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Unlock the Secrets to Raising Chickens While Being Busy
Chickens are the easiest animals I have to care for, even as a busy mom. I hear people all the time say I don’t know how you do it. But honestly, I always laugh and say I am a super lazy farmer. So I thought I would share with you my secrets to raising chickens from one busy person to another. I get it, I was overwhelmed with the thought. I wanted chickens so badly. But I was so afraid to add anything to my plate. My want though, won over my fear. So when my neighbors offered up a little beat-up coop they were getting rid of I jumped…
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Lilac Jelly Recipe with your Sweet Lilac Blossoms
Lilacs mean spring to me and I cannot get enough of their sweet smell! I knew I wanted to make lilac jelly. Last year after the lilacs were all done in my area, I saw someone post a recipe for a cake with lilac blossoms. My mind was blown because I did not realize lilacs are edible! Fast forward to this year and I was determined to make something with these lovely flowers. This spring canning recipe is super easy to make and it’s a fun way to celebrate the first few weeks of spring. So HURRY, go get your lilac blossoms, and try this recipe before they are gone…
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Ducks And Niacin – What The Quack Is This All About!? And When Things Are Going Wrong How To Fix It.
UGH – Where to start! So I got ducks, Jumbo Pekin Ducks to be precise. We can start there. (wink) We waited over a month for the ducks to arrive and in that time I did tons of research. Our family was so excited to receive our three little cuties in the mail. I ordered them from Metzer Farms. I figured three female Pekin ducks would be the perfect addition. And when they showed up they were the hit of our little homestead. That is until things started to go wrong. I ended up having ducks with a niacin deficiency and I scrambled to learn all I could so I…
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Mason Jar Gifts with Cookie Recipes
I have received so many compliments on the mason jar gifts that I gave out around Christmas last year. It was so fun to receive pictures of my friends and their kiddos baking these cookies and brownies together. I’ll be making these super easy gifts again next year. Pinterest is the best for providing some free resources that I used to put these all together. I can’t wait for you to give them a try! This post contains affiliate links. This will not cost you anything but will help us offset the cost of running the blog. We only share products we use and would recommend to a friend. Thank…
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Craft Your Own Plantain-Infused Oil!
Infusing oils is such a great skill to learn. Infused oils can be used in so many ways. You can use infused oils in beauty products, cooking, aromatherapy, and for medicinal purposes. Plantain-infused oil is one of the newest ones in my arsenal. What is a plantain you ask? I know most people immediately think of the banana-looking type of plantain when I start talking about this. But what I am referring to is commonly known to most people as a weed that grows throughout the world. This post contains affiliate links. This will not cost you anything but helps us to offset the cost of running the blog. We…
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Canned Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling
I don’t know about you but my family LOVES strawberry rhubarb pie and crumble. We usually have a lot of it during spring and summertime and then when rhubarb season is over all the fun stops. A few years ago I learned about canned strawberry rhubarb pie filling. Since then I started making these delicious summer homemade pies all year long. When you can the pie filling all you have to do to make your dessert is dump it in a crust or crumble and bake! Super fast and easy! I also freeze strawberries and rhubarb if I don’t have enough time to can the pie filling. Make sure to…
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Pasty Recipe from Upper Michigan
My husband’s family has some roots in Upper Michigan (check out our thimbleberry jam recipe if you don’t believe me 😆 ) so I knew it was in my future to try to make a pasty. Pasties are like a Yooper delicacy that became popular in the 1800s. If you’re not familiar with a pasty (pronounced pass-tee), it is like a big meat and potato hot pocket! They became popular with the copper miners because they’re cheap and easy to make. The miners could stick them in their pockets and they’d be safe until lunch. My husband’s grandma made these for her family and we just came across the recipe…
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Benefits of Tallow in All Natural Soaps & Skincare
If you’re like me you were a little weirded out when you first learned about tallow. You want me to put what on my hands and face? 😆 When I started learning about all the benefits of it, I quickly got used to the idea and started really appreciating the knowledge. If you don’t know, tallow is rendered and purified beef fat. Yup, you read that right! When you render beef fat (specifically suet, found around the kidneys) you are ridding it of impurities and water and you’re left with a nutrient-dense oil that will nourish your skin whether it is mixed with lye and made into soap, used as…
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Switch to Soaps with Natural Ingredients
Several years ago I started learning more about healthy living. This can mean a lot of different things depending on who you are. For me, it started with eating a little better to lose weight after having a baby (my first baby, who is 9 now 😭). As I was learning to look at labels I realized that there are so many unnecessary ingredients in foods. Even simple things that seem like they should only have 1 or 2 ingredients had 5-10. For me, this is where my natural product journey all began. My interest in healthier products grew from foods to cleaning products, and then to products that went…
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Why does Lye (sodium hydroxide) need to be in soap?
Why does Lye (sodium hydroxide) need to be in soap? This is a huge question I asked myself when I started looking into a more natural way of making soap. I read all the ingredients in the soaps and other products we were putting on our skin. I began to wonder what all the chemicals were for and how they were affecting us. What I found is we don’t need all those crazy chemicals to create a soap that is amazing. But we do need Lye. You can not make a natural soap without it. Lye – also known as sodium hydroxide and/or potassium hydroxide is a strong alkaline material.…