Fox Party!

Miss A had very specific wishes for her birthday this year.  She wanted a "What Does the Fox Say" party, a fox carrot cake, and BBQ from a nearby restaurant.  I was skeptical that I could pull off a fox party--while there are sellers on Etsy that make printable fox party themes, I didn't want to resort to that unless I had to.  The party was a hit, the kids had fun, and the song did not get on our nerves as much as I'd thought.

Here are some of the things that I did:

Pin the Tail on the Fox - This was so cheap and easy!  I bought a piece of foam board and chevron wrapping paper at Dollar Tree.  Wrapped the foam board with the paper for the background.  Found the fox image at SuperColoring, colored the image at the website and saved it, and then used PosteRazor to print it poster sized on multiple standard sheets of paper.  Then I cut out the fox image, cut off the tail, laminated the tail for durability, and glued the rest of the fox to the paper.  Put a thumbtack through the tail for pinning, and added text printed out from MS Word.  It's hard to see, but the speech bubble says "Jacha-chacha-chacha-chow!".

Fox Pinata - this was more difficult.  I found the inspiration at Oleander and Palm.  Even though the website said it was out of stock, I found the star shaped pinata at our local Target.  Miss A and I made a huge mess of the homeschool room ripping off the existing tissue paper, and then painted it with orange paint so that the remaining bits didn't show through.  Then I took orange tissue paper and cut it into strips and unlike the inspiration who had fringe scissors, painstakingly cut the paper into fringe and glued them on.  We filled it mainly with party favors - things like wedding bubbles, whistles, compasses, bead necklaces, etc. along with some all-natural candy.  FYI, I do not recommend the Target star pinata for younger kids.  It was virtually indestructible, and the adults ended up having to smash it open because none of the kids could, even with a real softball bat.

Michael's craft stores are a treasure trove of fox themed stuff right now!  We scored a fox stamp, notebooks for favor bags, mini-clothespin foxes, a little fox dish, thank you cards (and plain cards, which would be great for invitations, wish I'd found them sooner!) and their Creatology section has a Woodland theme that includes fox stickers and craft projects.  They also have plastic fox toys in the toy section, but our store didn't have enough for all of our guests.

Goodie Bags - just paper lunch sacks, stamped with foxes, holes punched and tied with ribbon, and names clipped on with fox clips.

Fox Masks - I found the template on illistyle.  Just 3 colors of felt, each piece of felt made at least 4 pieces, plus the black pieces are very small.  Cut, glue (I used hot glue), and attach an elastic band or ribbon to tie it on.  I had debated on having the kids make these themselves (with regular glue) but worried that they would have trouble waiting for the glue to dry.  The foam sticker kits were much easier for the kids to do.

Fox Cake - Miss A insisted on a carrot cake for her birthday, and while I had seen some cute fox cakes using icing, I had the idea of using shredded carrots (mixed with a dusting of sugar) for fox fur instead.  She used the small holes on a cheese grater to shred the carrots while I was making the cake.  I used Primal Palate's primal carrot cake recipe, and after frosting with cream cheese icing I sprinkled on the carrot fur, and then melted some Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips with a little coconut oil and used a squeeze bottle to make the eyes, nose, and whiskers.  The ears are just card stock and marker, I had initially planned to use chocolate for those too (hardened on parchment paper and attached with toothpicks), but at this point it was very late the night before the party and I ran out of time.  The cake was a hit - folks at the party couldn't believe that it was gluten (and grain) free.

Ice Cream Ball - Not a Fox related item, but I wanted to include it because it has been well worth the money.  We got the YayLabs! Ice Cream Ball a while back for a get-together, and I don't think we'll ever buy ice cream again.  Not only does it make great ice cream, you control the ingredients, and most importantly it keeps kids busy and having fun while waiting for the main event!  Just add cream (coconut cream works too!), sugar (or stevia/honey/etc.), flavoring, and roll it around on the ground for 30 minutes. 

Miss A had a blast and her friends did too, so I think we pulled it off!! 

