ANN EDALL-ROBSON

Self-Sufficient

1/2/2018

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Self-sufficiency is nothing new. Practising it, for some, is.

The issue of not being able to look after yourself comes from a few thoughtless generations. Decades of not handing down a vault of practical, common sense teaching tools. Tools that are available to use for free from parents and grandparents. 

These forgetful ones were born into a world of new ideas and technology. Bypassing important learning processes. Creating generations of people that haven't got foggy-clue-one how to do things for themselves.  

Looking back, the old ways worked. It may have taken a little longer to get to the end result, but the fail-safe process was just that, fail-safe. Too much, too fast is where our world and lives have taken us.

I consider myself one of the lucky ones that remember how to do things the old-fashioned way when it’s needed. Times when the power goes out or a blizzard makes it impossible to go very far, if at all. Planting a garden and having the where-with-all to preserve its bounty to eat during the non-garden seasons.

We often talk of the old timers and the stories of how they actually survived. They had gardens, hunted for meat and chopped wood to heat their homes. 

Communication happened at social events and when letters came in the mail. Ahh, there is still nothing like receiving a handwritten letter. 

The world news? It was heard on the radio and read in newspapers. The later sometimes arrived a week or more after being published. Telephones? There were telephones, just not one in every room or household and definitely not in the pocket or purse of every individual. 

We think owning material things is important. Through this, we have lost touch with the real things that should be important. It amazes me how many men and women don't know how to cook a meal and bake a cake from scratch. They can't sew a button on a shirt, change a tire or fill their window washer fluid. For that matter, there are a good many people that do not know where their food actually comes from. The correct answer is not a store. ​

Take some time and take stock of your life. Learn some of the old skills. Pay attention to the stories you hear from and about your grandparents. You will never know how rewarding it is to be able to look after your needs yourself if you don’t take the first step. Try it. 

Ann Edall-Robson
Author, Photographer, Lover of Life
"Capturing moments others may never get to experience."
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Christmas Traditions

12/19/2017

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We have several Christmas traditions we enjoy, but I think my favourite is the Treasure Hunt. 

When our children were small, and it came time to prepare or finish preparing the Christmas morning breakfast, it was sometimes hard to pull myself away from their excitement to take care of the breakfast chore.  

The Treasure Hunt became the event to give me the opportunity to go to the kitchen and they could wind down from the excitement of opening gifts. It took some pre-planning, but that was part of the fun. 
In the early years, the clues were often pictures cut from old catalogues and magazines. A visual clue with the name of the item printed beside it took them to the location of the next clue. Much like some of the pictures used in today’s emojis found in writing text messages. At the end of the hunt, they would find their special gift and breakfast would be ready. To keep it interesting, each child had a different set of clues and each treasure could or would be in a different room. Often as not, it would somehow be sitting in plain sight all the time they were on the hunt. 
As they got older the clues I came up with needed to be a bit more imaginative. They soon realized that an odd ‘something’ in their stockings was, in fact, the first clue of the hunt. They learned to take time opening gifts, checking the back of gift tags and listening to the conversations about gifts opened. Completely reading each tag became a must!
When they were old enough to have a driver’s license, the clues got ramped up even further. Sending them off on a tour to find road signs and landmarks with words they needed and sometimes stopping at friends (previously arranged) to gather up more information on their quest to the find the treasure. 
As adults, they still expect to have a Treasure Hunt when we are all together for Christmas, and so the tradition continues. 
Share your traditions with us. I would love to hear about them.
Ann Edall-Robson
Author, Photographer, Lover of Life
"Capturing moments others may never get to experience."
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Filling the Larder

10/18/2017

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I've been canning, dehydrating and making goodies to fill the larder. It most definately can be a busy time since the fresh produce seems to breeze in, in all its glory, and then before you know it, it's gone.

I don't make heavily laden shelves of canned goods anymore, nor do I spend hours/days preparing the future cooking inventory. We do enjoy the flavours of summer when the frozen ground of winter settles in and a few jars of this and that, make all the difference when it comes to cooking through the snow season. 

​Dehydrating is one way I preserve freshness from the garden bounty. ​
​
​Here, two bulbs of garlic dried to make about a 1/3 of a cup of thin slivered chips. Ground up, left as is, or broken into tiny chunks it will add flavour to any dish.  
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​It's neat to see a 4" onion reduced to fit 
completely in a jar. It only takes one or two strips broken into pieces to make a difference to stews and soups. 

While the dehydrator works its magic, the oven takes over to make the tomato sauce that will be canned and later used to make spaghetti sauce, casseroles, soups and stews. It was a new way of making tomato sauce for me, and I found it to be easy and well worth sharing. 
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What kinds of preserves do you make to fill your larder?
Ann Edall-Robson
Author, Photographer, Lover of Life
"Capturing moments others may never get to experience."
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