Admittedly, my gusto for spring cleaning has sort of peter’d out. Between some health drama that cropped up last month, a minor surgery last week, and the fact that it’s beautiful out and I just want to play in the garden … cleaning house is the LAST thing on my mind. Thankfully I had this list done before the snow melted, so I’m able to just check items off as I complete them. As unmotivated as I feel about cleaning right now, it really does feel good to get some things done that I’ve been meaning to get to! Here’s my Spring Cleaning- Kitchen Edition list (You can find the bathroom checklist right here): FacebookPinterestE-mail
Spring Cleaning Planning with Evernote – Bathroom
on March 26, 2014
We’re past the midway point in the month of March, and this is the time of year when I start getting antsy to be outdoors. Unfortunately, it’s still extremely cold here, although the snow does seem to be starting to melt some. Yesterday the hubs was able to get outside with the kids and clean up the yard a bit since it was around 40 degrees. He got a bon fire going and burned some of the brush and branches that have either been trimmed, or fallen of its own accord. It’s kind of a huge embarrassing mess right now. Living in the suburbs, there’s a bit of pressure to have your yard looking presentable. Reason #2123432 why we don’t belong in the ‘burbs. Who has time to keep a clean yard with small kids, house work, homeschooling, volunteer work, homeschool co-ops, extra curricular activities and … oh yeah, trying to grow as much of our own food as possible. People! I belong in the country where a messy yard is not only acceptable, but kind of expected. But, this is where God has planted us. And so we will do the best we can. The messy yard has me thinking about spring cleaning. We’re going on vacation at the end of next month, and I’d like to come home to a nice clean house (and yard), because when we get back, I’ll be diving right into gardening season (a few things will be planted before we leave, but mostly it’ll ramp up after we get back). I use Evernote for a lot of my planning, including lesson plans, grocery lists, meal plans, garden notes, […]
Homemade Hamburger Buns
on March 14, 2014
I think bread making in general is one of those basic skills that every wannabe homesteader tackles at some point or another. I know that, for me, it was a long road with many failures before I finally got it right. It was really almost laughable. I couldn’t get a dough to rise to save my life! But once you figure it out, once you know the feel of a good dough, the possibilities are endless! Here’s a really easy hamburger bun recipe that I’ve been using for years. It yields 12 buns, which is great for a larger family! Ingredients: 1 cup milk 1 cup water 2 T. butter 1 T. white sugar 1 1/2 t. salt 5 1/2 c. all purpose flour (feel free to sub in a few cups of whole wheat flour!) 1 envelope of dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons) 1 egg yolk 1 T. water (BIG T = TABLESPOONS. little t = teaspoons). Directions In a medium saucepan, combine the first 5 ingredients. Stir to combine so that the sugar doesn’t just settle to the bottom. Bring to a boil, and then remove from heat to cool until lukewarm. A temperature of about 105 degrees F to 110 degrees F is good. Any hotter and it could kill the yeast. In the bowl of your stand mixer, stir together the flour and yeast. Pour in wet ingredients and stir until the dough starts to pull together. With your hook attachment, knead the dough for 8-10 minutes (if you’re just learning the art of bread making, I recommend kneading by hand on a floured surface. It helps you get familiar with […]
Saving with a Pellet Stove
on March 1, 2014
I know that among homesteaders, a wood stove is generally the way we want to go. You can harvest your own fuel, and woodstoves don’t require electricity. The thing is that they’re also extremely expensive to have installed, especially if you don’t have the know-how to do it yourself. We had a quote done, and found out that it would cost us upwards of $7,000 to have a stove installed (including the stove, parts, and labor). I would be okay with investing that much into a house we’d be staying in forever, but we hope to move within the next five years. So, a pellet stove was much more reasonable for us at this time. My grandparents offered us their pellet stove which they no longer use. We installed it for a little less than $250 worth of supplies and 3 hours of labor. I was also able to find a nice hearth pad on Craigslist for $80, which saved us another $300 or so. Installing a pellet stove is much less involved than installing a wood stove. Much more newbie friendly. It’s so easy that my husband and I were able to do it ourselves. That’s saying something, especially since neither of us are particularly handy. We’re learning, but it’s a process. How did we learn to install such a thing? YouTube of course! What can’t you learn on YouTube? Here’s the video that we followed: Part 1: https://youtu.be/blZHAsDmVMcPart 2: https://youtu.be/4IVHbXlbUDg Cool. But do you really save money? This year has been extremely cold. We’re in NY, so a harsh winter is a given, but the subzero wind chills are happening to a greater […]