Greek Lamb Shoulder Chops

I love it when I wing a recipe (or like this one, combine two) and it turns out amazing.  Unfortunately I also have a bad habit of not writing it down and never being able to re-create it.  This time, I will document and share it here!

I love lamb shoulder chops--they're a cheap way to get tasty, hormone-free, grass-fed meat.  Publix had them on sale this week for $3.99/lb.  Their lamb cuts (but not ground lamb) are usually from Australia, where raising lamb on pasture is the norm, so they're typically grass-fed.  I realized that I didn't have enough time to cook the chops the way I normally do in the oven.  I also was at a loss on what to serve with them when it hit me--lamb goes great with Greek seasonings, and I had tomatoes and green beans. I also had feta cheese but once I got wrapped up in cooking I totally forgot to use it.

Greek Lamb Shoulder Chops

4 lamb shoulder chops

1 tbs. extra virgin olive oil (more if needed)

salt & pepper 

1 small sweet onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

1.5 cups beef stock

1 bag of frozen fancy green beans

1 large can of diced tomatoes

Feta cheese for garnish/topping (optional, I forgot)

Heat olive oil in a large pan (stock pot, deep frying pan, or dutch oven would also work) on medium high heat.  Sprinkle salt and pepper over lamb chops, then sear for 2-3 minutes per side or until nicely browned.  Remove the chops from the pan, lower heat to medium, and saute onions until translucent (add more oil if needed).  Add garlic and cook for another minute or two, and then deglaze the pan with the beef stock, letting it reduce and darken for a couple of minutes.  Put the chops back in the pan, add frozen green beans, canned tomatoes, and seasonings.  Do your best to mix them around a bit.  Increase heat to medium high, bring to a boil, and then turn it down to a rapid simmer.  I stirred and checked the chops periodically for tenderness, but overall I believe they simmered for around an hour, lid off for the last 20 minutes to help the sauce thicken.  

I was floored by how good this was, and even my food critic Miss A kept raving about how she loved it.  I would have a picture of it plated, but we inhaled it and went for seconds!  I imagine this recipe would work wonderfully in a slow cooker, which I don't have right now.  My trusty Hamilton Beach cracked (leaving my counter steeped in chicken stock...) and I am anxiously awaiting it's backordered replacement--an Instant Pot Duo60.  It does everything--pressure cooking, slow cooking, searing, steaming, rice cooking, yogurt making, etc.  I've wanted one for a couple of years now but vowed to use my crock pot until it died.  Guess I got my wish!

Back on the Feed

I'm back on Facebook, I was away for 3 weeks though which was a pretty good run.  I've been paring down all the liked pages and junk on my feed which is helping a lot with the time wasting factor.  Our TV viewing has been greatly reduced as well, we will watch Walking Dead on Amazon tonight (trying my best to avoid spoilers) but the TV isn't on all evening like it used to be.  Miss A has been sticking to educational fare, like the Magic School Bus.

This weekend was fun, I took miss A to softball practice Saturday morning and stopped by a nearby farm for grass-fed meat and eggs on our way home.  The farmer and his family were headed out canoeing that afternoon, we had wanted to go ourselves but thought it was supposed to rain all day.   I checked the weather and the rain had been pushed back until late, so I called my husband and he got our canoe and fishing gear loaded up on the truck.  After a quick lunch we headed to Parksville Lake (Lake Ocoee) to test the plastic weld patch on the boat and do a little fishing.  Didn't catch any fish aside from a teeny bass, Miss A was disappointed that we didn't catch dinner.  She got a lot of practice casting though and is doing a lot better.  Now if she can just learn to be patient and watch the bobber instead...  The sun even came out and warmed us up, and we got a good workout paddling back to the boat ramp when the trolling motor ran out of juice.  Now that we know the patch is holding, I think our next trip out will be either the lower Ocoee or Hiwassee.  Sunday wasn't as exciting, just catching up on chores and preparing the garden for the freeze.  We had a big sheet of plastic leftover from the moving supplies that was the perfect size to staple over the beds.  I also repurposed a small step-lid trashcan from our RV into a compost bin for the kitchen.  The inner bucket has a handle that makes it easy to tote out to the compost pile.  Now I just need to stop accidentally putting things into the trash that can go into the compost!  Our tomato seedlings really took off this weekend, and to my surprise some of the Cherokee Purple seeds have finally sprouted.  Miss A is thrilled that her favorite tomatoes (Amana Orange) are the biggest and strongest of the bunch. 

