Homemaking on the Homestead

Wednesday Snap Shot is a quick peek into my week. If you'd like to join in on my Wednesday Snap Shot.. copy and paste my post, add your answers (you can also copy the pic.. BUT Please download the picture to your computer first.. do not just directly copy and paste.. otherwise you are using my bandwidth..thank you! :) .. link your post to my blog and then come back and let me know you shared your week. I'll come and visit you and read about your homemaking week!! :) So Far This Week I'm pleased to report that the fire which caused us so much concern is now contained. They were able to get a fire line around it. It is currently at 250 acres and have a large crew and helicopter working on it daily. The fire on the other side of the river continues to burn and threaten more homes. We are praying for rain. It may be the only thing that stops the fires. We have been getting back to normal here, or at least trying. It's dif...

The sun is shining, the days are long, the heat is wonderful (at least in my view ~smile~) and winter seems to be a far off distant thought. But one thing I know, as surely as the sun rises and sets, winter will be here. The endless days of rain, cold, snow will come. And we will need to keep warm. We heat with wood. We have a wood furnace that is our only source of heat. It does an amazing job heating our home. It is in the basement with a vent up to the main floor. We keep it going all through the later fall, winter and spring. In the summer my hubby and sons have the task of bringing in the wood for the year. Our property is covered in trees and every year we’ve lived here we’ve been able to glean the wood needed to keep us warm (we burn about 6 or so cords of wood each year). Normally we find fallen trees (from winter storms), large limbs that need to be cut from other trees, or select trees to take down to make room for other trees that are still growing. This y...

I know it is fall time here.. made the apple butter (as shared on my last blog post). And my tomatoes are ripening! I’ve picked about 60+ pounds so far. The first 40lbs have been turned into spaghetti sauce. I made and canned up 10 jars a few days ago and did another 10 jars last night… The next batch will be made when my current 20lbs have ripened up a bit more. I have them sitting in a sunny window right now.. You can find my spaghetti sauce for canning recipe here: http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/spaghettisace2forcanning.htm   I still have lots of tomatoes on the vines and as they ripen up I will be moving onto salsa. I’ll need another 40 to 60lbs for the salsa. After that if there are still tomatoes coming on I plan to can tomato sauce. On Thursday Tobin and I went and got our winter hay for the goats. With only 3 goats now I don’t need a whole lot but none the less it felt good to get it purchased and in the barn. There is still wood to gather in...

We heat with wood… it is our only option. We do not have other adequate means of heating our home unless we were to put in an entire heating system (furnace, ducts, etc..). So each year my guys begin the journey of bringing in about 6 cords of wood from our property. I have to say I am incredibly proud of my boys.. or young men I should say.. they both know how to put in a full day’s work and they enjoy it! Without their help it would be a long arduous process for my already over worked hubby.. we could not be more thankful for their cooperation and help! We are a little over half way there now! Unloading a tractor load of wood… Jacob bringing in another load of wood… he cuts the trees and cuts it into chunks, fills the tractor bucket and then brings it down for Tobin to split and stack… Lunch break! I keep the guys well fed while they are working…. Heading off for another load… A little over half way there.. It’s a good feeling to get a such a...

With green beans behind me now I patiently await the arrival of red tomatoes. I have tons of green ones so the question I have now is will they turn red before the weather turns too cool. I am hoping so because I have been nurturing these plants since the middle of March and I really want to see them all turned into spaghetti sauce!! :) I also have almost 200 corn plants as well that I am hoping will add up to a lot of corn on the cob in my freezer. Here are some updated pics of my garden:     I sure have done better in years past on the weeding, but this summer has kind of taken on a life of its own… teaching two kids to drive, heading into town three days a week for drivers ed, and having my honey gone a lot (he is currently remodeling one of our rentals and it needed everything replaced and redone. He spends just about as much time working on this as he does working his regular job) and this means that I am keeping the w...