2014 Garden Plan and Hopes for Spring
on February 6, 2014
“The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.” ~ George Bernard Shaw Here is a list of what we will be growing in the gardens this year. In addition to this, I also have some blueberry plants and some blackberry brambles. I’d like to find a place for a dwarf peach tree, perhaps. I’ll start winter sowing sometime this week. Last year I’d already begun by now, but it’s been a crazy few weeks. Another advantage of winter sowing is that you have a little more wiggle room in your planting times. (P.S. I figured out why I couldn’t upload pictures before. Technical issue resolved. Regular stunning sub-par photography will resume moving forward.) We have had a great deal of snow and freezing temperatures this year. It’s not abnormal for New York, but I think we’ve been colder and snowier than recent years for sure! Thankfully we’ve had bits of sunshine to help keep our moods up. The children and I have enjoyed sitting by a sunny window watching the winter birds out by the feeders. We’re working on learning to identify common birds. We’ll start reading the Burgess Bird Book and following along with the Great Backyard Bird Count in a couple of weeks. Even winter has opportunities for enjoying God’s creation around us! Cool Weather Crops: Mesclun Broccoli Cauliflower Kale Radishes Carrots Cabbage Peas Warm Weather Crops: Butternut Squash Zucchini Cucumbers 3 varieties of tomatoes (a beefsteak, a paste, and a cherry) Peppers (Bell, Hungarian Hot, and Jalepeno) Herbs: Thyme Rosemary Sage Basil Lemonbalm Cilantro Flowers (these plans are still coming together): Calendula Nasturtiums Sun […]
Garden Planning Series, Day 2
on January 23, 2014
***Note: That time you tried to start a blog, and then as you’re getting ready to upload pictures for your 4th blog post, your computer and/or camera goes completely wonky. And your computer says that it can’t recognize what you’ve plugged into the USB port. So then you try slipping that little SD card thingy into the front of the computer, and it does … well, it does absolutely NOTHING. Yep. That’s me right now. I’m sorry! I will remedy this ASAP. But in the meantime, here’s how I map out my garden: Last post I discussed the what, when, and how much of garden planning. Now I’m going to introduce you to my super high tech, madly complicated, highly sophisticated method of planning out my garden. Graph paper. Pencil. I know, I know. Mind. Blown. Also, this book is a wannabe homesteader’s BFF. I reference it constantly throughout the year. Everything from how/when to prune your brambles, planting dwarf fruit trees, to brewing your own beer, to gardening (soil prep through harvest!), to small scale livestock. It’s the bee’s knees. 1. Make a list of what you’re going to grow. As you order seed, put a little check mark next to it. 2. Get your graph paper and map out your garden space. This goes for you too, container gardeners. Measure your containers if you have them already and figure out how many square feet of growing space you’re working with. On the graph paper, I use 1 square for each foot of gardening space. So on my main bed, I’m working with about 12’x17’. On the graph […]
Garden Planning Series, Day 1
on January 16, 2014
There are a few things to consider when planning a garden. (By the way, I’ve decided to break this garden planning thing up into a few different posts to save you the riveting experience of reading a garden planning novel. I think it’ll be easier to follow this way). 1. Are you going to start from seed, or purchase seedlings? Consider winter sowing as a frugal approach to starting from seed (allowing you to avoid the hefty price tags of grow lights). 2. Are you doing raised beds, container gardens, or a traditional garden in the ground? A combination? Pinterest houses a wealth of ideas on container gardening and raised beds. Go there and browse! 3. How much growing space do you have? 4. What are you going to grow this year? A lot of garden planning articles will tell you to start small. Learn how to grow a couple of things, then add more next year. That’s cool. If you’re patient. I’m not. So, I say go big or go home, baby. That may or may not be the advice of a Type-A, overachieving, run-yourself-into-the-ground, kind of person. I like to just go for it. Some of your plants may not thrive. So what? You’ll still learn something and gain wisdom to use next year. Failure is okay. It’s actually guaranteed in the world of gardening. You just have to learn from it, apply your new knowledge to next year, and carry on. Each pack of seeds costs a couple of bucks. You probably won’t even use an entire packet in one season for most things, so really, you don’t have a whole lot […]
