Strawberry Picking 2020

I'm so excited to be able to share our adventure to the Watts Farm to pick strawberries! We did not think we were going to be able to go this year due to masks being required. While I fully support businesses requiring patrons to wear a mask, our family will not be visiting such establishments unless absolutely necessary. And, well, to be perfectly honest picking strawberries just isn't an essential for our family. Thankfully, the farm did lift their mask requirement and we were able to pick 14 gallons of strawberries!

We actually tried to visit the farm two days prior when our oldest son was in town, but, unfortunately it started to rain the moment we pulled into the parking lot ~ sigh!! Still getting used to him not being around for all our fun family excursions, maybe next time. 

Abby Lou thoroughly enjoyed her first visit to the strawberry patch. I gave her a strawberry to taste and she didn't quite know what to think of it. 

I was really just trying to get a cute picture of Abby Lou holding the strawberry when she decided to lick it, but then she couldn't figure out if she liked it or not, and it was so cute. I honestly think if she had been able to she would have scarfed it down, because goodness gracious, those strawberries were extra sweet this year!

So thankful my husband is always up for my crazy shenanigans! It's not easy wrangling our wild crew to go and do anything, much less an outing to a local farm where there is delicious food at their finger tips. The kiddos were actually pretty well behaved and picked their fair share of berries for our family's needs.

Unfortunately, most of the toys at the farm were stored away due to them being 'contact items'. They did manage to negotiate with the powers that be to leave their Army jeep and tractor out for the children to enjoy. 

We ended up staying for a couple hours, picking our necessary strawberries, visiting with the owner, letting the children run around and play, and of course allowing mama to take a bazillion pictures, lol.

We love supporting small businesses especially when it's local ~ add in that it's a fellow farmer and we're in 'hog heaven'. It's such a blessing to be able to talk 'shop' with someone who is familiar with the ups and downs of growing food. We've also spent many of our visits over the years discussing canning and delicious recipes made with homegrown food. Trust me y'all it's so wonderful to be able to support and encourage the community of local small businesses. I really wish we could get back to those days on a much broader scale.

Look how pretty all those strawberries are. We must have had the perfect weather for growing strawberries this year, because they were HUGE and extra sweet! This isn't even all of our buckets, we picked a total of 14 gallons. Watts farm provides gallon buckets for their customers to use while they are picking and upon payment the buckets are returned. Thankfully, we remembered our big six-gallon buckets to bring home all of our beautiful strawberries! 

We've tried to no avail over the years to grow our own strawberries. Unfortunately, we've never been able to, which is why we are intentional to plan our yearly trip to Watts Farm to pick strawberries. Our family really likes strawberry jam. We typically add in our homegrown figs to make the jam stretch just a little further. I'll be sharing soon all about our strawberry jam making fun!

Once we returned home with all the strawberries, we went straight to coring and filling freezer bags. I have several berry corers which the big kids use to help core the strawberries. We create an assembly line of sorts with the buckets of fresh strawberries, a bowl for the core, and a basin for the cored strawberry. Once we were all done, the strawberries are placed into freezer bags and into the freezer. I kept about a gallon out to make a pie  (I will be sharing that recipe soon) as well as for strawberry syrup to pour over homemade poundcake. You can find my strawberry syrup recipe here.

Watts Farm is not technically an organic farm due to the hoops they'd have to jump through to get the certification. But, they do not spray they're strawberries and they are planted brand new each year. While organic is not a necessity for us, it is a bonus and something we would prefer if at all possible. We  have spent quite a bit of time talking with the owners, learning about their process and how their farm works. I'm so grateful we had the opportunity to visit Watts Farm this year. Not just to pick strawberries, but to support local small farms, and to enjoy quality family time. Plus, y'all know I'm a sucker for traditions. Hopefully it will be a continued tradition for many years to come. 

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Huevos Rancheros Casserole

I'm sharing today one of my quick go-to recipes when I'm in a pinch and need to put something on the table super fast. While I mostly make this for dinner it could definitely be eaten for breakfast. I made this recipe for the first time a couple years ago, not thinking my family would really like it, lol. But to my surprise everyone really enjoyed it and never complain when I make it. Which is why Huevos Rancheros Casserole is on our regular meal rotation. 

