Homemaking on the Homestead

I’ve made my own ranch dressing for years. Every now and again I buy it but we are never big fans of store bought. It can be a bit of a hassle to make it, especially as quick as we consume it. I decided to try and take my recipe and turn it into a dry seasoning mix that can easily be added to the rest of the ingredients. I did and it is great and so easy to make!

Here is the recipe I came up with…

Bulk Ranch Dressing Mix
¼ cup onion powder
2T garlic powder
6T parsley
1T dill weed
2 ¼ t salt
2 ¼ t seasoning salt
¾ t pepper

Combine all ingredients in a bowl…



Add 1 (full) Tablespoon to…

1 cup mayonnaise
½ cup sour cream
½ cup milk




The mix will fill a half pint canning jar.  One batch of salad dressing will make approximately 2 cups of salad dressing..


This mix will make about 10 batches of ranch dressing.

If you would like to make this into ranch dip, just add only enough milk to make it a dip consistency.
Print Recipe:

Monday
Baked chicken legs, garlic roasted potatoes, salad

Tuesday
Bbq chicken pizza w/white sauce, salad

Wednesday
Bean & bacon soup, cheesy biscuits, salad

Thursday
Leftovers

Friday
Crockpot cheesy cowboy casserole, veggie platter w/ranch dressing

Saturday
Chili, cornbread, salad

Sunday
Pepperoni bread, split pea soup, salad

My daughter Hannah is getting ready to start a little formal homeschooling with my oldest granddaughter. So we had a talk recently about this. I gave her my thoughts and advice. I thought I would share what I told her, perhaps it would be a help to someone….

1. You’ve already been homeschooling, just by living everyday life. Don’t sweat it…

2. When all of you (referring to my children) were 5 I focused on only a few things. Reading every day to you, teaching you to read, math…. because in the end.. knowing how to read and how to think logically (What I feel math is all about), will give them the keys to ANYTHING they want to pursue in life.

3. I taught all of my children to read using “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons”… maybe it’s not for everyone, but I used it for 8 children, with various learning styles and they all learned to read. It is simple and not stressful for the mother or the child.

4. If she gets to a point in the book that it becomes difficult, pu…

I saw the first hummingbird of the season the other day come to my feeder hoping for something. Unfortunately there was nothing there for him/her. So I quickly brought the feeder inside and cleaned it up and made some hummingbird nectar, filled the feeder and hung it back outside.

Hummingbird nectar is easy to make. 1 part sugar, 4 parts water. I put the sugar in a canning jar.. and added enough hot water to dissolve the sugar…


Then filled the jar up. I added some red food coloring to my mix.. for one reason.. when my kids look in the fridge they will know what the heck it is! LOL… BUT after I did this I researched a little more on this… some say it is NOT the thing you want to do, some say it is not a problem..

One thing I do know is that it is not necessary to add it. Is it bad or good for the birds? I have no idea. I probably won’t do it next time. I’ll just put some note on the jar so my family knows what it is…

In any case.. I’m looking forward to watching all the hum…

Monday
Spaghetti, french bread, salad

Tuesday
Hamburger stroganoff over noodles, veggie platter

Wednesday
Hamburger enchiladas, chile relleno casserole, refried beans
Thursday
Leftovers

Friday
Creamed tuna over biscuits, coleslaw

Saturday
Lasagna soup, french bead, veggie platter

Sunday
Chicken pot pie, salad

My biggest updates are about jobs for two of my daughters and another one passing a major time in her work. We are super excited for all of them.