Busy week ahead, after school today we'll pick up the night guard my dentist made for the jaw pain and stop by the dairy for some milk.  Tomorrow is our library day and a softball scrimmage.  Wednesday Aldi is having another sale on organic grass-fed ground beef, it's good timing because the farm we usually get ours from had a processing mishap.  While I'd rather buy local, stocking up on the rare sales like this helps stretch the budget.  Then Thursday and Friday we'll be cleaning and preparing for Miss A's 6th birthday party on Saturday!  She wanted a "What Does the Fox Say?" themed party, I've collected lots of ideas and inspiration and will do a post on it next week. 

Furry Garden Enemies

Who would have thought that the worst enemies of our garden so far are our very own cats?

These two may look innocent, but they have been digging in the raised beds.  The main culprit is Needles, the grey kitten.  I know this because she was kept indoors for a week after being spayed, and we had no incidents during that time.  We installed a motion activated sprinkler and chalked it up to that, but nooooo, the very day after we let her back out, I see one of the beds has been dug in, despite the sprinkler.  Thankfully it was one I haven't planted anything in yet.  She thought that the chicken wire I put over top of the other one was a comfy kitty hammock too.  Mr. Moo has only been guilty of jumping in the bed once because he wanted me to pet him instead of planting seeds. 


Our indoor cats are in on the action as well.  Nora, the 16 year old grumpy kitty, thinks that broccoli sprouts are delicious.  She normally can't jump very high, but my daughter uses a step stool to reach the upper shelves to water them, and guess who used it to have a sprout snack...  See the green on her lip?  Busted.

Callie hasn't been that destructive (yet...) but she seems to think that we are not going to need this tray for the marigolds and herbs I need to start this week.  She is going to be disappointed when I show her otherwise.

Bad kitties!!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I don't know how many years I have had homemade laundry detergent recipes bookmarked but never actually tried to make any.  I even lost a bar of Fels-Naptha that traveled with us through 2 moves, and the box of Borax that was intended to go with it was used on bugs in the camper instead.

I was puzzling over what I would use to store it when I realized I had a big #10 can of banana chips in storage that I had promised to open for my daughter.  I even found a printable label here to make it all fancy.  I based it on the recipe from One Good Thing by Jillee, which is a "trial size" batch.  I typically use liquid detergent, but was willing to give this a whirl because liquid recipes are more difficult and make huge 5 gallon buckets full.  I didn't have OxyClean, but a commenter said that it wasn't necessary so I just left it out.  I also used plain epsom salts in place of the crystals.  This isn't a super natural recipe unfortunately because of the fragrance in Biz, but I am still searching for a fragrance free enzyme booster.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

1 bar grated Fels-Naptha soap
3 cups Borax
2 cups Super Washing Soda
3/4 cup baking soda
1 cup epsom salt
1/2 cup Biz enzyme booster

All of the ingredients should be easy to find, I got mine in the laundry section of my local Publix.  I used a rotary cheese grater to grate the soap, it took no time at all.  Combine all the ingredients and shake to mix.  That's it!  Based on comments from the original recipe, I use 1 tablespoon per load in my HE washer, it would be 2 in a regular top loader.

I tested it out on a load of towels, putting the powder directly in the washer rather than the dispenser.  It worked amazingly well!  I didn't use any softener (usually I do vinegar), and they came out fluffy, soft, no static (!!!), and yet still absorbent!  WIN.  I'll update later once we've used it on clothes for a couple of weeks, but I'm already impressed. 