While this recipe is not an authentic Mexican recipes (probably not even remotely close) it does have a Mexican flare, and my people will pretty much eat anything that resembles Mexican food. With as many mouths as we're feeding trying to find food that my entire family enjoys can sometimes be difficult. So when I can find a recipe that is well received, I am one happy mama.

As ya'll know we raise laying hens and we pretty much always have an abundance of eggs. Making sure we use what we have available from our little homestead is of upmost importance to me. Since this recipe requires ten eggs, it definitely allows me to use food we're producing. For our crew I typically double the recipe leaving us with enough leftovers for lunch the next day. And yes, this recipe is one of those amazing meals which tastes just as good leftover if not better.

Huevos Rancheros Casserole

Ingredients 

6 corn tortillas

1 cup refried black beans (can use regular refried beans)

1 cup salsa

10 eggs

3/4 cup milk

1 cup shredded Mexican cheese blend

Directions

Line 13x9 baking dish tortillas, evenly spread beans over tortillas, top with salsa. Whisk eggs and milk in a large bowl. pour over tortillas and beans, sprinkle with cheese. Cover baking dish with foil. Bake 40 minutes @ 400*. Remove foil and cook 5-10 more minutes until set and edges are lightly browned. 

We pair this awesome casserole with homemade biscuit muffins. While it does take a little bit longer to cook, this recipe is super easy and quick to make and tastes great ~ doesn't get much better than that. Just this past week I had a 'mama brain moment' and completely forgot about dinner until about an hour before it was supposed to be put on the table. Since I always have these ingredients on hand, this is exactly what I chose to make. Cooking homemade meals doesn't have to be complicated, recipes like Huevos Rancheros Casserole makes cooking from scratch taste good and easy!

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer 

Best Drying Rack Review

This is going to be a super quick review regarding my new favorite homestead purchase! Last year our 20+ year-old traditional American horizontal (long) clothes line bit the dust. We had mended it time and time again, and it just couldn't be repaired anymore. I spent many hours over the past year researching the best clothes line for our family's needs. The one that I kept coming back to was the Best Drying Rack.

Our traditional clothes line took up way too much valuable space in our small yard and it was always having to be repaired. The Best Drying Rack has a very small footprint, yet it can dry more clothes than our old clothes line, which took up twice as much space. 

We purchased the large model of the Best Drying Rack. For our washing machine size, we can hang about four full loads of laundry. My favorite feature of this particular clothes drying rack is that the entire top piece spins ~ meaning, I don't have to move much to hang up my clothes.

The clothes drying rack was fairly easy to install. The instructions were not all that great, but it was pretty self explanatory and watching an online video helped too. I'm not so sure a woman could install the rack on her own, but I'm confident with enough determination she could handle it. The clothes rack can be collapsed in the event of storms or if you just simply want it to be taken down. The first few times we put it up and took it down, it was kind of tight. Now that we have done that several times it us much more easier to maneuver. We have found that it is best for two people to open and close the rack, but it can be done with one person.

Another perk to the Best Drying Rack is that it can be moved. In other words you don't have to cement it into the ground. I would imagine it would be a little more sturdier if it was cemented into the ground, but we chose not to, and it has yet to fall over; even with severe storms which have ripped through our area. 

At $209, including shipping, the price point is well on target for most large quality clothes drying racks. I feel like this one was made extremely well and will last for many years. The clothes line rope is strung tight and the wood/metal pieces are constructed nicely. It was shipped and delivered within just a few days. The packaging was sufficient, yielding no damage to the clothes drying rack. I honestly have zero complaints ~ I'm absolutely delighted to go outside and hang up my laundry on our new clothes drying rack. If you're in the market for a new clothes line, I highly recommend the Best Drying Rack.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

DIY Tomato Baskets

We've had a rocky start to this year's main summer garden due to crazy weather, but now the majority of our plants/seeds are planted ~ praise the Lord! Now it's time to get our pepper and tomato plants set up with baskets and stakes. Tomatoes and pepper plants grow best when they are staked, we like to add the cages or baskets for added security. We definitely don't want to risk losing our plants on account of storms, wind, or simply the weight of their produce.

We currently have around 100 tomatoes plants and around 30 pepper plants in the ground ~ mercy we're going to be busy this summer, lol. So all those plants needed baskets and stakes. Thankfully, we have accumulated quite a good many baskets over the years but we were definitely in need of some more. 

