How to quick pickle pickles It's that time of the year in our garden, we're drowning in pickling cucumbers and we don't always have time to can them. I'm also obsessed with watching cooking competitions, and chefs are always quick pickling. So I started quick pickling our pickles, and it's actually pretty awesome. My pickle obsessed family loves having pickles on hand in the ...
When a food blogger opens a farm stand
I have been thinking a lot about career paths, and how they typically stray far from that path you started in school. I have a 12 year old that we homeschool who is putting a lot of pressure on herself to find a career path, and I keep telling her to maybe find a hobby instead. She's 12, I'm almost 34 and I barely know what I want to do when I grow up. I'm also teaching a class ...
Wake me up when September (and all these homesteading projects) end
We're so close to finishing up our last big project of the summer, if we're being honest the list was supposed to be done in spring. We're just putting the finishing touches on building a front pasture, a temporary home for our buck and buckling until we can get a more permanent area for them next year. After they move out it'll basically just be a play yard for babies or an ...
7 BIG THINGS ACCOMPLISHED YEAR TWO ON OUR SMALL HOMESTEAD
Year two homesteading on three acres Our first year on our homestead was definitely our foundational year. We bought a small bit of land with an old school house on it, started a garden, put together a makeshift chicken coop, and started our journey as homesteaders, you can read more about that here 8 things accomplished year one on our small homestead. In year two we ...
Losing livestock on the homestead
Homesteading isn't always as cute and dreamy as you'd envision it. There's hard work, invasion of privacy (ironically), and heartbreaking losses. We don't wear cutesy dresses and frolic in fields and spend our days petting goats. I actually bought a long flowy gingham dress because it was clearance and my tween thought it was hilarious. Then one day I was wearing it outside ...
8 big things accomplished year one on our small homestead
Year one homesteading on three acres As we embark on our 4th growing season on our homestead I thought it would be helpful to reflect on the projects we worked on in our first few years homesteading. We learned so many things our first year, and we really "hit the ground running" as soon as we could. It seems like we did so many things because we were breaking ground ...
Beginning homesteading: A guide for beginners
Beginning homesteading: A guide for beginners Homesteading is a lifestyle that involves living a more self-sufficient life, often on a small piece of land, we only have 3 acres on our little homestead. Homesteaders may grow their own food, raise animals, and preserve food for the winter. They may dabble into other things, like we're going to start making soap with our goats ...
Farming on 3 acres
Whenever someone dreams of having a farm you always hear them say things like, "if only I could move to a farm with 40 acres." Nothing makes me roll my eyes more than someone that doesn't know what they're doing think they need an excessive amount of land. You don't have to have 40 acres to have the farm of your dreams! We were house hunting during the mass exodus of 2020, when ...
Start the homestead, live in abundance
We were a family of 3 for almost a decade, and now we're a family of 5. Yes, in this economy. This is the time in our life where we were blessed with a growing family. Our family grew and we decided to pursue our dreams. My husband always dreamed of moving back to a farm like when he was a kid, and I always dreamed about having more animals than I could count. So we moved and ...
Freezer sweet corn (with butter, sugar and salt)
Our garden this year had 4 little rows of sweet corn. The barn cats loved hiding in the stalks. If you couldn't find the barn cats you knew exactly where to find them. Our garden definitely flourished this year, it's our 3rd year here and this was the year of the great garden expansion nearly doubling in size. Which is why we were able to plant so much sweet corn. It was so ...
Why don’t homesteaders use vets
One thing you don't realize when you bring home farm animals, is how much you'll have to vet them yourselves. You bring home some cute cuddly goats, and you're not thinking about checking their poop for parasites and worming them. You better believe that's what you're going to be doing though. You'll have to research and learn so many things, that you probably didn't want to ...