Art & Science in the Kitchen

Yesterday we had fun with food coloring.  I don't use it in actual food (petroleum based dyes that are banned in some countries, yum) but bought some for a couple of art/science experiments.  First we made swirly art with milk.  She put a few drops of food coloring into a bowl with a shallow layer of milk (will not work with skim, needs to be whole or at least 2%).  Then she dragged a q-tip dipped in dish soap across the surface to make swirls, which I explained was a reaction between the soap and the fats in the milk.  It was really cool to watch, however I strongly suggest covering your workspace in newspaper, as we now have some rather bright colored stains on our unfinished butcher block island to remind us of this project...

 Then we moved on to making gluten free play dough from a recipe I found here.  She was quite thrilled to be using the stove on her own for the first time, which reminds me that I keep meaning to do a kitchen skills day soon...

The dough did not turn out quite as well as we'd hoped, probably because I had to substitute tapioca starch for cornstarch.  Still, it was fun to make and she enjoyed playing with it, even though it wasn't quite as doughy as it should have been.

I think our next food coloring project will be Borax Bouncy Balls.  And this time I will buy some corn starch just for the project, and resist the urge to use it for a quick gravy.  :P

Raw Milk Fast

We started the milk fast on Monday.  We haven't been perfect, both my husband and I gave in to a snack in the late afternoon, but most of our intake was from raw milk, along with a kefir and berry smoothie at dinner time.  I actually felt somewhat ill after the snack (a teeny slice of leftover gluten free pizza) so I guess that was a good reminder.  I went back and read newsletters from when Free The Animal did his raw milk/kefir intervention, and he had good success with it even with easing into it and having food occasionally, so I don't feel so bad.  I felt fine for most of the day, a bit hungry but much less than I expected.  I did get a headache in the early evening, we were working in the garden and I suspect it was from dehydration.  I haven't been thirsty because of all of the fluids from the milk, but I've also been going to the bathroom a lot so I'll have to make sure I get more water in along with the milk.

The weather is so strange, it was sunny and 72 on Monday, got up around 80 yesterday, and yet it's going to turn bitter cold tonight.  I really hope this is winter's last gasp.  I continued to have a headache all day yesterday, not sure if it's detoxing from the fast, dehydration (I am drinking water too), or a potential tooth issue seeing as I've had an achy jaw for several days.  I don't think it's caffeine withdrawal because I am still having a shot of cold espresso in my morning and mid-afternoon cups of milk.  I put down the chicken wire and weed barrier in the new raised bed, took my daughter to softball practice, and ran a few errands, and that really wiped me out.  I kinda see why the original medical milk diet called for bedrest...  Unfortunately, all the working outside has caused me to neglect indoor chores and I have to play catch up on those.


My husband and I have decided that once we finish the milk that's in the fridge we are going to switch over to a strict Paleo style diet for the rest of the month.  It's been difficult to drink enough milk (or carry enough with us) to sustain our current level of physical activity, and that isn't negotiable because we have to get the garden going in time for spring.  Still, it's been an interesting experiment, and I might try it again during a more suitable time when I'm able to incorporate more rest.

Raw Milk Fast...Fail.

I know that I announced our raw milk fast earlier this week, but it's been a rough start.  We ran out of milk and had the dairy's milk schedule wrong, so that pushed things back until Wednesday.  Then Aunt Flo and Uncle GI trouble showed up (they tend to come together) and the latter made keeping myself satisfied and hydrated difficult.  My husband forgot his thermos too, so all in all it's been a fail week.  We're going to start back up with it Sunday, with the hopes that starting on a weekend will help us get a better hold on it.  Saturday is super busy and involves a lot of running around, but Sunday we'll have a day where we can just get into the hang of drinking just milk, enjoy the warm weather, and work on building the second raised bed and a compost system.  I'm looking forward to it, especially right this minute because I made a bad choice for lunch (GF fish sticks) and I'm suffering from the "food funk".  Racing heart, dizzy, etc. as my body struggles to digest it.  I didn't have this trouble at all when I was just drinking milk.

