Oh, the garden.

Do you ever stop and think how incredible it must have been before the fall; before we ended up in a Genesis 3 world? Genesis 2:15 says “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” We aren’t told that Adam is taken out of the garden when Eve was created. I take that to mean that God caused the deep sleep to fall on Adam IN garden and Eve was created there. How beautiful. How incredible to walk with God in the garden.

I feel closest to the Lord in my garden. I spend a lot of time in it– tending to it all. I praise God for the gift of being able to put my hand to something that will feed my family and friends. I ask him to bless it. Some days I beg him to make it fruitful because I know how quickly things can go sideways. It is an exercise in faith.

I tend to romanticize the garden a lot. If I’m honest, I romanticize the whole homestead. It’s this beautiful, picturesque thing in my mind. But, it is sweaty work. It’s hard and backbreaking. Plants die. Animals die. It’s a lot. It’s not all romance. But, it is mine. It’s ours. I’m so thankful for the chance to be entrusted with this work.

I encourage you to plant a garden, even if it’s just a plant in a pot. Put your hands to something.

I don’t know when homesteading became such a dream of ours. I’m not sure when it happened. But, it’s here. It’s tugging on us more than anything ever has. The unlikely homesteaders. Two flawed people who grew up in suburbia surrounded by mono-crop farming; sprawling fields of gmo corn and soybeans all around our little town. My mom has always gardened and used to can applesauce from our trees in the yard. I had no interest in learning any of it back then. Sorry, Mom. Thank you for letting me eat half of your apple slices while you worked on applesauce.

Over the past couple of years, when seeking the Lord’s will for my life, I have felt the Lord telling me that homesteading has become my ministry. But, how? Why? What does that even mean, Lord?! It didn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t make sense to me. But, I know that THIS is what He has called me into; what he has called Scott into. We have had a gentle pull towards this for over 10 years. But, it has become almost an urgency to learn. We talk about it a lot. We pray about it a lot. We wonder why and have a lot of questions. What we do have is complete peace.

I am sure that some people in our lives believe that we have completely abandoned obedience to the Lord because we are not in full-time vocational ministry anymore. If you think that of us, then you truly don’t know us at all. We have held everything with open hands. Palms up. Allowing the Lord to take and place anything in our hands that He has for us. I’d have scoffed at you five years ago if you told me this is how it would go. Again, if you really KNOW us you will know. God is good and faithful, and this is right where he wants us.

In spite of all of that, here I am. Mentoring friends and strangers on the internet on how to raise up chickens to provide eggs and/or meat for their families. I am teaching them how to plant tiny seeds to grow food for their families. Encouraging them to care for the soil and the ecosystem that lives beneath– which makes everything healthier and stronger. Educating and encouraging people to take their food into their own hands. I’m showing up in the mistakes and messes. There’s a lot of imperfection. You may not learn too much from me right now, but I’m going to be in your corner cheering you on as you learn to take care of your family and yourself in this way. If you visit my home in the summer, you’ll likely leave with an armload of something from the garden. Probably squash. Sometimes garlic.

I often feel like a homesteading imposter. Imposter syndrome is weird. I am a homesteader. I have the livestock– small livestock, but livestock nonetheless. I preserve my food through canning, fermenting, and dehydration. My basement is still loaded with winter squash from last year’s garden. I cook from scratch. I am reclaiming skills that have been lost through generations. I’ve learned SO much over the last few years. I live a natural lifestyle. I steward what the Lord has given me, and I hope that I steward it well. Sometimes I need to remind myself of the things that I have accomplished. It helps in the moments of discouragement.

You don’t have to do or have all of the above to be a homesteader. It’s almost become a rat race of its own kind on the interwebs. Do I have enough animals to be called a homesteader? I’m still learning how to make sourdough, am I really a homesteader? I only water bath can, does that count? I don’t have a dairy cow, so I must not be a true homesteader. It’s all silly. If you are making any effort to become less reliant on the system, YOU ARE A HOMESTEADER. You are doing the thing.

Joel Salatin said “A homesteader is a person whose heart and whose focus is in the home. It’s a person whose life focus is toward living, staying, loving home.”

Are you a homesteader?

“If you find yourself with more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence.”

