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Hello I’m Janet Davis and welcome to Food Plus Freedom Podcast. Today is January 16th, 2024 Episode 13, Dump Your New Years Resolutions for seasonal or situational adjustments. I hope everyone has had a safe and happy New Year and you’re adjusted to the year 2024. You might even be thinking, How did you get here? Well, who knows but we’re here. We might as well have a great time and live a great life.

Remember Food Plus Freedom is a solutions based podcast and website for freedom loving people. Where you get solutions about food, supplies, and finding freedom for your family without always being dependent on big government, big business, or big agriculture.

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Now on with the show.

What goals or resolutions do you have for 2024? And do you really think they’re going to work? I’m not saying New Years resolutions and New Years Goals aren’t a good thing. It just seems to me that people don’t normally accomplish them. Don’t get me wrong I’ve fallen into this group group of people in the past and I have failed, okay maybe I didn’t fail, I just didn’t complete them. So I learned what not to do. For some reason when we make a New Years resolution some mystical powers will oer come us because it’s a new year allowing us to succeed but that usually doesn’t happen. Changing how you do something because of a goal can be earth shattering and change your world in a positive way.

If you haven’t guessed, I don’t do New Years resolutions any more. I do readjustments throughout the year to get to my next goals.

Maybe getting through this last situation or season of 2023 will be enough for you to make some changes. But let’s not call them New Years resolutions. Let’s cal them seasonal and situational resolutions that you follow through on and ecome very successful.

Situational means when you’re in the middle of the situation or just finishing it. You’ve decided something needs to be changed. You’ve learned lessons from whatever situation you were in, and have decided ways to make it better, so the next time you have to do that task, it’s better. For instance the next time you decide to buy an animal or plant a garden, you’re going to do it a little be differntly because of that situation you’ve you’e gone through, you’ve learned and you’ve made a point to make it better.

Unless you can make the change immediatlely, and sometimes we can, sometimes we can’t, make sure you write your thoughts and I mean all your thoughts. What you want to change and what trigered you to want to make those changes come about. Because alot of times it might not e until the next season or the next year That you’re going to mkae those changes. Make sure you remember where you wrote this infomration down, if it was on your computer, your phone or a pad of paper. Because when next year comes around you’re going to find them very quickly.

It’s a good idea to look over what youre ideas for change every once in a while. Well one you might get some good laughsand you will get great insites to move forward from where you are to where you want to be.

By doing a seasonal or situational adjustment you make a decision for a change as you’re involved. You’re also making a committment to yourself that you want somethign better. By putting it on paper, or telling a family member you’re committing are committing to the changes you want done. And then when that situation happends again you know what you need to do. It can be as simple as rememebering to have all fencing available before the animals are moved. Or as complicated as revamping a kitchen because the floor broke.

I’ll never forget, or rather my husband will never let me forget the year I decided to buy more chickens then we knew what to do with. It was a simple mistake in my opinion. We had a budget for how many chickens we could order and I was determinned to get as many meat chicksas I could for that amount. If you know anything about buying chickens, the more you get the cheaper each chick becomes. I figured we would do 50 but when I went to order them, because the price came down as I ordered more. In fact at 100 the chhicks became really cheap and I wasn’t paying any more money than I would for the 50. So I ordered them and then forgot all about them. Why did I forget? Mainly because we were ordering so late we couldn’t get them until mid July and I just got involved in other things. When the post office called that we had live birds to pick up and please come them quickly, they’re very loud, we weren’t prepared to raise them. We were prepared for butchering, we werent prepared for anything. Why because we had so many chickens and there were not preperation or thoughts before they arrived. It was quite a learning experience. We learned how to move fencing very very quickly, in the rain and most importantly we learned to never order 100 checkens ever again.

We now have chicken areas for free ranging and moving our meat chickens around. Plus we incubate our own to have control of the supply chain and we only do up to 24 at a time. Why 24, that is what our incubator holds and you don’t always get all of them to become chicks. We also changed our feed. We will have a full podcast on chickens soon and we will get into it. But it definitely was a lesson learned.

This idea of situaional and seasonal adjustment works great for growing food. As you finish the garden season or part of the season, make notes of how you can make it bettter. As you run out of fresh food and have to rely on canned or buying, make a note of needing to grow more, or maybe less if you have too much. Or learning to grow something fresh inside, like sprouts or microgreens. If you’re not growing yet, keep track of what your family eats so you can start. If you’re not stocking food yet, do the same.

You’re adjusting and making your homestead world better with each adjustment.

So what are you planning on changing for 2024?

Here are 6 ideas from the homestead and the homestead mindset to help you decide something new for 2024. Remember, your mindset grows before your actions do.

1) Garden: Some areas of the world are already gardening. Some won’t be gardening outside until lat May or early June, while others are thinking about closing up their gardens soon, due to heat or cold. And then there are everyone who falls in between. In other words every area around the world is diferent for gardening. However this is the best time to get your seeds. Especially if you’re in the Northern hemisphere. Many seed companies have finished preparing their seeds for the 2024 grow seasson. Their catalogues are either in your mailboxes or online. I always suggest going with a smaller company, because if you have an issues you’re more likely able to speak to someone who is directly connected to how the or where they are grown and they can answer your questions.