  

We purchased wire fencing to make some of our new baskets, but we were also gifted with some used hog wire.  Second-hand supplies are the best since they help to build the homestead on a budget. To make the baskets it's super easy. Take the fencing and create a long tube big enough to go around your plants with a little extra for plant  growth. Use wire cutters to cut the fencing and then connect the ends by using zip strips or by bending the wire around the edges to connect the two ends.

This year we splurged and purchased a few t-stakes to use to stake our plants. Any long narrow pole-like items can be used as a stake. We have used sticks, t-stakes, wooden posts, metal poles, you name it we've probably used it. Take your preferred stake and hammer it into the  ground inside of one side of the basket. Then attach the stake to the basket with either thin wire, twine, or zip strips (pretty much anything works as long as you efficiently connect the stake to the basket). To help further secure the basket, we pile some soil around the bottom of the basket on the opposite side of the stake. 

You can purchase pre-manufactured tomato baskets from the store, but they can be expensive and don't work nearly as well as the baskets made from wire fencing. We try to make the most of our money, especially on the homestead, and being able to use things over and over again is so important. We have purchased the pre-manufactured tomato baskets, but they tend to break easily. 

When it comes to the fencing we prefer the hog wire, but it's more expensive than the welded wire fencing. The only draw back on the welded wire fencing is that the holes can be a little small for putting your hand through when trying to pick the tomatoes or peppers. To circumnavigate this issues, simply cut the wire to make larger 'windows' to pick the harvest.

We've learned a lot over the past 18 years of building our little homestead, so much of it has come through trial and error. We have often searched out the wisdom from those who have walked this path before us ~ sometimes to our benefit and other times not so much. Homesteading is a very personal journey. What works for one family may not work for another. No two homesteads will ever look the same and that is absolutely okay. It's easy to get wrapped up in having a 'pretty' homestead ~ for us it's more important to keep the cost to the bare minimum and simply get the job done as efficiently as possible. These DYI tomatoes baskets may not be as attractive as the store-bought versions, but trust me when I say they are more than adequate to stake our plants for many years to come. 

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Up-Cycling on the Homestead

We are definitely in the throws of our busy season on the homestead. Well, let's face it, with nine of our children still at home, a bustling homestead, and homeschool our life is always busy. But, this time of year it seems like there isn't enough hours in the day to get everything done that needs doing. Regardless, we are still putting one foot in front of the other and making things happen around here. I thought I'd share a little about how our family has been up-cycling and being good stewards of what the Lord has blessed us with. 

Due to the volatile economy and our family's personal employment situation we are making an even more conscientious effort to be as frugal as possible. We are thinking outside the box and being intentional to look for ways to repurpose items around our homestead. Every dollar really counts these days like never before, and I'm grateful we have cultivated a spirit of frugality over the years; because it certainly is coming in handy these days.

The above picture shows one of my new favorite up-cycled items. I prefer my herbs planted in containers as opposed to directly into the ground. On a walk a few weeks ago I found these awesome steps, they were missing one tread, but I knew it would be perfect for an herb box stand. We found some old wood to replace the tread that was missing, and once the garden wraps up, I'll paint the metal part. I love it so much I have everyone I know looking to find me another set of free-standing steps so that I can put the rest of my herb pots on them.

A few weeks ago we had a nasty wind storm which damaged some of our metal roof. While the metal wasn't suitable to remain on our house, we managed to salvage some of the pieces to use on our new chicken coop. I shared all about our new coop in this post.

We acquired this awesome cast iron caldron. We decided to drill some holes in it and use it as a giant herb pot. I can't wait to watch our pretty herbs start growing in this beauty.

It's amazing to watch how God provides for our every need. We have a good many tomato and pepper plants that need baskets to help stake them and prevent them from tipping over. We had purchased some metal fencing to make the baskets with, but it was not going to be enough. One day recently my husband overheard a friend talking about needing to get rid of some hog wire; he quickly told him we'd be glad to take it off his hands. We were able to construct eight baskets with the donated wire.

We are always reusing small food containers for starting plants. The above picture is a small portion of our recycled containers which have been used many times over to hold our tiny little seed starts. 