This mug is not only insanely beautiful and perfectly crafted, it contains a saying that I want to continuously remind myself of. I spent a lot of years in ministry feeling extremely isolated and alone. Satan knew that I was lonely, and I was an easy target for his attacks. Boy, did he attack, and I had no one to help lift me up. I was crushed under the weight of it and merely a shell of myself.

I have prayed for deep friendships and community over the past five years since we moved back to our hometown. Nothing could have prepared me for how God would respond. God has answered those prayers in such incredible ways over the past year and a half that I still struggle to wrap my mind around it. Not only has God given me friends, but he has also given my husband and children deep friendships. We have people that hold us accountable. They challenge us to do and be better. They pray for us and check in on us if things are hard. We have walked alongside friends through a lot of hard things, and they’ve walked with us through the same. None of us are alone.

We have shared so many meals around our table and theirs. Bonfires and playdates happen often. Meals have been taken to those who are going through hard times. Care packages of games and coloring books are dropped off when illness strikes. Birthdays have been celebrated together. They love my babies in such a powerful way, and I love their babies just as much.

Community is so important. I have always been independent to a fault. I always say “I’m fine” or “I don’t need anything, thanks.” It was really scary to step outside of that mindset. But, I don’t want that anymore. I want a friend to show up at my door when I’m struggling. I want play dates and laughter. I want to have someone to cry with me. I want meals shared at our table and a rich, full life spent serving the Lord together. Thank you, Jesus, for answered prayers.

Build a longer table, friends. Step outside of your comfort zone. There’s a whole lot of life out there. You won’t regret it.

Well hello, friends!

Long time no.. read?

It has been a busy summer. We’ve been caring for chickens, training the puppy, and tending the garden.

We’ve been back at school for a month. I am still homeschooling these babies that aren’t babies anymore. Chloe is in 7th grade and joined the church youth group. I don’t even know how that’s possible. Addi is in 5th grade. Harper is in 2nd grade.

At some point in September, my younger sister came to visit. I told her she should pack her tent and camp out with us. Her exact words were “I am not camping in the rain.” Don’t worry, there’s a 0% chance of rain. It rained all night on us. I’m also convinced a train conductor had way too much fun with his horn in the middle of the night. haha! But, we all had so much fun. My parents came over for dinner. We had the most incredible double rainbow (can only see one above) and sunset. We cooked a big breakfast the next morning with farm fresh eggs, bacon, toast.. all of the good stuff. My heart was so full. When we moved out here, I prayed that God would fill it with tons of family, friends, and LIFE. We’ve been successful.

Scott and I took over leading our small group so that our current leaders could take a period of rest. We hosted our small group for a “cookout”. We had Taco Friday and ate outside.

We’ve hiked about 27 miles this year. It’s way under what our goal was, but we’ve been busy on the farm. Ranger has turned out to be the best addition to the farm. He’s so loyal and well behaved, for a pup. He hikes and camps like a champ. We love this furry guy.

This may be the most memorable part of the month. HA! I met a friend at the park for a playdate. Harper came running over to get a drink of water and tripped. She’s such a tough girl. She didn’t cry, but she lost ALL of her color. Her lips even went white and her hand was shaking. Sure enough, she sustained a buckle fracture to her radius right above her wrist. She’s in a hard short-arm cast for 6 weeks. I found a way to make it sparkly, so she is happy.

I figured that I should get back into this space. The weather has cooled off dramatically. Fall is here. The garden is slowing down tremendously, and I am thankful. We’ve worked hard this year, and I’m really looking forward to the rest that comes in the winter. We are already planning our 2023 garden. We’re expanding again. We learned a LOT of lessons this year. Back in July, we got the C word after serving during VBS. I knew it would happen, and had prepared to have things ready. The garden was neglected for several days, and blight took over our tomato plants. We ended up pulling nine total plants because of it. Our tomato harvest was sad. But, we have so much squash stored away for winter, many jars of jam, and lots of pickled banana peppers. Every little bit counts when it comes to food storage.

We should be gearing up for our trip to Virginia for the Homesteaders of America conference. We had to make the decision to cancel our trip when we learned that the whole bottom of our van is broken. We decided to buy a new (to us) van. If you’ve had to do any sort of car shopping this year, I’m so sorry. It was ROUGH and made me sick. I know it’s not going to get any better any time soon. The dealer parking lots are empty. So, now we have a (hopefully) reliable van. Lord willing, it will last us for many MANY more years.