This is also the best time to decide on what varieties you want and what methods you want to grow. Plus. you can start growing indoor crops with microgreen and sprouts just to get a jump on things. Or get ready to start seeds inside for an outside grow.

Make sure your seeds are open polinated and organically grown. Organic seeds also mean they are non-GMO and not Bio-engineered. Heirloom seeds are nice too for they have been proven over the test of time. So that would be an organic, open-pollinated, heirloom seed and yes, they do exist.

Do not get F-1 hybrid seeds. Even Organic F-1 seeds, which are great to grow you don’t want them. Because you cannot save seeds from them very easily. You don tknow what part of the hybrid will grow from the seed the following year.

Makes sure your seeds are not genetically engineered or not genetically modified. I’ve seen some articles online that say they don’t sell GMO’s to home gardeners. That’s a bunch of bull crap a olla. If you buy seeds from the Amish or other bulk seed places they can buy bulk treated and gmo seeds, then they break them up into smaller quantitites for home growers. In the past I’ve accidently picked up treated seeds from a big box store.

Treated seeds are coated with chemicals for better growth. They cannot be organic if they are treated. Right on the package it says it’s treated with, this package says, WiTii Captan Do not feed for food, animal feed or oil purposes. If you can’t eat the seed you don’t want to plant the seed.

This information is writen in teeny tiny letttering at the very top or bottom of the packages. I usually siee the information on theback of the seed pack. There is nothing in the labeling that stands out so you know you’ve bought treated seeds. These seed pack was next to organic seeds and I happen to grab the wrong ones.

The seeds will also be a different color. I’ve mainly seen the coating on peas and corn. I do not know what other varieties of fruits or vegatables big AG and gov are treating. The key is to look at the color of the seeds. The corn seed was pink instead of yellow. And the pea seeds were purple instead of green. Orange have also been used as a treated seed color.

Do not buy them, do not plant them. again look for organic, heirloom, open poliated and you’ll be fine. And don’t rule out getting seeds from a friend that believes the same way you do about gardening.

This is also a good time to decide what method or methods you’re goingto use for growing.
If you’re just starting out, grow food you really like. I also suggest growing a few plants that you’ll get results quickly like radishes or lettuce and then plant others that will take a little more time. Plant what you like to eat. Other quick growers are peas and green beans. Long growers cabbage and tomatoes.

Check out our website foodplusfreedom.com. This week we have 2 different articles available about garden. One is about seed types and the other is about gardening methods.

2) Raise some animals. If you live in the country you can raise pretty much anything you want. However, if you live in town or an apartment, you’re alot more limited to what animals you can and cannot grow according to codes. In the village near my house people can have 6 hens and no rooster. And they can’t have anything that has a hoof. Yes, your hens will lay eggs without a rooster.

I’ve seen people growin quail and rabbits in small areas where they have no land, but want to grow food. People grow them in basements, closets, garages and spare rooms. And of course if you have the space you can grow other animals such as pigs, goats, sheep, emu, and cows too. On foodplusfreedom.com under terminology there is a sectionon cow terminology if you’re curious.

3) Find more places to buy your food locally. This is the perfect time to search for farmers’ markets, CSA’s (community Suprported Agricuture), local farm stands, and talk to like minded friends. In Gilbert, Arizona their outdoor farmers’ market has tons of fresh grown and locally made food. Their weather permits growing and buying in January. One farmer told me they had 300 days of growing. I was quite amazed since I’mnot fromthe area. On the other hand the Farmers’ Markets in Buffalo, NY have either closed for the season or have gone indoors. There are still locally made food, and grwon items such as onions, potatoes, popcorn and frozen fruits and vegatables. Peole are making homemade bread, aked goods etc. You might also be able to find fresh herbs, sprouts and microgreens, but nothing compared to what one can find in the warmer climate.
Regardless this is the best time to find and start visiting those markets near you. If they’re open visit and get to know the farmers, get to know the market. If hey are closed watch for when the market opens then go.

4) Buying Supplies made in America locally or from small businesses online with the same beliefs as you. No you aren’t going to find everything you need made in the US. But you can find almost everything made from countries you want to help support. It might get tricky, you might have to do withoutt, you might have to alter whatyou want, but it is possible. The world has gone mad and we must fund our future with our consumer dollars. This means more work for us who want to empower small businesses and defunding big business as much as possible. But in the long run it willbe worth it.

If you like to shop on Amazon, don’t buy but use it as search engine. Then go directly to the store purchase it. Other market places such as Etsy and Ebay you can decide if you’re going to buy through them or buy directly fromteh vendor as well. If you can get the item from the company insead of through marketplace the company normally makes more. And it usually doesn’t cost you anymore expect maybe shipping. Look at the shipping cost as helping keep a vendor you like in business.

