My heart and my home.

Posted on May 10, 2013July 25, 2020 Posted in Farming, Grateful, home, Homesteading, Kitchen, Personal, recipe, The Harvest Table Farm14 Comments

Pressed reset this morning or last night rather when I forced myself to go to bed early instead of burning the midnight oil (again). Woke up earlier than normal and this day has been fantastic as a result.

Yesterday we played at the farm. I planted some tomatoes and green beans just in time for today’s rain. These little things like the salamander I unearthed center me and make me grateful for all I’ve been given.

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Green smoothie recipe b/c it’s a main food group for us these days.

handful of spinach

1 frozen banana cut into pieces

1 handful frozen strawberries

1 cup coconut milk or more if needed

I also add some vitamin C powder and a powdered nutritional supplement for a boost

blend till smooth

Today’s inspiration:

*blessed weekend friends

Open Fire Cooking

Posted on August 17, 2012August 17, 2012 Posted in Homesteading, recipe5 Comments

Easily one of my favorite things. It’s starting to cool off just enough to light it up and we couldn’t be more happy. Here’s a taste of what’s to come in the months ahead.

Potato + onion + beef brat hash with a few jalapenos thrown in for good measure, sprinkled with Creole and fresh ground salt dabbed with a little butter and thrown over some hot coals. Cooks in a flash. So good.

Toasted perfection

Squished between two homemade ginger snaps #heaven

T and his side kick Denver who we adopted a few weeks ago till we could find him a good home. We’ve all grown quite attached to the sweet miniature blue heeler but lucky for us he’s being adopted by my family and will be going to live on the family farm next week. Something tells me he’ll be an added incentive to go visit Nanna and Pappa.

Tomato Tomato Tomato

Posted on August 10, 2012 Posted in canning, Farming, Homesteading, Kitchen2 Comments

Project No Tomato Left Behind but seriously. All grown by me from seed. So far I’ve put up tomato sauce, ketchup and sun dried tomatoes. Feeling so blessed and slightly overwhelmed by the abundance but oh what a blessing they are.

Oh, honey!

Posted on July 8, 2012July 19, 2012 Posted in Farming, HomesteadingLeave a comment

Could I possibly have been more unprepared when it comes to bees? doubtful, so no surprise I wasn’t ready for harvesting their work either. I used the most unconventional method but it worked and I’ve happily stored away 14 pints of honey. Next time (soon) I’ll be a little more prepared… extractor anyone?

“I guess I’ll keep going till someone tells me to stop”

Posted on July 5, 2012July 23, 2020 Posted in Farming, Homesteading, WritingLeave a comment

I’ve given this answer more than once this past few weeks when asked about the farm the unknowns and why I’m still doing what I’m doing. Fact is most days I don’t know what keeps me going other than the fact that someone has to care for these animals. The yurt and a farm was my dream but what I have to keep reminding myself is that even if it doesn’t happen now I don’t have to give up on it. So until I’m told to stop I’ll keep working.

We made tremendous progress today getting the roof rafters in and hooking up the waterline! I can’t describe the sheer joy and relief once these projects were complete after a good 8 hours in the 100 degree weather. I’m so blessed to have a family that will take their vacation day to drive 9 hours and come help me.

This week we added 4 new peeps to our flock. Can’t ever get enough of these little guys and I do believe it’s time for me to invest in an incubator of my own.

Collin is learning to use the potty now… can’t believe he’s already big enough to sport mama’s homemade trainer!

Sheer joy over running water. This means no more hauling 5 gallon buckets from the pond for watering the garden and animals! I still use a rain barrel but with as dry as it’s been we depleted that long ago. Doubtful I’ll ever taking running water for granted again.

Try explaining to a 4yo why mumma is too busy to take in a new baby kitten 😦

Little love. Tiny tushy.

Boys will be boys and thank goodness for it! #freedom

Little bigger brother and I building a platform

There you have it, all in a days work!

Goat Milk Cheese & Baby Making?

Posted on April 16, 2012April 16, 2012 Posted in Farming, HomesteadingLeave a comment

I arrived at the farm a few days ago to this… I’m not an expert but that looks like trouble! How Banjo (the male) managed to pull his hutch close enough for this is beyond me. Serious determination!

*ahem moving on. About a week ago I got the vet to come out and updated these beauties on all their shots and test for anything that needed attention. Excited to now have a huge abundance (over 2 quarts/day) of fresh goats milk. A few days ago with help of a good friend I started my first batch of soft goat cheese. I finished it today and was thrilled it turned out just right. YAY!

I followed the directions for a basic soft cheese in the package of rennet you can get at any grocery store. As I learn and experiment I’ll post more details of the process and tricks I may learn along the way.