that got them through was knowing someone stable.

I tried taking an aspirin once while having my period. never again. it thins the blood, causing more bleeding. I had to practically sit on the toilet for the whole week:glare: