I am so sorry. I realize it has been a while since I have posted a life update here on the farm.
We had to leave to go on a work trip but we were close enough for me to get to drive back home and spend a week with the granddaughters while they were on fall break.
We had a very fun week and got to do so many things. Just making memories and spending time together. We painted rocks, had manicures and pedicures, sewed, baked in their Easy Bake ovens, cooked, played board games, watched movies, ate popcorn, rode around and played outside on the farm looking for worms and bugs, checked on the cows, had tea parties, etc. You name it we probably did it. They got to help Daddy every day when he got off work to come take care of the cows. We even learned a little math while baking and cooking. I introduced multiplication. We slept in and took naps which they needed.
I got to take them to a pumpkin patch that I always take them to every year since the day they were born. I had printed off a scavenger hunt or bingo list to take with us and they really loved looking and getting to mark all the things off on their list. We got to pet so many animals and love on them. Of course, they thought they were going to get me in the corn maze which was huge and I knew I would never make it out of there. I had to be a kid and go down the zip line too. It was kind of embarrassing when someone had to help me get on the very high swing though but I had granddaughters to impress. But trust me when I say, I paid for it. We got home and I let them paint their pumpkins and then we decorated for the fall and Thanksgiving season.
Then the time came by way too fast for me to leave again and go back and join dear hubby because soon we would be leaving for the next job sight which was not so close to home I'm so glad to have been given this split between jobs so it wouldn't be such a long time for the granddaughters to have to endure. They get really emotionally distraught when we are gone for long periods of time. I started buying them a yearly calendar and taught them how to mark off days to the day that we would be arriving back home. This is a good visual for them to learn to estimate time, count and see how time flies.
Our next destination took us 3 days to get there. Dear hubby breaks down our time to 6 hours of traveling a day for me. We take many stretch and bathroom breaks for me. If we didn't, I would not be able to travel with him. After traveling for 6 hours, we would stop at a hotel for the night, rest and sleep. Get up the next morning and go again. We finally arrived and it took me a week to get my body sorted back out. I was so sore.
Such beautiful scenery here in Virginia. We are on the Chesapeake Bay side this time. Three years ago, we were on the Lake Anna side. He knew better than to tell me we would go through a tunnel under the water because he knew I WOULD FREAK OUT!!!!!!! I was breathing so hard and gripping my steering wheel so tight that my knuckles hurt. We got stuck in traffic for an hour and a half on the other side. Boy, it was a doozie. I was a nervous wreck, He has done this for years but I haven't and I'm still getting used to it.
We finally reached our hotel with great relief. I needed to just calm down and slow my breathing. Then we started unloading our trucks and getting set up. It's a good thing we got here before dark. After getting somewhat settled, we found a place to grab some supper.
The next day, I spent getting our room set up and liveable. Then my next job was to start menu planning and getting groceries. If you want to know my Meal Planning ideas and strategies and how I shop when we are out of town versus when we are at home check out my Meal Planning and Shopping the Sales Playlist here on our YouTube Channel
Shopping and planning for meals is way different than meal planning at home. I can't just go to our freezers or pantries and put a meal together. I have to shop for sales, find the grocery stores near me, and shop wisely.
Once I get everything together and bought, then I start cooking the meals. I make his breakfast, lunches, and suppers.
I don't just sit in a hotel room every day and get bored. I bring plenty to do and venture out sometimes when I find something that interests me. Luckily on this job, dear hubby is getting one day off a week and we go somewhere together. This one particular day, he took me to exactly where I wanted to go. He took me to VA Beach. Now I can literally say I have been Coast to Coast with this man of mine. We got to get our boots in the sand, write our names in the sand, and collect shells for our coast-to-coast collection back home. It was a wonderful day and even got to eat on the beach and enjoy a lovely sunset on the way back to our hotel.
I managed to get out one day and find a donut shop. Not just any donut shop. But a donut shop (I can't stop saying donut because it is one of my favorite things) that mixes, fries and decorates it to your liking right in front of you and serves it up warm. SHHUUUUUSH! Let me savor this moment.
I got the courage to venture a little further out one day and just enjoyed the scenery and a few visitors.
On one of my dear hubby's off days, we did have plans to go somewhere but he woke up not feeling really well and we stayed in. But he gave me the night off from cooking and we found a local place to get the chance to eat by the bay. Our plans are still in the making for the plans we had to cancel. It will be in another post.
One day I packed a picnic lunch and found a local park. Nice view. This is where I am sitting and writing this post actually.
This is what we get to see out our room window every day. This is zoomed in of course so you can see better. We have a very good view of the beautiful sunrise every morning on our side of the building. Oh, and yes, that is bread rising in the window under a beautiful sunrise. I found a way to make some bread in my air fryer using my 5-minute No Knead bread dough and a kneaded bread dough. That will be a video for later. I was conducting a little experiment here.
I found a really nice church to visit out here and everyone is so nice and making me feel at home.
If you made it to the very bottom of this post, I appreciate it so much and have enjoyed you hanging out with me. Thank you for letting me share my adventures. I will try not to go so long between posts next time.
If you enjoy our blog and content, be sure to sign up to receive emails when a new post is published so you don't miss a thing. We would love it if you would join us. Enjoy your reading.
If you are curious about any products you see in our images or that we use in our kitchen, please feel free to visit our Amazon Store where everything is organized into lists for each category.
4D Farms LLC. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Our storefront link is an affiliate link that earns our farm a commission at no additional cost if you click through and make a purchase. You can trust that we recommend products that we use in our own home and love and maybe some we wish to have. Our storefront is designed to help you locate items easily by specific, organized, and titled lists.
We hope you find something that you enjoy. We also have our channel designed by playlists so you can find your favorite topic to search for certain videos easily. We hope to see you there also. Subscribe to our channel so you can be notified when new videos are uploaded. Be sure to turn your notification bell on too or you will miss them.
We also have a Novelty Merch Store for 4D Farms where you can find apparel, housewares, and novelty gifts for yourself, friends, and loved ones. We hope you like our custom-made designs by me and one of my daughters-in-law. They are our own and copywritten.
Over the years, I have learned so many tips and tricks for surviving the chaos and busyness of the holidays. I would love to take this time to share them with you. This is a post I wrote 3 years ago here on the blog and I feel as though it is worth sharing again. At the end of this post, I will also post video versions of more or some of the same great information. I hope you enjoy it and find some helpful tips to help make your holidays less stressful so we can enjoy the real Reason for the Season.
2021:
No, this is not going to be a debate about when you can and can not put your Christmas tree up. If you want to go ahead and put it up, so be it. After the past two years, we have had, it is kind of refreshing. If it brings you joy and happiness, by all means do it. We can all use some joy and happiness after what all we have been through and what we are still going through.
I however have always liked to wait until the day after Thanksgiving. I like to celebrate each and every holiday and bestow upon it the attention and beauty it needs. I love Thanksgiving. My momma and my dear mother-in-law always made it special and so will I. We have always had big meals at my late mother-in-law's house and this year is going to be so different. I can already sense the mood in my dear hubby. These holidays will be so hard for him and our family. I've got to make sure it is special for him. I want to teach our grandchildren the importance of Thanksgiving and counting your blessings. I can't wait to get home and decorate with my fall placemats, and start planning our menu. My parents started joining us for Thanksgiving a few years ago. My momma always let us do whatever we wanted for Thanksgiving because she knew so many of us had in-laws and so many houses to go to that it was just hard. But she was very clear that we had to have our hineys at her house come Christmas night or else. lol. As they got older, I noticed how alone they seemed. Why it never hit me before I don't know. But a few years ago, I told my husband that was going to change. Although we were so worn out from one family get-together and not to mention stuffed, I told my husband I wanted to host a get-together for my momma and daddy. We ran the idea across them and they discussed it and agreed. Like, Hello? Do you need to discuss it? Get your hiney to my house or else young lady.. lol. When I did my cooking for my mother-in-law's house, I would double recipes and make two. That way I had both meals covered. This year I need to make it more special for dear hubby. I think I am going to let him pick the menu. I will fix whatever he wants. I also love spoiling my momma and daddy. She said we should have done this years ago. It's just she knew how tired everyone was from bouncing from house to house especially all in one day. She just didn't want to bother anyone. Well, like I said, I got tired of seeing them alone on Thanksgiving and we changed that. It has been special ever since. Just about the time we leave here, It will be close and I will have to deep clean my home first then get to work on my menu and start pre-cooking.