There is also a new site called Publicsq.com and no I don’t get an affiliate for them. They are a newer market place where you can buy directly from the business. Some businesses you can buy on the site, some you have to go to whatever other site they have linked to it. Plus they have a local areas search to be able to find local vendors in your area.

And don’t forget to take a walk around your area or ear your work for new and existing businesses that you just pass buy because it was more convienient to go somewhere else. Look for businesses on your perfered social media, talk to your like minded friends and share information.

And don’t forget to talk to your friends for I bet many of them have side gigs that you may not even know about.

The “alternative economy” or shall I say the econmy not based on any agenda is growing and not going anywhere.

5) If you’re a social media type person and feel stuck. Go find social meada that aligns with your beleifs. Find ones that are for freedom loving people, and not against you. Just make sure you’re living your life and not getting sucked into social media. People who live their lives on social media aren’t living, are they?

6) Learn a skill or maybe more than one. Learned and mastered skills are the most important aspect of growing your homestead mindset. Skills are knowledge that you have used, and noone can take them away from you. I am not talking about watching 35 videos on how to do something. Yeh, you can get the gist of it, but you don’t own the skill. I’m talking about doing and learning. Sure go watch those 35 videos on how to set up a chicken coop, then go set one up, even if you don’t have chickens yet. Go get a couple of your friends to help you build it, now you all have the skill. Find any skill that makes you more independent such as such as cooking, baking, raising food, sewing, wood work, mechanical, or even talking to people.

My grandson and I were talking about skills. He’s learning to cook now that he’s out on his own. And is not sure he likes it, but he likes to eat. The difference between learning a skill and mastering a skill is doing it over and over again. I told him to pick a few recipes and get good at them, then let me know his opinion about cooking. I’m sure he’ll get back to me.

And you don’t need to have every skill. This is where connecting with like-minded people, which is a skillthat’s very important. Then you start creating a community of people who can barter or sell to each other products and services.

Changes for Food Plus Freedom. This year our biggest situation was our tech. I’ve been trying to find better tech that isn’t part of the agenda. It’s hard because most tech companies are connected with big business, which is connected to big governmnet which we try to get away from. And it’s hard. As of right now Food Plus Freedom has been moved to a new server and hosting. It’ salso recieving a facelift. We’ve made most of the changes onthe design, but we will continue adding. Plus we are adding videos as well. And there will be more and more article appearing and reappearing that have disappeared of this transition.

We are still working on getting our podcast on all podcast providers. We are currently having issues with google and apple. If anyone has an idea, please drop us a line.

Podcasts will go live every Tuesdays and Fridays. Our newsletter will be available on Tuesdays as well with informationon homesteadng and homesteading mindset.Plu skeeping you in th eloop on what’s going on at Food Plus Freedom and our homestead. Please sign up on our website for the free newsletter so you never miss any information.

Changes On the homestead:
Are poultry flock is increasing and coming off of commercial feed. This means fodder and sprouting for the flock. We’ve done it before but are doing it with a different method. We will do a camparison and it will be online.

We want to create and expand our chicken flock to include a winter outdoor home for next winter. We realized this winter what didn’t work. We also brought in several new breeds in late October to raise and incubate more.We are working on figuring out the best sustainable meat bird we can breed, grow out, and harvest. No we do not do cornish crosses. I will defintely have a video out on this soar subject of mine very very soon.

I’ve always wanted to have a chicken garden. That’s where the chickens run around the garden to help with bugs and don’t eat the food. This is the year we will set up a small area that comes off of the outside chicken area. Sometimes we are doing more experimenting than actually knowing. But hey that’s how you gain hands on knowledge, isnt it.

There are many other things we want to change, grow, and even stop through out this year, but we haven’t gotten there yet.

Yes, stop. Sometimes the best thing to do is stop something. For instance, we are no longer going to raise pigs. We are talking with friends to raise our pig for us. This will open up space and time to concentrate on our poultry expansion and chicken garden.

And we want to document more of what we are doing to help you. Helping you find your homestead mindset and action.

Remember homesteading is a peace of mind not a piece of land and anyone can do it.
This is Janet Davis from Food Plus Freedom, Thank you for listening, please subscribe to our podcast and e-newsletter. And hang tight for the quick tip of this show.

Do you make homemade bread? Maybe you grind your own wheat or maybe you only use organic already ground whole wheat. Do you want to imporve the taste, make it softer and less dense? Then add white or Apple Cider Vinegar vinegar (ACV) to your recipe. Why? Because vinegar increases the acidity of your bread dough. Yeast needs to have an acidic environment for working at it’s best. When you ad vinegar not only does your yeast work better, it also reacts with the proteins in the flour to form better gluten bonds. But how much should you add? Too much will ruin your bread. Rule of thumb add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to 2.5 cups of flour. It doesn’t have to be exact an dit’s better to be a little under than over. Beware your dough may rise quicker and flufier too.
Now you know. Until next week!
Grow Food, Buy Local and Gain Freedom