Category — WRETHA

In a recent article, I talked about all the critters that poke, stick, sting and bite, one of those critters we deal with out here are the scorpions, and it’s the beginning of scorpion season now. A few years back, we had a rash of them inside the sky castle, we were killing one and two a night, every night. They become active after dark, coming out to hunt other insects, mostly crickets and such. I wouldn’t mind except for their nasty sting. When we had that bad rash of them, I had been sitting in front of my laptop one evening, it was warm, I was wearing shorts, I felt something on my leg next to my knee, I thought it was a fly and absentmindedly brushed my leg with my hand, that was the first time (and hopefully last time) I got hit by a scorpion, I have to say, it HURTS! (more…)

Great views

I sit looking out the window, my view is magnificent, I am looking down across a high desert mountain valley, words cannot describe the beauty of the landscape that falls below me, but this is a harsh beauty, full of plants, bugs and critters that poke, stick, sting and bite. Some might find this a torture, I find it to be my Heaven on earth.

PB and I moved out here 5 years ago this last December, in some ways it was a huge move, in other ways it felt like coming home. After buying up just under 6 acres on a mountain side, in the high desert of far western Texas, one of the first things PB did was build our cabin, what would become our sky castle. (more…)

Shoes, ladies I know you think about them a lot, and some of you guys too, but how many of you wear shoes that would let you down in an emergency situation? Ladies I talking about running around in high heels, or little flip flop sandals…

Now I’m not saying you can’t wear these kinds of shoes, but perhaps you should seriously consider stashing a more suitable pair of shoes that could be quickly accessed in an emergency. (more…)

Here’s a scenario, you are working hard, say chopping wood for winter, or perhaps you are starting your garden this spring, you have been working hard for hours, you realize it’s lunchtime, your stomach is growling, you need to refuel. Now you have some options, what to eat for lunch… often times after eating our bodies (and mind) slows down, instead of wanting to go back to work, you are looking at the recliner, or even the bed (that’s me, raising hand!)… how many times have you eaten and right afterward all you wanted to do was sleep? That is not what you want to have happen, you need to refuel and go back to work. What if I told you that what you eat can have an effect on whether you are ready to go back to work or you are ready to go to sleep? (more…)

How many of you would like (love?) to to have your own place and live for just what you’d pay in taxes? Assuming you already have a piece of land (hint, look for so called “junk” land and you can often have it for a song)… Well that’s precisely what Anna Hess and her husband Mark did. (more…)

When I moved off grid, I looked around the internet for kindred souls, I found one in Mayberry, no not the town in that old beloved show, but a man who was very tired of living in the rat race, he became infamous for his “rants” against modern society and all its trappings.

I ran across one of his articles that really touched my soul, this is about how he wants and plans to live, specifically the house he wants to build, as I read what he wrote, I realized he was practically describing our sky castle, made me feel good that another human, especially one I consider to be in the higher echelons of intelligence and common sense wants to design and live in a home that is so similar to how we built. I’m not talking about the castle look, but how it’s built, the structure, inner workings and such. (more…)

I may have found out why the apples Corey tossed to his deer were rejected by the deer, scary but true, it would seem that our so called organic fruit may be sprayed with antibiotics. I ran across this article all about it… (more…)

With the tragedy of the bombing in Boston, this is just one more reminder that we need to be prepared for as many different situations as possible. First I want to say how saddened I am by the actions of whoever is responsible, this is an unspeakable tragedy to those who were injured, killed and traumatized by this bombing, to all their friends and families. (more…)

Food is so important, unless you were raised on a working farm, most of us have no idea where our food comes from, during the last Great Depression many people survived because they were less than one generation out from the farm, many had gardens, chickens, a milk cow… now people live crammed into cities with postage stamp sized yards with HOA’s and city ordinances that keep them from growing anything but grass, and Heaven forbid they have more than a dog or cat…

There is a lost art, the art of cooking, specifically from scratch, given a kitchen from our grandmother’s time, how many of us would be able to whip up a meal? Without microwaves, without box mixes, without the frozen conveniences in pre-packaged plastic… Fortunately I’m not the only person who thinks this way, who wonders about these things.

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