It is not just Thanksgiving that kind of gets left out sometimes, it's other holidays as well. Especially when you have so many close together. Like Valentine's and Easter. We kind of skip St. Patrick's Day. Oh well, I love to give each holiday their own special days and recognition. Man, speaking of St. Patrick's Day, I went all out that week, and each day we did something rainbow. You can go back and check it out. We had a blast.
The day after Thanksgiving I kick it into Christmas mode. I get dear hubby to get all my Christmas stuff out and I go to town decorating my home. I do the inside and he does the outside. I will start planning my menu and such.
Hence, the reason for this post. I know the Holidays can get stressful, but they are not supposed to be. The reason they get stressed is that we have become conditioned to believe that it is all about money and pleasing other people that we stress over "gift giving". Christmas is so commercialized about gift-giving that we go into debt trying to find the perfect gift for someone, and we feel obligated to buy someone a gift so as not to hurt their feelings. I am just happy with being with my family and that is all that matters to me. Of course, when you have children, it is a whole new ball game. Of course, I want them to have Christmas presents, Lord knows our grandkids get just as much from us as they do their mommy and daddy. Cause I can. lol. It is a magical time for children. But I put a lot of emphasis on the true meaning of Christmas and teach them what it is all about.
I'm going to share some tips on how I try to help keep the stress down for our holidays so we can actually enjoy them.
First, we start shopping very very early. Like around October early. Maybe sooner. You see, companies will try to trick you into believing they run the best deals on Black Friday. I have found that to not be true. I have seen things that I have wanted go on sale on Black Friday, when they ran a sale earlier in the year for around the same price and then I waited until Black Friday and missed my chance because they ran out. Start keeping your eye out for sales throughout the year. We know we have a whole year to get ready for the next year right? See, it makes sense. Do Christmas shopping throughout the year, catch sales, and order them, or go buy them and put them up. Make a note of who it is for and hide it. You can even go ahead and wrap it and be a step ahead. I do this with stocking stuffers too. My point is, that sometimes the sales throughout the year come out to be the same or even better than waiting until the last minute. This also cuts our stress of worrying if they are going to get delivered in time. We have to start early because we have one kid's birthday in December, mine and dear hubby's wedding anniversary, and then Christmas all in one week. Then exactly one month after that the other kids' birthday. We have done this since our kids were little.
Next is the timing for family get-togethers. Everyone wants to have something at their home and you find yourself rushing around from home to home in a matter of two days. When you have kids, this is a lot. Plan some things ahead and see what works best for your family. It is natural for children to want to wake up first thing Christmas morning in their own home and open gifts. Then it is hard to hurry them and whisk them away to someone's home a few hrs later then maybe one more place after that. This will create some irritable children, not to mention irritable and exhausted parents. My family has always worked around each other. For instance, My mother in law would have her Christmas with everyone on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning was our time with our children. Christmas Night was at my mother's house. Now, when grandchildren came along this added a glitch. Our first Christmas without our oldest son was hard. But he had his own little family to start traditions with now and we had to understand and cope. So we came up with a plan to have Christmas with them and our grandchildren on another day. So now, we have Christmas with them on the night of the 23rd and we let them spend the night with us and we do all the things with them that we would do and do with our own boys. Then we get up the next morning and they have their Christmas with us. They have the whole day to play and rest before that night which is Christmas Eve. Then they get to do it all again with mommy and daddy for their house. That way we get to have a special day with them and then they are free to enjoy other family members get togethers too. If it is stressful for you and your family members, see if someone is willing to change the day they host theirs and work with other family members. Maybe even combine get-togethers. It's a start anyway. This can even be done the week before if someone is willing. We have the whole month of December anyway. Who said it had to be on a certain day.
My next is my absolute number one tip and that is menu planning and cooking ahead. I start doing this the day after Thanksgiving as well. I plan my menu way ahead of time, like in late October. Then I will start stocking up on some of the non-perishable items a little at a time when they are on sale. Come the day after Thanksgiving I will start precooking a lot of my dishes and doubling batches (sometimes I have more than one home to cook for not just mine) and I will put them into the freezer. The night before one of our get-togethers, I will pull those dishes for that home to defrost. All I have to do the next morning or before the time to leave is just heat them up and put them into an insulated casserole carrier. Sometimes I do have things that will need to be last minute or at least the night before. Some things are just better fresh. But if it can freeze well, then it is going to go on my menu and be cooked early. I've had times when I have had to cook for 3 homes and church dinners for the holidays. Yes, I wound up tripling recipes to make it easier on me. This goes for my baking treats and desserts too. I always make treats for all the children on my side of the family and dear hubby's side too. That is a lot of kids. I try to keep it simple but I get such joy from it. It has to be something that will keep for a few weeks too so I can bag them real pretty and set them aside.
If finances are a problem, start at the beginning of the year and make a Christmas budget and set aside a small amount each paycheck to save for gifts. Wrap gifts as you purchase them and hide them.
All I can say is don't wait until the last minute to do ANYTHING. Start earlier in the year or at least a few months early. Commercializing and trying to get things done at the last minute is robbing us of our joy during the holiday season that we go through it in a blur and do not take the time to slow down and enjoy being with family. We forget what it is all about. Then before we know it, it is a new year and we wonder where the time went and some are just glad it is over. That is sad. Take time to enjoy the holidays and family. Because one day you will look back and loved ones will be gone and you will wish you had this time back.
I hope some of these ideas have helped you. If you do not get a chance to start early this year, because here we are only weeks from Christmas, make it a point to start in January of next year. Get a planner and write things down, start planning. Keep an eye out for sales throughout the year and maybe buy one gift a month.
Let's get back to making the holidays special again. As soon as we get back home, I sure am.
Here are video versions of some more great tips especially traveling for a while with children for the holidays:
I hope you enjoy it!
If you enjoy our blog and content, be sure to sign up to receive emails when a new post is published so you don't miss a thing. We would love it if you would join us. Enjoy your reading.
If you are curious about any products you see in our images or that we use in our kitchen, please feel free to visit our Amazon Store where everything is organized into lists for each category.
4D Farms LLC. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Our storefront link is an affiliate link that earns our farm a commission at no additional cost if you click through and make a purchase. You can trust that we recommend products that we use in our own home and love and maybe some we wish to have. Our storefront is designed to help you locate items easily by specific, organized, and titled lists.
We hope you find something that you enjoy. We also have our channel designed by playlists so you can find your favorite topic to search for certain videos easily. We hope to see you there also. Subscribe to our channel so you can be notified when new videos are uploaded. Be sure to turn your notification bell on too or you will miss them.
We also have a Novelty Merch Store for 4D Farms where you can find apparel, housewares, and novelty gifts for yourself, friends, and loved ones. We hope you like our custom-made designs by me and one of my daughters-in-law. They are our own and copywritten.
If you enjoy our blog and content, be sure to sign up to receive emails when a new post is published so you don't miss a thing. We would love it if you would join us. Enjoy your reading.
If you are curious about any products you see in our images or that we use in our kitchen, please feel free to visit our Amazon Store where everything is organized into lists for each category.
4D Farms LLC. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Our storefront link is an affiliate link that earns our farm a commission at no additional cost if you click through and make a purchase. You can trust that we recommend products that we use in our own home and love and maybe some we wish to have. Our storefront is designed to help you locate items easily by specific, organized, and titled lists.
We hope you find something that you enjoy. We also have our channel designed by playlists so you can find your favorite topic to search for certain videos easily. We hope to see you there also. Subscribe to our channel so you can be notified when new videos are uploaded. Be sure to turn your notification bell on too or you will miss them.
We also have a Novelty Merch Store for 4D Farms where you can find apparel, housewares, and novelty gifts for yourself, friends, and loved ones. We hope you like our custom-made designs by me and one of my daughters-in-law. They are our own and copywritten.