If you didn’t know, I’m over on instagram. My blog page can be found here. I post regularly over there and would love to have you follow along.

We have been busy on the homestead lately. It is go- time. We have picked all of our strawberries. We’ve been planting seeds, pulling weeds, and trying to keep chickens alive through killer heat waves and unseasonable cold weather.

I’ve learned that you have to become an optimist when farming. If you aren’t, you’ll be utterly miserable. We have been battling the weather non-stop this year in some way or another. It’s a big challenge to rise up to each day. I’m not going to give up. I’ll be honest, I HATE the heat. HATE IT… but I’m still going out in it to tend to the garden and animals.

We still have some space in the garden that I’m filling in this weekend. I will not miss an opportunity to grow food. Going to the grocery store makes me feel so sick when I see how rapidly the prices are rising. I’m going to grow and preserve all that I can.

We have moved some of our new babies outside. Our gosling is almost fully feathered and has been hanging out with the flock outside. She is definitely a good guardian already– as she honks as soon as there’s movement nearby. Our three guineas have been in the old duck run while they grow some more. They are also loud and so weirdly wonderful. We have six (I think) chicks in a brooder. Three are big enough to come out with the guineas and the other three are still too small to be OUT, out. Scott is working on building a makeshift brooder that can also go in our old duck run so that they are outdoors, but not where they can squeeze through and get killed by older hens.

I processed a couple of jars of strawberry jam this afternoon. We eat most of our freshly picked strawberries, but the season is so full and short at the same time that we ended up with quite the surplus. I’m anxious to see how much more we get next year!! We planted several berry plants (blackberry, blueberry, and raspberry) this year that I can’t wait to harvest from in the years to come.

We planted some ornamental pumpkin seeds this year, which should be super fun to see grow! I’m getting worried because I have only seen two bumblebees this year on our property. TWO. We use organic practices, but being surrounded by farm fields that get sprayed by airplane is not ideal for us. I’ve been pollinating our squash by hand because I haven’t seen any pollinators in my garden.

The kitchen was busy during our cold snaps as I spent the days baking loaves of bread and bagels to put up in the freezer. Now, I can pull them out on the hot days without heating the entire house. I am trying to do everything in my power to keep our electric bill as low as possible since the cost has gone up significantly.

What are you doing to cut back on your costs?

I feel like this question is consuming my mind, and I need to release it all to the Lord. He is not surprised by any of this crazy weather or inflation. He has always provided for us and we’ve never gone hungry even when it was very possible.

I hope that you are staying cool (or warm if you are in Idaho!), my friends! Happy almost Summer!

It is hard to believe that May is halfway over.

Garden updates— We’ve been busy weeding away. We had a big hail storm that destroyed all of my spinach. The arugula was still hanging on, but I had to rip it out when the temps got above 90 last week. Aurugula is a cold weather crop, and bolts in the heat. As happened last year, our onions sprouted, and then stopped growing. They are still green and alive, but refuse to grow– even though we had them in a tunnel for quite some time. I even started them much earlier than last year. We left some onions in the ground last year, and they are growing a lot this year. So, we may not have many onions THIS year, but next year we should have a lot. The garlic was damaged by the hail, but seems to be bouncing back just fine.

We started our seeds and used grow lights this year. Our tomatoes and peppers sprouted and stopped growing for several weeks. Now, all of the tomatoes are turning yellow. I am hearing that A LOT of people are having this problem. Something must be going on with the seed starting soil. Are you having problems? On happy notes– we planted several berry bushes this year. Three blueberry bushes, one raspberry, and three blackberry bushes are new. We are going to have a ton of strawberries this year also!

Walmart marked their trees down to $13, so each of the girls got a tree instead of flowers after their dance recital. (They were thrilled, please know they are just as weird as me! haha!) One is a pear and two are maples. We may go back for more! I just bought some organic fertilizer, and I’m hoping that will boost vegetable growth.

I started reading this book to see if I can troubleshoot some problems that I keep having.

Animals— We have added a turkey to the farm. I love listening to her gentle call. We also have some chicks in the brooder to replace some of our old layers. We have three guineas in another brooder that will hopefully live long enough to eat a lot of ticks. I’ve heard it said that their favorite past-time is “finding ways to die”. And, we have a gosling. She is in a brooder also. I get her out of the brooder almost daily and she follows me around the yard and garden. We have quite the diversity going here this year and I am loving it! We are getting close to a dozen eggs each day. I actually had to take our egg sign down because we have so many egg customers. I’m going to have to start turning people away or my family won’t have eggs to eat!

