Let me start by telling you a little bit about us, so you can better see from our perspective on things. My name is Brenda and my partner in crime is Shawn, we get a great deal of joy from trying our best to live a healthy lifestyle. Keep in mind it has not always been this way for either of us. We used to smoke cigarettes, eat fast food burgers and drink as much pop as we could get our hands on. The truth is as we got older and wiser we started to take better care of our bodies.
I went to college and became a licensed Veterinary Technician and worked in that field for twenty years. One thing working with animals taught me was that an animals well being is directly related to their diet. In fact, most prescription dog and cat foods could resolve issues those animals were having from urinary blockages, obesity and even diabetes. Even though we all learn about nutrition in school and eating a proper diet, it never really clicked until I saw the proven results in my animal patients.
During that time frame, I had my son who I wanted to give the best possible food, so he would grow up healthy and strong. Like most good parents, we want our children to get further than we had in our early years, so I started to learn how to grow our own food and what was needed to live a healthy lifestyle. What I discovered was that the foods I enjoyed the most were not good for me or my family. I had to say good bye to Ho-Ho's.
The decline in the economy is another important topic that I care a great deal about. When food is grown at home and we eat more homemade foods our expenses go down significantly. I will be including a few easy to prepare every day foods under the recipe section and I will also have a large number of recipes in my book. Many foods can be made in larger quantities and frozen for later use. Preserving our harvest from the garden is also important, because when you can the foods at home you can be comforted that no preservatives are added and only the freshest fruits are used.
DID YOU KNOW ?
Pizza can be made at home in under 30 minutes and save you as much as $10.00 per pizza? Iâm not kidding, pizza crust is fast and easy to make. Pizza crust can be made in advance and kept in the refrigerator for a few days or frozen for later use.
I have also taken my pizza crust from the refrigerator and made dinner rolls from the dough when plans changed on our dinner. Having dough made up at home opens up so many possibilities. Pizza sauce can be made from almost any tomato product and the only real expense is what ever toppings you choose to add. I have included a pizza sauce recipe in the recipe section of this site.
RAISING CHICKENS
We decided to raise our own flock a couple of years ago as a means of becoming more self reliant. We started with 13 chickens that were a day old from the local tractor supply store and found out that we love owning chicken and starting seeking out more to add to our flock. What we found is a bunch of families went and bought chicks when we did and just before they were old enough to start lying they decided they were too much work and placed ads on Craigslist to find new homes for them. Some we got were very well cared for and other was truly in need of our help. We ended up with 39 hens and one very handsome rooster in all.
All of our little ladies are free range in our yard and eat a very good diet of left over fruits and vegetables. They also really enjoy grass and grain. We turned 1/2 our garage into a large chicken coop and the other 1/2 into a self serve egg pick up station. It has been working out very well and the eggs are so much different from store bought. I will never eat store bought eggs again. We are getting on average 30 eggs daily, they range from white, light brown, to dark brown. The yolks are very bright yellow and the shells are rock hard. In fact, we got a dozen store bought cheap eggs the kind we used to buy and compared them. What we found was that the store bought eggs had fragile shells and the yolk was pale and sickly looking.
I highly recommend to everyone who reads this to consider getting a few hens if you can or finding a local chicken farmer near your home to get your eggs. The health benefits are very worth it.
MY GOAL
I have spent my life trying my best to help all living creatures. I started out on my path helping animals as a veterinarian technician and now as a wildlife rehabilitator. My most passionate journey has been how to help people. I found that many people want to do the right thing in life they just are not always sure what that is. That is were I come in. I believe that eating a healthy lifestyle is a very important start to being happy. The cost of healthy food is out of reach for many families, that is why I want to show easy things that can be done at home to grow your own healthy food.