I apologize for being absent the last few days. I have been working on some more recipes for my Breadmaking for Beginners Series on our YouTube channel. I have so much coming up and I hope you will enjoy them. This day, I practiced making loaves with my 5-minute No Knead Bread Dough because I was also helping my mother. Just as a backstory, my mother was diagnosed with Leaky Gut Syndrome several months ago. The bad part is, that she hid it from me. She felt she was bothering me and didn't want me to know. She felt as though she was a hindrance. The only person who knew anything about it was her neighbor. Are you kidding me? She had already been sick for several weeks when I found out. I told her to never do that to me again. My mother has never been nor ever will be a bother to me or my sisters nor a hindrance. She took care of us all our years growing up, and now I felt it was my turn. She informed me of her and her doctor's regimen. Then I came in with a little more. One thing on her regimen was to cut out all processed foods. Now, she is like me, we LOVE OUR BREAD! I was in the middle of my breadmaking journey and that's when I included her. I quickly started teaching her how to make her own bread with healthier flour and ingredients. Fresh bread, not store-bought. Now, you may be thinking that she should know how to make bread. Let me say this, my momma was a youngest child who had two older brothers. She was a tomboy and had no desire to be in the kitchen growing up. LOL. She doesn't enjoy cooking and never has, but she fed us and we are alive and well. LOL! I still learned how to make simple things from her growing up just by watching her. Some women have no desire to cook and that's ok. Every woman has their own talents. My mother's talent is, being a PRAYER WARRIOR. She never failed to take us to church and taught us to sing in church. I could sit and listen to my mother sing all day. I still remember some of the songs she used to sing in church. God Walks the Dark Hills is one of those songs. Boy, as a young girl, she gave me goosebumps singing that song. It is still a precious memory of mine.
Sorry, for getting off track. I do that sometimes. I'm like a squirrel. Back to homemade bread. I started my momma out on a simple dough because she needed it simple and quick. She does not have a stand mixer. The 5-Minute No Knead Bread Dough was perfect for her to start out on. She has been practicing and really enjoying it so much. She is having fun and she is so proud of herself and her accomplishments. You know what? SO AM I! She has come a long way. She will send me pictures of her loaves and she is so proud and excited. She is doing well on her journey of healing her gut and getting so much better. We started making small changes wherever we could and changing a lot of things to HOMEMADE using better ingredients made a lot of difference. You see, we get spoiled with convenience foods and processed quick foods that are not good for us. So was her case. Over the years it caught up with her. It's going to catch up to all of us if we are not careful.
She made other changes according to her doctor and he was on board with my help too of just making some changes in the way we cooked and baked for her.
Here as you can see, we took homemade bread and turned it into awesome grilled cheese. She also loves taking her loaves and just having a slice toasted with some no-sugar strawberry jam. I am so glad she is on the mend and doing so much better. She has promised to never leave me in the dark again about her health. She sees how much I have helped and could help her change. We also went about in her kitchen and reorganized it so she does not have to take so many steps in the kitchen. What I mean is, we put things into zones. We arranged things according to where things were in her kitchen and put things in better reach for her. She does not need to be stooping down and lifting heavy items to a high counter. They are now level and this is just one of the many changes we made for her. She is loving her new organization in her kitchen and has thanked me more than several times. I am so glad to be able to help my little momma and take care of her and my daddy. After all, he is benefiting too from the dietary changes and organization. Now, can he find anything? Probably not. It will take some getting used to but he is loving it as well.
Just take a gander of this grilled cheese. It was delicious and my momma is learning to make different things with her simple dough as well. Now, we will move up a little and begin at the intermediate level. The timing of my breadmaking series could not have been better and I know God had his hands in it as well. We are learning together and having fun in our kitchens. She is going to be practicing making more things as well. She will be moving up to making a kneaded dough now. She said she will have no problem doing it by hand and she is looking forward to it.
Feel free to join us in our journey by watching my videos on our channel in my Breadmaking for Beginners Series. I will link some below that are new and a link to the whole series for you as well. We would love to have you and thanks for hanging out with me in this post as well.
Join me as we talk about another way of being self-sufficient on our farm.
Another way that we like to be self-sufficient on our Homestead is by hunting.
I did not grow up with hunting as part of our lifestyle. My grandparents had a farm and that is where we learned a lot of self-sufficient skills. I do remember my PaPa going hunting a few times. His love for hunting came later in his life.
However, my dear hubby grew up hunting and loved it as a teenager and he helped provide for him and his momma. He is such a good boy. He would go out hunting and bring home a deer. Both of them would process it and she would cook some up. He did this for several years. When we talked about having kids, he always said he wanted to take them hunting and that he did. When our oldest son was 2 or 3 years old, he took him hunting with him. He has not looked back since. When our youngest son came along, he was taught too. It took me years before I could join in on this fun. Dear Hubby went all the time and was used to it and I still cried when I watched Bambi. I finally realized one day that I wanted to join in and I needed to toughen up. I asked myself one question, What would happen if our grocery chain was shut down or something happened? How would we feed our family? Could I do what I needed to do to feed my family? We raised chickens for years but never ate them because they were my laying hens for eggs. This got me thinking really hard about what I could be capable of, if anything, to help put food on our table. So I started on my journey and asked my dear hubby to help teach me. Now, it is a favorite activity we do together all the time.
