Here are some good posts I’ve stumbled upon while browsing the web: Recipes: Cheesy Zucchini Orzo: I made this as a side dish this week and it was a hit! Soaked Granola: LARGE batch! Delicious! Homemaking/Frugal Living: Things to Buy in August : A great list of things that are at rock bottom prices in August (produce, school supplies etc.). Homeschool: Free Printable Matching Colors Busy Bag : I’m putting together some **simple** toddler busy bags for when we restart our school year so that he doesn’t feel left out. Free Teach Us to Worship 4 Week Bible Study (Elementary age): Yes. I am in full-on homeschool planning mode right now. I haven’t had a chance to check this over, but at a quick glance, it looks like something I may use with a couple of my kiddos. A whole bunch of these “hardest part of my homeschool” posts from over at Simple Homeschool. Just to get my mind right before we dig in. Gardening/Homesteading: Epsom Salts for the garden. My pepper plants are not doing well…so I’m trying this in hopes of a better harvest. Praying!! Season 2 Episode 10: Chickens and Strawberries of An American Homestead : Love it. As usual. Makes me wanna move to the mountains and live off grid! FacebookPinterestE-mail
18 Uses for Orange Peels
I was able to find oranges on sale this week for .37 cents per pound, which was really exciting. Especially because they were actually *good* oranges. Do you ever buy oranges, only to bite into them and they have absolutely no flavor or are totally dry? Such a bummer. These are good, though. So we have an abundance of orange peels, and I just hate to throw anything away, so I thought I’d write a post about all the ways you can use orange peels. (Note: When you’re planning to use orange peels for cooking or medicinally, organic is always best). 1. Orange peels can easily be dehydrated and saved for later use. You can dehydrate them in a dehydrator, in the oven or even just out on a cookie sheet. Alternately, you could freeze them so that you’ll have some available for orange zest the next time a recipe calls for it. The zest can also be ground into a powder to be added to any recipe that calls for orange zest. 2. Candied orange peel is also an option for your baking needs. Dipped in chocolate, it makes a delicious snack all on its own. 3. Like many fruits, oranges, and specifically the peel, contain a lot of nutrients, flavanones, antioxidants, and enzymes that can help your body perform better. This website talks about how orange peels are especially beneficial during times of respiratory issues. It works as a histamine and has irritation reducing properties, making it a fantastic addition to your medicine cabinet during cold and flu season, as well as allergy season. Consider adding some dried, frozen, ground, or fresh […]
Preparing for Winter
Preparing for winter isn’t for just for the paranoid and old fashioned. It’s not just for those with an earthen root cellar, or acres of gardens, or massive pantries with fancy Pinterest-worthy shelves ready to hold your fancy-pants apothecary style jars with chalkboard labels of organic wheat berries….and the $500 grain mill with which to grind them. It’s also for your regular, everyday, practical family. Apartment dwellers, small families, large families, wealthy families, and anyone in between. That will look different for each family depending on your financial situation, how harsh or mild your winters are, how much storage space you have, and the size of your family. But I firmly believe that everyone should do something to prepare for winter, especially if you tend you have harsh winters. A little something, if nothing else. But something. Around here, we’re doing some winter preps. Why? Hauling 4 kids through sleet, snow, slush, and freezing temperatures in a big ole van to grocery shop for 2-3 hours while very pregnant sounds like nothing short of torture, and I’d like to spare myself as much as possible. It’s not abnormal for the men working in my husband’s line of work to fall or get hurt during winter. They work outside on ladders, and do a lot of driving…even in the bad weather. If this were to happen and he had to be out of work for a time to heal, we’d lose our only source of income. Having food stocked up would be one less thing to worry about. It’s also not abnormal for us to lose power during a bad blizzard. Or for the roads […]
A Simple Life (and the Burn-Out)
What is homesteading? Why would you bother with such a thing when we live in an age with so many modern conveniences? Aren’t there better things to do with your time? Homesteading sounds romantic, but most of us don’t live on acres of land with tons of free time to put these skills to use. Not to mention the money. It costs a lot of money. So why bother doing all this stuff? The gardening, the preserving, the foraging, the constant research (because these are skills that aren’t passed down to us by our parents and grandparents anymore. It’s not second nature anymore. We have to relearn)? Why bother when it’s not the cheapest, easiest, nor the simplest way to go about things? Plus … isn’t it exhausting? Do you ever get burnt out and just want to throw in the towel and join the rest of the 21st century who can accept and appreciate modern day convenience? Sure. Sometimes I get burnt out. Sometimes I wonder why we bother trying to do this stuff. Living simply, cooking from scratch, living on a very humble income, gardening, canning, preserving, and hopefully someday raising livestock. This week, for example. I’ve been feeling rather ill and just plain exhausted. I’m feeling uninspired and once or twice, I’ve looked out at my thriving garden wondering why I put all that energy into it when I’ve been feeling too sick to even be able to enjoy what it’s producing. I wonder if I’ll be feeling well enough to preserve any of it when the tomatoes really start rolling in. Here’s the thing: the alternative kind of stinks. We’ve […]