Puppy— everyone always asks how Ranger is doing. He is growing a lot. He’ll be fourteen weeks old tomorrow. We have worked really hard at making sure he is socialized so that he isn’t aggressive. He still sleeps most of the day when he isn’t chewing on things. Pup is for sure in the baby shark phase. I’ve read that it lasts much longer in this breed. He is very sweet and loving though, and we are all glad he’s a part of the crew.

Kitchen— The kitchen is where I first become passionate about homesteading, so it feels important to include. With the temperatures heating up, I’m not baking as much. My goal is to continue baking our family’s sandwich bread and keep making bagels. But, there will be much less fun breads. I make tortillas for taco Tuesday about 50% of the time, and would like to get better about doing it every time. They are so good and easy. We bought a quarter of a cow earlier this year, and it has been some of the best beef I’ve ever had. I need to get on another list ASAP. The rising cost of groceries has me very concerned, and I’m looking for ways to cut costs without cutting quality.

How are things in your neck of the woods? Are you unseasonably hot also, or still unseasonably cold? Is anyone in the correct season?!

We have a new member of our farmily. Meet Ranger, an 8 week old Australian Shepherd.

He is energetic, playful, and loving. The girls are smitten with him. Puppies are so exhausting, but he’s going to be such an awesome adventure buddy once he is trained.

I always said that I would never do the puppy phase again, yet here we are. Someone guessed that we were getting a goat. That would be fun, too. But, we are limited on what farm animals we can get here. I think we COULD do a pig in a pen here that ate all of our food scraps and turned them into bacon. But, that isn’t anywhere in the plans right now.

Happy April, friends!!

Hello, friends! I’ve been a little quiet over here again. Not much outside of the ordinary has been happening on the homestead. Basically, it’s been a lot of the above… Sweet family time playing games and reading books. I’ve also been chauffeuring my kids and their friends to birthday parties and dance classes. This phase of parenting is so wild, but so fun. They can make their own breakfasts and do their own laundry. These little ladies are so incredible, and I’m so blessed to be their mama.

We had a raccoon get INTO the chicken coop one night when we were at the library. Thankfully, it only killed one chicken, and it won’t bother anyone again. We think it slipped between our electric netting and the run and didn’t care that it got shocked. Electric poultry netting has been a newer addition to the homestead. I was sick of chickens pooping all over the front porch, but still wanted some free ranging. This gives the best of both worlds. We can rotate where the chickens “pasture” is so that they always have fresh grass and bugs while still keeping them off of the porch. We are up to our eyeballs in eggs, so if you are local and love organic farm fresh eggs, come see us!

This time of year is always such a struggle. My mood really plummets. The days are longer, but it has still been cold and so rainy ALL. THE. TIME. I have been really down. I want to start the garden, but I can’t. We have started onion, pepper, and cabbage seeds so far. I’m itching for soil on my hands and under my nails. I can’t wait to pull a fresh carrot from the dirt.

Current world circumstances are also overwhelming. The cost of everything is starting to get a bit alarming. We have been in some very difficult situations in the past, and God never let us down then. None of what is happening is a surprise to Him. I keep reminding myself of this scripture, and I hope that it encourages you also:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,  yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:25-34

We do have some really fun stuff coming up for our family, and it will be fun to share all of that soon!!

Happy Tuesday! I hope you have more beautiful weather where you are than we do. 😉

Yesterday, Harper had a very important eye appointment. We’ve been waiting seven months for this.

First, I’ll back up. She has worn glasses since the age of one. She saw a pediatric ophthalmologist and has had regular eye care from an optometrist ever since then. Everything was great other than she needed corrective lenses to see. Fast forward to 2020, and her eye doctor mentions that he’s noticing one of her eyes pulling in a bit. Nothing to be concerned about, just to watch. Last year, he says we need to start patching because her eyes have gotten worse. He increased her prescription so much that he wanted to see her again in a month to make sure she has adjusted. This has happened for the last several years. At her follow up, I get told that he is going to refer us out to a specialist because her vision is so bad even with glasses. He said “I’m afraid there’s just nothing more I can do from her here.” He said that most believe the eye can be manipulated until the age of 8, but some believe there is more time. She had just turned 7 when he gave us this news, so i felt like time was running out.