 We are extremely passionate about making our own natural health care products as well as bath & beauty items. Jars can get costly real quick. Whenever we receive a glass container, whether it be through store-bought vitamins or donated kombucha bottles (thanks to a dear friend who loves their Booch and gladly passes on their empty bottles to us) ~ we clean them up and repurpose them for our tinctures, glycerites, and other homemade body care products.

These containers stem from a funny encounter. My brain is always working overtime, trying to figure out how to do things the most economical way for our family. Well, one day we went to visit a friend and I saw that they had a shelf full of protein powder filled in these awesome containers. Now in a perfect world I'd store all our dry goods in glass jars, but can we say 'children'. Yeah, glass jars for everyday items such as our dry goods is a recipe for disaster, i.e. broken jars and glass everywhere. So when I saw these containers at my friend's house I asked her to save them for me. Thankfully, she was kind enough to donate them to us. I took the label off, washed them, and added a chalkboard decal that I cut from my Silhouette Cameo. These nice little buckets have served us well for many years now.

I believe a lot of people get wrapped up in thinking their homesteads have to look a certain way. To us the heart of homesteading is being as self-sufficient as possible ~ reusing and repurposing as many things as possible to limit our dependency on other people, especially running to the store to buy stuff. While we are 100% dependent on God to meet our needs, He has given us the wherewithal to also be good stewards with all the resources He has provided for us. 

The art of up-cycling is a frame of mind, it's a new way of thinking about everything that comes your way. Just the other day I was driving down the road and saw a pile of pallets on the side of the road. I immediately called my seventeen year old to go and pick them up, because goodness there's so many things we can do with old pallets. We simply placed them nicely on the side of our storage building until we have a need for them. Saving money and building our little homestead has been made possible by transforming our way of thinking, acknowledging that other people's trash really can be turned into someone else's treasures. 

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

New Chicken Coop

Changes are happening on our little homestead. The most recent one is our new chicken coop. This is our fourth chicken coop we've built in our 11 years of owning chickens. Our first coop we built was rather small, but we added onto it and made it work for many years with no problems. In 2017 we got rid of our first flock of chickens because they were fairly old and we wanted to start over with some young chicks. During this time we also tore down our original coop, with the intentions of building a new coop, but we ended up moving to the 'big house' that year. 

Due to the chaos of buying a fixer-upper and deciding to sell it within a month of purchasing it, my husband and I were unable to focus on building a new coop or buying chickens. But our oldest son decided he wanted to do it on his own. He built a small coop and bought 20 chicks (laying hens). Thankfully, the coop was small because when we sold the 'big house', a year later, we were able to move the coop back to our old house fairly easily. Fast forward another year and we just felt it was time to build a bigger coop. We'd actually prefer for our hens to free range all the time, but we don't have the space for that and they'd most likely eat all our crops. 

In previous years, we've also tried our hand at a using chicken tractors, but we discovered we preferred the stationary coop for our property layout. Every homesteader has to find their own way and what works best for them. There's nothing wrong with trying new things. When we're adding on to our homestead we try to take into account all of our circumstances ~ what works for one homestead may not work for another and that is perfectly okay.

We started building the new chicken coop at my FIL's shop, which is next door to where we live. We did not use any set chicken coop plans, just referenced a host of different ideas and went from there.

Before the coop got too big we used the tractor to relocate it to where we wanted it to be on our property. We haven't always had the luxury of a tractor, but it sure is nice to have around when we need it, especially when it comes to moving heavy things like our coop.

This is how we set up the inside roost and nesting boxes. Before we move the hens into their new home, we'll put a nice layer of pine shavings inside, on the floor.

This is my favorite part of the coop. Here is our 'egg grabber hatch', lol. This is located on the back side of the coop and it just makes it easier to locate the eggs.

Building the new chicken coop was a major family affair. It was a great learning opportunity for all of our children. Nothing like hands-on experience.

We up-cycled some metal off of our roof which was damaged in a wind storm recently, to finish off the roost/nesting box part of the coop. The reminder of the coop is closed in with chicken wire, including the top. We have many predators in our area so we have to make sure the coop is extra secure. We even lay some pieces of wood and blocks around the bottom of the coop to make sure the chickens are safe and sound ~ we don't want any little critters making a meal out of our prize laying hens. 