Plantain Tincture
What’s Plantain?: Plantain is an herb that grows just about everywhere and it’s easy to recognize. For this reason, it’s a great starter for the novice herbalist. It’s been used for hundreds and probably even thousands of years to treat a number of different ailments from dandruff to upper respiratory infections (source). Of course, you should always consult your physician before using any herbal/natural remedy! How Do You Recognize It?: There are a few different varieties of plantain. The one that grows most in my yard, and with which I’m most familiar, is the broadleaf plantain (Plantago Major). It has very distinct Broad Leaves. The veins on the leaves start at the base and extend outward. Plantain also has very distinct flowers (pictured below) and the leaves will usually grow around the base of the flowers (as seen in the middle picture). How Do You Use It?: The leaves and juice from the leaves can be used to treat sunburns, bug bites, and minor scrapes and burns. Plantain contains antibacterial and antimicrobial properties, think of it as a natural Neosporin. It can be made into a tea or tincture to help tummy troubles (diarrhea, indigestion, ulcers). The same tea can be used as a hair rinse to treat dandruff. Plantain is rich in tannins, which can be an aid in stopping bleeding. A tea or tincture applied externally can reduce the itching that comes from poison ivy, poison oak, bug bites, or rashes. What’s a Tincture?: Tinctures are basically extracts of a particular herb. This is usually done with alcohol. It can also be done with vegetable glycerin or apple cider vinegar, but alcohol (vodka or grain alcohol no […]
A North Eastern Fall Garden
It’s time to start thinking forward to cooler weather already! Most of us northern gardeners are still patiently waiting for our tomatoes to start turning red. My cabbage is just starting to form heads and I saw the tiniest little broccoli crown today. As I’ve said before, gardening in cooler climates is a true test of patience. Lots of Fall garden articles are geared toward people who live in warmer clients. But the truth is, there’s a lot that we can do in the north, too. Where I am, I don’t have time for a second crop of cabbage or broccoli. They’re typical Fall garden options, but really not practical for my climate. They just wouldn’t have enough time before a hard frost hit. Sure, I could speed things up by starting them under lamps inside, but grow lamps are expensive and I’m really a no-muss no-fuss kind of gardener anyway. I’m going to be sowing a cover crop in my large garden bed this year to try and get some nutrients back in the soil for next year. I got the Peas/Oats blend from Botanical Interests. I may block out a small patch for some carrots. I haven’t decided if I’ll do those in the raised bed or not. I’ll use my 2 4×8 raised beds to try out a winter/fall garden this year once they’ve cleared out for the summer. I have some old leftover windows that I’m excited to use over the raised beds to form a kind of green house- you know, to extend the season a bit when temps start to drop. This chart on the Mother Earth News […]
Simple Tips for Growing Awesome Tomatoes
(Some of my posts may contain referral links. That means that if you clink through one of my links and then purchase something, I get a small commission. Thank you so much!) “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to garden, and the whole neighborhood gets tomatoes.” True story. By now, most of us already have our tomato plants growing in the ground. Up here in the north, I’m starting to see some beautiful little green tomatoes replacing the blossoms. Once a few of them get large enough, I’ll harvest some for fried green tomatoes. Mmmmm. Here are some of my favorite tomato growing tips. I keep it as simple as possible. Like most of you, I don’t have the time to research fancy solutions, nor the money to spend on them. So if I can find a solution using what I already have on hand, that’s the route I take. If I can’t, then it honestly probably won’t get done. I hope these tips help your maters grow and yield generously. 1. Prune the suckers: These are the small shoots that grow in the crotch between a stem and a branch. These growths will never produce fruit, so many gardeners will pinch them off. No sense in letting them use up valuable nutrients! This is especially true for indeterminate varieties of tomatoes. 2. Coffee Grounds and Egg Shells: I keep a bowl on my kitchen counter collect the used coffee grounds and egg shells from the day. At the end of each day, I carry them out to the garden and lay them at the feet of my tomato […]
