News

There are a lot of stories that involve the Thanksgiving holiday. Many are sentimental and many contain an important lesson. This story is not one of those. It is simply a description of the crazy happenings on our small homestead that occurred at the same time as the Thanksgiving holiday.    We have been planning to move our chickens into their new winter abode. The chickens did well outdoors last year but we wanted to make a few changes for this winter. The goals for this move are to increase natural egg production, use the deep bedding method to make...

Homesteading is a journey. Some months you accomplish your goals by leaps and bounds. Other months, you fall back a few steps. The important part is to keep working hard to progress forward in your goals. It doesn't happen overnight. Many websites make it seem easy, but it isn't. It takes baby steps to get to the big projects. So, I'm starting this monthly homesteading update to share our progress and setbacks. I hope that you find them useful in your journey of homesteading.    October - We attended the Self Reliance Festival. We took some time away to travel...

Homesteading is a journey. Some months you accomplish your goals by leaps and bounds. Other months, you fall back a few steps. The important part is to keep working hard to progress forward in your goals. It doesn't happen overnight. Many websites make it seem easy, but it isn't. It takes baby steps to get to the big projects. So, I'm starting this monthly homesteading update to share our progress and setbacks. I hope that you find them useful in your journey of homesteading.    September I was very tempted to avoid posting anything about this month because it was...

We have been homeschooling for many years and I sometimes forget that what we do isn't the same for others. So, I decided to try adding a monthly homeschool recap to this blog to demonstrate one way (there are so many methods out there!) that homeschooling can work.  We use an eclectic method of homeschooling that leans very heavily towards the Charlotte Mason method of teaching. Without going into too much detail about this method, it can be described as very literature-heavy. We read and discuss A LOT of books. We don't spend a lot of time on workbooks, worksheets, etc.,...

We have been drinking raw cow's milk for several years. It is great! One benefit of raw milk is the delicious cream that we receive with each jar. I have wanted to make butter out of this cream and for some reason never did it....... until now. Here's the story.   I researched the topic. I loved how the ballerina farmer on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/ballerinafarm/) makes everything, even making butter, seem so elegant and simple.  I watched Jill Winger from Old Fashioned On Purpose on YouTube show the steps to the process, https://youtu.be/CxG2aC7Q6JA?list=PLrUouAskiMhVdcadZTWi5eF8Qhq77F1MK. If you want expert tips and tricks about butter...