If you are interested in how to get started, there are some things you will need to check into first and you can read all about it on our Hunting and Fishing Page here You will find all you need to know on how to search for land to hunt if you do not have enough acres of yours, legal issues you need to know first, any license or permits needed, supplies needed and etc.
Hunting is a great way to supplement food for your family's needs. I believe everything was put here by our creator for us to use for our sustenance and needs. There are great recipes out there as well.
If you would like a visual version of Hunting Practices, you can join me in some videos. I take you along on a few hunting trips with me and then we get into discussing all the legalities and hunting ettiquette
I hope you enjoy watching these. Some years are better than others but that is when you have to be persistent and patient. Never give up.
All of us here at 4D Farms would love to tell you that we are still praying for everyone affected by Hurrican Helene. We pray for comfort, strength in these coming days to begin to begin to heal, start over, and rebuild. We pray for resilience, perseverance, endurance and patience. This is never easy nor do we think it ever is.
I was reading Ecclesiastes this morning and it just spoke to me.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven: 2 a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; 3 a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build; 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; 5 a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing; 6 a time to search and a time to count as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away; 7 a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak; 8 a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace. 9 What does the worker gain from his struggles? 10 I have seen the task that God has given the children of Adam to keep them occupied. 11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end.
I learned a long time ago that it was never meant to understand or "try to find out" why God does what he does. We are too just simply trust. Trust me, I know. It is the trusting part that always got me. I didn't understand why a trial would come that would just rip my heart out or the heart of a loved one. However, after the brokenness, came comfort, then acceptance, followed by deliverance to the awesome provision. Sometimes a circumstance comes along that we have no control over. We are hurt, angry and we cry out to God wanting to know why. But we have ro remember that he sees the future and he knows what is down the road. It could be something better for our own good. Sometimes he uses circumstances to grow us. We will never understand the "why's", all we need to see is he will take us through the valley and up the mountain. He will walk right beside us and help us along the way. When we get to the top of the mountain, we will look at him and he will say, "See My Child?"
I have experienced this many times in my life. So I don't just tell you all this for naught. I can truly tell you this out of love because I can tell you," I've been there".
I hope you find some comfort in these words because the Lord laid it upon my heart and I wanted to share it with you today.
Stay Tennessee and North Carolina strong my friends.
Have you seen our new designs? We're working on so much more. There should be something for everyone. We are so excited to bring these to you. Click on the box and enjoy all the new things we have.
As far as the steaks, that is a specialty of dear hubbies that he makes his own itilian groud sausage from and so far he has not done a video on it. I will be working on him (encouraging) to possibly making a video next time he makes some for our freezer. It may take a lot of persuasion and sweet talking but I think he might oblige. Lol 😆 🤣 😂
I hope you find some ideas on how you can preserve some of these delicious goodies for you and your family. If you would like to learn how to start growing these delicious goodies, feel free to Check out our Gardening Page here and read all about it.
If you are interested in getting into canning and want to know what kind of equipment I use, feel free to check out our Amazon Storefront here and find my Canning and Preserving List. On it you will find everything that I use in my own kitchen and I stand behind the quality of the products.
4D Farms is an affiliate with Amazon and when you make a purchase, we do receive a small commission at no cost to you. You benefit from the savings. And we appreciate your support for our farm.
If you want to start learning how to Can and Preserve so much more and want visual versions, I have a whole Canning and Preserving Playlist on YouTube here where you can watch all videos of all the things we preserve. Also included is a couple of vidoes of explaining how canning works, busting some myths, and equipment you will need to get started. So much information.
If you want to start growing your own garden and be getting ready for next spring, I also have videos on our YouTube channel on my Gardening Playlist that you can watch here
It is my hope you find much inspiration and knowledge to be able to be self sufficient for you and your family.