Winter Sowing
on January 10, 2014
I think most people who are interested in gardening realize that starting from seed is generally the most affordable way to go. Even if you go with fancy pants organic heirloom varieties, you’re still going to save a boatload with starting from seed. Sounds simple, right? Get some seeds, plant them in some recycled containers with some soil, and then put them under … whoa. Wait a minute. Put them under what? You can only put so many seedlings on a window sill. So, what do you do? Grow lamps? A green house? Some may be fortunate enough to live in a warmer climate where they don’t need to extend their growing season in order to get a decent yield. As for the rest of us? Suddenly, starting from seed isn’t so frugal when you’re talking about spending hundreds on grow lamps or a green house. Sure, it pays off in the end. You’ll get years of use out of them. That’s true. It’s a worthy investment. But what if you don’t have the cash now? Before you know it, you’re buying half-dead hybrid seedlings from a department store, only to have them refuse to grow, never mind produce. All because you just can’t afford the set up required for starting from seed. Not that I know from experience or anything. My friends, let me welcome you to the world of winter sowing. It’s amazing. It’s freaking amazing. And you can do it on a shoestring budget, even if you live in a cool climate. You can do it for veggies, flowers, and herbs. You need a few things: Plastic containers that are clear. My […]
2014 and Garden Planning
on January 2, 2014
Happy New Year!! We had a busy, yet relaxing Christmas this year. Sounds kind of conflicting, doesn’t it? We were busy in that we spent a great deal of time moving from one family party to another, but it was relaxing because we were so at peace with it. I’ve always found holiday party hopping to be extremely stressful. I really resented it. This year, though, something was different. I was honestly just thankful for the opportunity to be able to visit with so many friends and family. Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting things to be low key. There isn’t. I just really wanted to take this season to be thankful that we have the ability to visit. I know so many live far away from their family. Holidays can get lonely when everyone you know and love is far away. I found more relaxation and peace in my decision to be grateful than I ever did in my resistance in previous years where I sort of dug my heels into the ground about the whole thing. Gratitude … it’s something that I’m working on within myself. Among other things. So, now we’re on to 2014! I’m not big on New Years Resolutions, but I do have a few goals for the homestead. I want to continue to work towards growing as much as our own food as possible. Maybe get few laying hens. Continue fixing up the house for resale (so that we can some day move onto our dream homestead). Last year I chose a virtue that I wanted to work on, and I really worked toward being more humble. This […]
Introduction
on December 16, 2013
Hi! I’m Ashley. I’m starting this blog to *hopefully* chronicle my family’s journey to a homesteading lifestyle. We currently live in less than ideal quarters for such dreams. That’s not very different from many of you other wannabe homesteaders, though, if I had to guess! We bought our first home about 1 1/2 years ago. We truly wanted a homestead on some acreage, but living as a somewhat larger family on one income made it difficult to find the perfect buy within our modest budget. That’s okay, though! We didn’t let it discourage us. In a lot of ways, the home we bought was the perfect starter home for us. I’ve always loved the saying, “Bloom where you are planted,” and that’s just what we intend to do. God really did provide and pull through. So, anyway, we decided that we would go forward with our little piece of suburban heaven on half an acre. The previous owners appeared to be avid gardeners as there was a 10ft X 17ft veggie garden already in place in the back yard, and a massive flower bed on the side of the house. My biggest qualm with our current home is that town zoning laws ban some of the animals that I’d really love to have and that would help us to become more self-sufficient. I really want goats. I mean…I *really* want goats. I’ve toyed with the idea of starting a petition to change our town laws. I already know of a few neighbors in my area who have a small flock of black market hens. I’m sure I could get the support for it. If anyone […]