My daughter Sierra, just a few weeks after getting her driver’s license, got her first job. She is super excited and has been a hard worker and loving it. She was hired to work in the deli of a grocery store in town. After only 2 weeks of working she has been asked to stay overtime periodically and help and was asked if she wanted full time work. I’m thinking they know a good worker when they see one. I’m very proud of her. For now she plans to save her money for dental assistant school this summer. She is in the process of filling out the paperwork for enrollment. She still loves her photography and wants to continue that as hobby, with some of that saved money from her job going for camera lenses and other equipment! :) Love seeing my little birds take their first flight from the nest. It is bittersweet and an incredible bless…

Monday
Marinated chicken, brown rice, salad (this one did not happen last week, so we’ll try again)

Tuesday
Philly cheese chicken sandwiches (crockpot), homemade tomato soup, veggie platter

Wednesday
Baked pork chops, crockpot new potatoes, spinach salad

Thursday
Leftovers

Friday
Pesto/mozzarella stuffed chicken thighs, french bread, salad

Saturday
Crockpot chili, cornbread, salad or veggie platter

Sunday
Leftovers

Spring is in full force in the Pacific Northwest. We’ve had plenty of rainy days, which is normal for us, and the temps are warming up and that means everything is growing and turning green. It can be a big job to keep our property under control. This last week we’ve had a string of sunny dry days and my hubby and boys have been working on lots of mowing and property maintenance.

I went out yesterday and took a few shots from around our property and as you can see there is a lot of green everywhere, with bits of color here and there..…






Our pond is fed by 2 springs and has a drain that allows us to lower the level of the pond when we need to take care of anything… as we are currently doing. The first job my hubby did after lowering the level of the pond was to replace the boards on the dock..


The drain for the pond is under the dock and we access the drain below the dock. Part of the dock lifts up to allow access. For right now, my son just reached down under and grabbed a …

I wrote about my own weight loss journey awhile back. You can read my story HERE. Recently I’ve been talking to a few people on the subject. After maintaining my loss for so many years now I’ve seen things differently. I am NO expert and I’m not a doctor, or a nutritionist or anything with a big title that would give me any authority to discuss this. What I have is my own experience, the experience of others and my observations of these things.

Food can be a vice and one of the most difficult spirtual battles we will fight. We have to face it every day.  It can be just as much of a vice as any type of vice… alcohol, smoking, drugs, etc… the biggest difference I see is that we must eat (a friend once said to me that food is the Christian drug of choice, all other vices are not acceptable but food will always be). We can put alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs in the trash can and walk away free. But we can’t do this with food. We do need to eat to live. What I have seen and live…

We are a week into April and I’m just now getting this month’s challenge up! Life has been very busy for me lately. So here we go for the challenge..

This month my focus is on spring cleaning. However, since I started this challenge back in January I’ve accomplished things that would normally have been done this time of year. But that is great and the whole purpose of my monthly challenges is to be able to do small things all year long rather than be overwhelmed with numerous items all at once. It has also been the goal to attack areas of the home that often not really seen and therefore can get neglected.


For April’s challenge I have 3 items to knock off my list…

1. Clean light covers on my overhead lights. As I’m having more sunny days and the light shines in I see way more dust on the hanging lights and covers than I care to.
2. Vacuum dust bunnies in the corners of the house and ceiling. And move living room furniture away from walls and vacuum behind and under them. Als…

Monday
Korean pork, egg rolls, rice, kimchi

Tuesday
Beef pot roast, roasted red potatoes, broccoli

Wednesday
Burrito pie, chips & salsa, salad

Thursday
Leftovers

Friday
Marinated chicken, brown rice, salad

Saturday
Tuna patties, mac & cheese, veggie platter

Sunday
Chicken lasagna, french bread, salad

Do you have a student who would enjoy learning about HTML and making websites? I received an email awhile back from a homeschooling father and computer consultant. He is offering a free online course for kids to learn basic HTML. Classes begin April 7th.

The class is 3 weeks long and he will have a new lesson online each day. It is totally self-paced and students can catch up and review missed lessons.

From his website he shares:

Students will learn:
Basic HTML Tags
Understanding of fundamentals of Web Design and Internet Pages

The class is open to students from age 9 on up. Here is a list of his prerequisites:

Class is open to any students 9 years and older
Some familiarity with keyboard is valuable
This is a free "beta" class and I'm asking the participants share their feedback with me to help me improve its value and ease of use.

You can find out more information on his site and sign up for the class here:
http://tinyurl.com/l7tf7b2

My youngest son Isaac was ver…