I got in my car and cried… sobbed is more like it. It felt like a gut punch. Her eyes were getting so much worse year after year even though I was told back when she was one that her vision should improve greatly since we caught it so early. I start researching amblyopia and strabismus to see what sort of options the pediatric ophthalmologist may suggest. As I’m reading, everything is saying that if it is not caught early enough, it may cause blindness in that eye. With her eyes having been so weak even through her glasses, I was terrified of this worst case scenario. I looked at books and web sources and they all said the same thing. I was sick to my stomach over it.

Harper sees a homeopathic chiropractor regularly, and I told her to do whatever she could think of to help her eyes. We did a lot of muscle testing and put her on supplements to help what was lacking. She’s been on a lot of brain support supplements and had a lot of adjustments. It’s been awesome. We had also been regularly patching her eyes, because both eyes needed help– one more than the other. During patching, we were working on a lot of fine motor activities to really force the eyes to work hard. Harper is a trooper. Only recently has she grown tired of the patches, because it amounted to 8 (6 on one eye, and two on the other) of her waking hours.

Anyway, we went yesterday for a two hour appointment. They checked everything, and we get the greatest news. The stronger eye is where it needs to be and no longer requires patching. Praise God! The other eye is still not where it needs to be, but instead of patching for six hours, we can go down to “at least” two. Her eyes have improved SO much. Her prescription was increased again, but that is to be expected. He explained that just as our foot size gets bigger as we grow, prescriptions get bigger. He said not to think of it as a negative, just as growth.

When he was done, I asked him the burning question. Could she end up blind in that eye. He said “Well, a meteor could fall from the sky into her eye, and yes, she would be blind. But, from this. No. Not at all.” Y’all! It was like a ten million pound weight was lifted.

I cannot believe how much improvement has been shown in her eyes. When we get her new prescription, she will actually be able to SEE through it!! Things were still blurry when she got her new prescription last year. I can’t imagine living that way. She is thrilled to get less patching time. I am thrilled that she will be able to see!!

God is SO good. I know so many were lifting her in your prayers, and I am so grateful.

I love books. I love reading them. I love flipping through the pages. I love seeing them lined up on my shelves. I just love them.

When I was an education major, I started collecting children’s books. This obviously exploded during my year of teaching, and has grown even more absurd since becoming a mother. Throw in homeschooling, and our home looks like a library. There are shelves of books everywhere. It’s a vicious cycle.

We have tons of educational books to go along with various units for school. Dictionaries, atlases, thesauruses, etc. line our shelves.

I have been collecting homesteading books on all sorts of topics that we need or may one day need to have. With the wild ways of censorship taking over the internet, I want to make sure that we have the information needed when we need it. I’ll slap that tin foil hat on proudly.. but that’s another subject for a different day..

I also love a good fiction read. Escaping into a different world is a lovely way to pass the time. I love opening a book into Narnia, listening to the trees talk. I can sit next to Laura Ingalls while Pa plays the fiddle.

All of that to say, I love books.

But, books can be so expensive.

That is where Thrift Books comes in. It is, as the name suggests, an online thrift store for books. You can even purchase new books if used isn’t your thing.

I have several wish lists on my account, and I will get an e-mail if something that I’ve been looking for comes in stock. It is a great place to look for out-of-print books or older editions of books. The prices are so low– unless it is a super-rare book. Then, look out.

The best part about Thrift Books, aside from the amazing prices, is that you can earn “ReadingRewards” points. Every time you make a purchase, you get points. How many points per dollar spent depends on what level you have achieved. Every 500 points earned gets you a free book under a certain price point ($5-$7). I am “literati” level, which means that I get to choose a book that is $7 or less for free when I get my reward. I just went back through my account and have been able to redeem ELEVEN free books! So many books are within that price range, so your choices are always so good. Be sure to sign up for that!

They do bonus points throughout the year which can give you a boost when you order.

If you haven’t looked into Thrift Books before, I encourage you to sign up with this link. If you use my referral link, we both get an extra free book when you’ve spent $30.

Go to your public library if you don’t have it in your budget to buy used books. I use our library like crazy. But, if you are looking to add a book to your home library, be sure to check Thrift Books first!