If you are not able to grow a garden, there are always ways to still stock your pantries and freezers and Preserve these items just by purchasing items from local farms, farmers markets, and shopping the sales at your local grocery stores. We do this sometimes for things we either can't grow in our garden or do not have the extra space or energy for a particular year in our garden 😉. For instance, I can't grow carrots for the life of me. I have tried many different methods and have not had any success. So, here I go to our local grocery stores and pick those babies up when they are on sale and buy them in bulk, bring them home and then process them. Beans is another good example. They are cheap and someone else did all the labor of growing.
I always say, where there is a will, there is a way. Be creative and do what you can.
I have also just put new designs in our Merch Store you can find here. We have a Canning and Preserving and Gardening Collection. I am loving creating and playing around with designs. We will be adding more in the coming weeks. Be sure to check out our store. The holidays are coming up.
Be sure to chat with me in the comments and let me know what are some of your plans to becoming more self sufficient.
Hey G-Maw, What's For Supper? Well, tonight I have prepared Itilian Pork Steaks smothered in home canned caramelized onion gravy, served alongside butternut squash nestled in a bed of mashed potatoes made from my home canned potatoes. Also served with homemade dinner rolls made with molasses.
So what is Itilian Pork Steaks you ask? Well, dear hubby took ground pork that we had processed from a hog and added Itilian sausage seasonings to it. Then I turned them into Steaks. He outdid himself and I made a 5 star 🌟 🤩 meal.
Use your imagination when it comes to cooking with your garden produce. 😋
Here is a good idea when you're headed to the car rider line at school. Have a snacky snacky and something to drink waiting on them when they get in.
Alot of kids have eaten really early and the little snack they are givem has already wore off before school is out. Since kids burn calories quicker than we do, they need to replenish those. If not, they can get CRANKY. They can eat a snack before you get home and be more calm 😌 and ready to tackle what comes next.
They might even be more focused and be able to get their home work done or chores because they are not hungry.
This also helps if it is going to be a while before you get to eat supper. 😋
If you forget to have something ready for them when you pick them up and get home, you can always let them sit down and unwind for a few minutes and have a snack. This is what ours looks like sometimes. We can relax, calm down and just talk while enjoying a tea party and cake. Fruit is a good option too.
My girls did awesome today. Few cuts, few tears but they cowgirled up and pushed through and now we have 3 jars pineapple chunks, 3 jars pineapple juice, and 8 jars of pickled veggies. 🥒🫑🥕😊😊
Sometimes it's the random acts of kindness that you can do for your spouse that makes all the difference. Take care of each other.
Dear hubby is all fixed up with breakfast, lunch and snacks 😋
I also like to prepare his breakfasts too.
Each week I will make something different so he doesn't get bored. Last week was breakfast burritos. This week and next will be pancakes with sausage and then scrambled eggs, sausage or bacon with a biscuit. I put them into meal prep containers and then he grabs a biscuit.
I have started preparing his sandwiches in advance and putting them in a bowl wrapped up so all he has to do is grab one and put into his Sistema lunch container.
Sandwiches can be made and even frozen. The secret is to spread the condiments in between the meat and cheese. Do not spread on the bread. It can soak through. Place other wet condiments like lettuce, pickles, tomatoes in a separate container so they don't make the sandwich soggy. They can put them on the sandwich when it's time to eat it. 😋 If you are making pb and j sandwiches for kids, spread pb on both sides of the bread, then spread the jelly. It gets sandwiched (no pun intended) between the layers of pb and doesn't soak through. Perfect for freezing a batch. The frozen sandwiches help keep their lunches cool until it's time to eat. Don't worry, they will thaw in time.
You can actually make lunches the night before and prepack lunch boxes and keep in the refrigerator. Before walking out the door, grab and go.
Prepping breakfast and lunches is not hard and it makes mornings go a little smoother.
I am very adamant on Make Ahead Breakfasts to make mornings run smoother. I did this for our boys and now for our grandchildren since we help with school runs in the mornings.
You can read one of my tutorials here and see how I do this and my reason behind it. You can also go to the left of the Home page on our blog and there is a Search Blog button. You can type in Make Ahead Breakfasts and it will take you to several more tutorials. I give you plenty of meal ideas that they will not get bored with if you rotate.
I also have a tutorial on Homemade Lunchables that you can read about here and get alot more lunch ideas for kids, teenagers and adults lunches. 😉
Please feel free to check out our videos on our YouTube channel as well if you like video versions.
They are organized onto playlists where they are easy to find
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