Mid Summer Catch All: Homesteading 101, House projects, homemade creamer, books, chickens, oh my!

I did the math the other day and it will be back to school season in less than a month. I went ahead and ordered school supplies and relished in getting something checked off my list while sipping my coffee one morning. In the meantime, we are trying to tick off as many summer adventures as we can in those remaining weeks.

However, not every day is an adventure and we’ve been doing some fun and exciting things at home too. I have been really trying to educate myself and lean into modern, small scale homesteading. The cost of groceries is just crazy and the more I learn about ingredients the more intrigued I become in making as much as we can from possible. It’s important for me to be reasonable and go slow in this over all. My personality wants to do everything all at once, but then I get overwhelmed and frozen and don’t end up doing anything. I am still learning the art of scaling for success.

So, I’ve been researching a lot of homesteading topics: namely on Youtube, but I also read a couple of books from the library & now I am starting slow and hoping within 1-2 years to have a functioning homestead. I have had two gardens now with minimal success so I think I’m ready. I’m also finding the physical labor is good for me, and I love seeing my hard work pay off.

I was watching an episode of Home Town, one of my favorite shows, and Erin repurposed old plastic pots with joint compound. The previous owners left a lot of those here so I got a jar of compound for around 15.00 and I’m going to give it a try. I plan to plant natural insect repellants in a lot of those and small vegetables or fruits that don’t occupy too much space.

I currently have 5 or 6 sliced up strawberries on the counter drying out so I can take the seeds and plant those, thanks Youtube for teaching me. Strawberries are allegedly a really easy thing to grow and my kids eat a ton so I’m hoping that is true.

We are getting a few chickens, everyone says they are easy and make for a great first homestead animal. Plus, we eat so many eggs.

Bringing the goals inside: I’m transitioning to making as much homemade food as possible. I really hope to get sourdough bread down in the coming weeks, so I can start really making some of the more fun things I’ve seen— pizza crusts, muffins, etc. I made my own vanilla coffee creamer this morning, it was three ingredients and tastes incredible. It is also great if you have someone with a food allergy because you can use whatever milk you need to.

Of course, I’ve been doing all my house work with my airpods in and some great summer audiobooks playing I wanted to share:

The Martha’s Vineyard Beach & Book Club: This was about World War 2 and female friendships and families and a little romance but not raunchy. I loved it so much!

I just started this one last night, but I had to get it from the library when I realized it was set in Florida and is a murder mystery! It had really great reviews so I’m eager to get further along.

I really enjoyed this book, the author is very popular but this was my first time reading one of her books and now I see why she is so popular.