We have still been limiting TV, not entirely but a definite reduction, and I'm still off of Facebook.  Finished the Divergent book series ::sobs:: and now need to find something else to read, maybe I'll finally crack open the books about backyard chickens, composting, etc. that I've amassed in recent months.  My daughter just finished school for the day, now it's time to re-pot our tomato seedlings!  I'll have to take special care with the Cherokee Purple, only a few seeds sprouted and those are the ones I'm looking forward to most.  The sun is out and she is begging to go outside and finish planting peas in the garden.  C'mon food funk, go away, I have too much I want to do today!

Belated Intro Post

Hi, I'm Meesha.  I've been posting to this blog for a couple of months now, but haven't had the courage to announce to anyone that it exists...until now.

The main point of Traditionally Primal is to document and share our journey into living a more sustainable and healthier lifestyle.  Traditionally = eating local pastured meats/eggs/dairy, gardening, canning, raising chickens, fermented foods, natural cleaning and health, homeschooling, etc.  Primal = Primal Blueprint, the book that inspired me two years ago to ditch grains, drastically clean up my diet, and discover the source of several health issues.  Prescription bottles as a daily fact of life are a thing of the past. 

We've had many false starts, but for some reason I am feeling a serious push to truly get where we want to be.  Spring is just around the corner, and I don't want to waste a minute of it.  We're settled into the new house, hello acreage!  My kombucha and kefir are doing their thing, the first raised bed garden is in the front yard, the seeds are sprouting indoors, we have a chicken tractor lined up and just need to go get it...

We're ready.

To The Extreme

We are doing something crazy this week.  We are going on a raw milk fast, along with limiting technology (phones, computers, TV) to a bare minimum.  We haven't had cable for more than 2 years, but Netflix and Amazon Prime can still suck us in.  Between TV, social media, computer games, etc. we find ourselves wasting hours that we had planned to use doing something constructive.  We had actually planned to start this last week but delayed it.  I had deleted Facebook from my phone/Kindle though, so I kept going with that hiatus and have already found myself more productive.  We built the first of our raised bed gardens this weekend, just in time for freezing rain... 

I won't lie, I am nervous.  But on the same page, I understand exactly why we need to do this.  All of us have become extremely lazy in the past year.  Our intake of junk is much higher than it should be, and our health has suffered for it.  We are sitting down at the TV much more than we should.  Despite being strictly gluten free for over a year (and mostly Primal for two years) I should feel better than I do.  We both have a good deal of weight to lose as well.  This all has crept up on us in the year and 1/2 since we left the RV life and went back to living in a house.

I am looking forward to this, as strange as it sounds.  This will be our opportunity to get out from under terrible habits, get more active and in shape, and lose a good chunk of weight in the process.  I can't wait to take advantage of the wonderful trails, rivers, lakes, etc. that are just out our back door, and I know I would be pushing myself in the shape I'm in now.  I want our garden to be big and productive, and feel well enough that tending it is a joy, not a chore.  I want to get chickens and a chicken tractor.  I have several books about backyard chickens that have been sitting on the Kindle for months, waiting to be read.  We have a million projects with the new house--building a compost bin, painting, etc. and I can see us completing those once we've gotten rid of the petty distraction habits and have more energy. 

The raw milk fast/detox is negotiable--we are giving it a shot because I've heard amazing things and it was used in the past to cure diseases.  Most people who have tried it are shocked that they aren't hungry (and when they are, they just drink more milk).  Basically it gives the digestive system a chance to rest and detox while still providing complete nourishment.  One of the best testimonials I've read is from Your Family Farmer.  Another good one here:  Our raw milk fast experience - TheSweetPlantain.  I am somewhat lactose intolerant, but haven't had a problem with raw milk, only pasteurized.  I have homemade kefir and kombucha on the counter, which we will also drink in addition to the milk.  If the raw milk diet doesn't work out, we'll switch over to a Whole30 or 21-day Sugar Detox style diet for the rest of the month.  Obviously we won't be subjecting our daughter to the raw milk fast, though I do plan on serving fewer processed gluten free treats.

I am going to document this here (part of the bare minimum of technology--email, blog, home school, Kindle books and educational apps) periodically.  Wish us luck!