Listed to a reading of The Night Before Christmas - both the traditional version and one from down under.

Merry Christmas all!

Today is Monday, December 19, 2016 and this is episode 16 of Living Free in Tennessee.

12/20 Update: re-recorded the first 5 minutes due to unpleasant audio.

What mother nature is providing

• Cabbage
• Persimmons
• Mo’ Mushrooms
• The watercress is still here!

Using the Prepper Pantry

• Venison Braised Cabbage
• Recipe on crack: Venison Braised Cabbage Bierock
• The weekly squash - week 2: Spaghetti spaghetti squash

Stories from the Holler

• A postoffice story
• Neighborhood Break In
• Maybe a new neighbor?
• Kittens

Interview with Samantha Comfort

• First steps to getting your finances ready to save more money
• Three tips to save money now: Store Rewards Programs, Get smart on using credit card rewards programs, Find ways to get cash back.
• Ibotta
• upromise.com
• Zello Channel...

Christmas Dinner from the pantry

• Roemertopf
• Chestnut Dressing
• Potato pancakes
• Cabbage salad with Watercress
• Persimmon Chutney
• Home baked rolls
• Green bean casserole with wild mushroom sauce and homemade “funions”
• Holler roast coffee
• Christmas Cookies and goodies for dessert

Which reminds me of my grandma’s story from the depression (Pig heart).

On Dec 24, we will have the reading of the Night Before Christmas for anyone interested!

Holler Homestead living is the topic of the day. Today is Monday, December 5, 2016 and this is episode 14 of Living Free in Tennessee. With the production of the Center Hill Sun absorbing the whole weekend, I thought it would be a good day to talk about what day to day life is looking like in December.

Show Sponsor: The Genesis House

http://www.genesishouseinc.com/

What mother nature is providing

• Watercress
• Mushrooms
• The super kale plant

Stories from the prepper pantry

• Easy pantry management - load from the back, take from the front!
• The Survival Podcast Recommended Episode: http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/1759-food-storage, FOOD STORAGE FOR MODERN SURVIVALISM
• First thing’s first: Soft potatoes, potatoes with eyes, squash that looks at me wrong, soft onions
• The last week of Watercress -time to freeze it for winter stews
• Using up the canned goods from 2015 - by pulling them out

Stories from the Holler

• The fires in the Smokies - 13 people dead so far
• New Chestnut Recipe
• The WOODSTOVE
• Tennessee Food Summit - Joel Salatin and Jeff Poppin
• Update on the new duck and chicken hoop coop

TN Food Summit --- Joel Salatin
Inform better
Create Loyalty
Become storytellers and teachers: Or food coaches

Three things you can do to start taking control of your food

1. Establish a regular family meal 
2. Build your pantry
3. Find risk points: In the next two months, are there times that will be very busy? Where are they, how can you prepare something now to deal with that.

Yes winter is nigh,  go out and make it a great week!

One of the best ways to eat well on a budget is to buy produce when it is in season and preserve it for the whole winter. Last week, I spent $20 on 1/2 bushel of beets, an additional $5-10 on other ingredients, and ended up with fourteen jars of pickled beets. Had I preserved all the beets, I would have had 21 jars, making the cost to me a little over $1 per jar. Go try to get such a premium product for that price at the grocer. You can get crummy ones in the $1.30 range, but premium ones are $3-6 per jar.

This episode of Living Free in Tennessee walks through the process of water bath canning and shares my personal pickled beet recipe along with the recipe I inherited from my Great Aunt Helen.

Nine years ago, we started on an adventure in the country. What began as a weekend getaway quickly changed into a small homestead with chickens, gardens, laughter, neighbors, and sometimes the opposite of laughter.

The Holler Homestead is known in our area for our home roasted coffee (it takes less time to roast your own than drive to the store), elephant garlic, stone ground flour and hand rolled oats. We also help people learn how to preserve food and are keenly interested in self sufficient living.

In this first episode we cover:

1) What we're eating this week from the land

2) The independence fund

3) Managing an overwhelming list of homestead duties

4) Tea

5) My new daily planner (read about that here: http://nicolesauce.com/2016/03/07/the-only-day-planner-that-has-ever-worked/)

Let me know what you want to hear about next...

~Nicole Sauce

A recording of Sauce - the best drama rock band from Portland, Oregon! Music and words my Nicole Sauce. Performed by Sauce the band.

I wrote it about our last days together with my grandfather after we found out he was terminally ill. It was a beautiful time where we were visited by family from all over, where Grandma told stories about the past we had never heard before, and when my grandfather taught me one last lesson: death is natural and beautiful, not scary. And he loved my grandma so much that the last word we heard from him was her name.

Grandpa's Song by Nicole Sauce Williams
(Copyright 2004)

Light Love Life Hope

Light in darkness -love eternal
Life you showed us - hope - it's hopeless

Look into your eyes, now there's nothing left to say
Feeling of your hand holding on to mine today

Inside Out Bound

In the final hours together
Longed to show you - you remember

Fire in your eyes looked across the room to her
Feeling in the air taking you forever

Showed us how to right through small deeds
Speak with silence, love in all things

Look into your eyes, now there's nothing left to say
Feeling of you hand holding on for one last day