We currently have 17 chickens, which is plenty for us. We average a dozen or more eggs a day. We are planning to add some guineas and meat chickens to our homestead in the very near future. I'm not sure which ones will be taking up residence in the old coop, but rest assured it will be repurposed in some form. I'm so excited to watch our homesteading endeavors continue to grow and evolve. It really is so much fun learning new things.

 We've come a long way over the years. We've worked hard, made a lot of mistakes, but God has more than honored our efforts. I've said it time and time again, the simple life isn't an easy life, it's just a different life with amazing rewards. To be able to work alongside your most treasured people to meet the needs of your family is definitely a special gift from the Lord.

With Love & Hope

Jennifer 

Totschool Yearend Review

Since we are wrapping up our 2019/2020 school year, I thought I'd take some time to review some of our academic experiences. I've always done some form of preschool, which I prefer to call 'totschool'. For our family, it's just a part of our day where the younger children learn basic academics. I prefer to call it totschool, so as to include some of my middle age children who enjoy that time of our day too; but may not want to participate if I called it 'preschool'. This year our totschool included my children who were two, three, five, and seven. 

In years past I have used a variety of different preschool (totschool) systems, most of which included 'calendar books'. These books went over a multitude of different facts. But over time these little notebooks ended up taking upwards of thirty minutes to complete with each child. Now that I'm educating eight children, my time is stretched thin. Even though we lean towards unschooling, I still like to do some form of learning with each of my children each day. After much prayer and research last year I decided to drop our daily calendar books and create a totschool board.

In an effort to explain our tot school program in it's entirety I did a post at the start of this school year; you can fin it here. I titled that post Homeschool Preschool because that's what most people would call that specific type of lessons. Today I'm going to elaborate on what exactly was a success in our totschool program that I custom designed to meet our younger children's academic needs. 

The most important key component was my planner. Y'all that planner was a LIFESAVER!! I've always planned our school years, but this year I went into detail overdrive and planned every single minute detail of our lessons. Since I'm pulled in so many different directions each day it was a huge asset to just open my planner and plug and chug! It was also was great for the few times when I was out of commissions and my husband or one of my older children stepped in to facilitate our totschool lessons.

My favorite part of our totshool was the totschool board. I loved this board so much that I've decided to expound on our board next year ~ well actually I'm going to do two boards. This year's board covered: calendar, counting, shapes, color, letters, alphabet, seasonal song, months, days of the week, and the weather. Next year I'm going to add: skip counting 2s, 5s, and 10s, sight words, number words, seasons, and personal facts like address and phone number. I plan to continue to use our totschool board with the same four children, but Abby Lou will be added to the bunch; yes, even a baby can participate. 

Honestly, there isn't anything I plan to drop from our totschool lesson plan. I feel like after 15 years of homeschooling, I have finally figured out a younger children's academic program that works for our family. If there's one homeschooling truth that I've learned over the years, it's that what works for one family may or may not work for another family. Keep trying new programs or styles and continue tweaking until you can figure out what best fits the needs of your family. 

There was a few components to our totschool program that I hope to improve upon. The first being our table time totschool activities. I have educational toys boxed up which I had planned to rotate each day, unfortunately this did not happen consistently. Second, I was not committed to assembling our weekly sensory boxes. And third was our educational game time, or rather lack thereof ~ sigh. As you can see our totschool wasn't perfect, but we had a goal we were working towards, and I'm confident next year we will further refine our totschool .  

The good thing about homeschooling is it's a never-ending learning process for everyone involved, especially the parents. Sometimes the lesson plans do not go accordingly, but sometimes they do, and that my friends is a really good feeling. There are plenty of extended seasons of homeschooling when nothing goes right. But, when we do experience those rare unicorn moments of success, its those sweet little victories that are at the core of what encourages me to keep on doing whatever it takes to create the best learning opportunities for my children. 

 With another year of homeschooling under my belt, I can say without a shadow of a doubt: I wouldn't change a thing. I'm so grateful for the gift of homeschooling. It truly is a blessing to get to watch my children learn and grow in wisdom and truth. I especially cherish the fun we get to have learning together, whether it's with my younger crew of totschoolers or my older children of highschoolers ~  its all a gift from the Lord.   

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer