Dead seedlings

Over the years I have learned to grow most anything from a seedling transplant. However, seedlings can get expensive when you grow as much as we do.

A couple of years ago I tried growing a bunch of seeds. That didn't work, so back to the seedlings I went. We spent a lot of money on the garden this year, and tried to buy as many seeds as possible.

Most of the seeds that my husband sowed directly into the garden did okay. But my herb seeds I tried to grow on the kitchen counter didn't fare as well. Very few sprouted, and those that did just laid down and died after a couple of days. You probably can't see it very well in the picture, but those are little sprouts that are laying dead on their sides.

I don't understand, and it's very frustrating. We want to save our seed from all our heirloom plants this year, but it's not going to do any good if I can't figure out how to grow them! Here's some thoughts I had on things to change when I try to grow them next time.

• Use a mister to water them instead of just the sprayer thingy that comes with my kitchen facet.


• Use a plant light, even though my kitchen window gets a lot of sun.


• Plant the seeds a little deeper.


• Water every day instead of every other day.

Any ideas on what I am doing wrong would be greatly appreciated!

One chicken, four meals

A little more than a year into our homesteading experience one of my biggest challenges still stems around learning to cook from scratch. I went into my marriage 14 years ago knowing virtually nothing about cooking anything that wasn't in a box, and I never felt the need to learn. I'm not making that mistake with my own daughter. That's Alli to the left, chopping carrots. Okay, their baby carrots, but only because I haven't tried carrots in the garden yet!


But I'm learning now, and boy, does my husband appreciate it! He grew up on good southern country cooking, and now he's able to have that again.

In recent months we have stopped eating very much beef at all, and have taken up chicken. Currently we raise layers, but have never tried to raise a broiler. All our chicken that didn't come from restaurants came from a can or from boneless, skinless chicken breasts. After reading other people's recipes and blog posts for months regarding various ways to cook chicken, I finally bit the bullet and bought a whole chicken (raised without hormones or antibiotics, of course).


One of the reasons I was interested in buying a whole chicken was because they are supposed to be economical. I understood from others that I could get at least two to three meals out of one chicken.

Last week I bought a chicken. I put it in my old crockpot with a bottle of garlic and herb marinade. It was wonderful, and hubby loved it. After dinner I painstakingly pulled all the rest of the meat off the bones. Then I took the water, or juice or whatever you call what chicken cooked in, added some vegetables and proceeded to cook a broth that same day. Cue the next morning, when I put the broth back in the slow cooker with some spices, chopped carrots and onion, etc. I added everything to the broth that my research indicated I should add. But when it came time to eat it, the broth was very, very oily. It tasted like I had heated up some oil and added some spices. Dinner was ruined and we ended up going out to eat that night.

Undaunted, I bought another whole chicken. Again, it went in the crockpot and became Sunday dinner. The difference? This time I didn't use a bottled marinade. I used water and added my own herbs. Then I went through the same process of making the broth that night, and then adding ingredients for the soup the next day. I am happy to say it turned out perfectly! I served it with warm cornbread and southern ice tea, and my husband was thrilled!

Now we have a new favorite meal, and one that is definitely economical. From one chicken, I am getting at least four meals! A roasted chicken for Sunday dinner, two nights of chicken soup (hubby even deemed the leftovers fantastic, which is unusual for him), and enough chicken leftover to make something else tomorrow night. Chicken enchiladas, maybe? Or a chicken salad for weekend lunches?


I love spending money on one piece of meat and having it last for days! Anyone have any other economical meal ideas?

Answers take time

Hubby and I have been talking a lot lately about our future as homesteaders. A year ago we were in the process of moving to the country, but through various closed doors and circumstances, God let us know He wanted us to stay in our small city.

Does that mean we should give up our dream? Or just postphone it? Should we still strive to take steps to move the country at a later date, or should we be content where God has placed us?

Farming" in the city is frustrating. We desperately wants goats, but they are outlawed here. We want more land so we can plant crops instead of just gardens. We want to live off the beaten path where we wouldn't have to worry about rude neighbors or traffic jams on the way home.

We want, we want - but what does God want? It seems He is providing us with our dream, but in very small doses. Perhaps He knows we would falter if we tried to do it all at once.

We cannot have goats, but our city is currently one of very few that allow unlimited chickens (as long as the noise or smell doesn't bother neighbors). We want to plant more fruits and veggies but we are learning, through the example of people like those at Path To Freedom, to utilize the space we do have for maximum growth. We want to live off the beaten path but we enjoy the fact that our church is only three blocks away, the library within five driving minutes, and a multitude of grocery stores only 5-10 minutes away.

Should we not be content with what we have? Can we accomplish most of our dreams right here, or should we continue to look toward moving to a the country?

Last year God answered those questions for us and left no room for arguement. But as the months wear on, those questions keep coming back. And His answer is not always easy to hear. But I do believe He always answers, and so we have decided that we must do two things.

We must continue to change our lifestyle here as much as possible. The lifestyle of simplicity and "back to the land" living is one we believe God intends for us to live. And we must be patient and still. We have faith that the answer will come, if we take the time to listen.

A stay-at-home mom who doesn't stay home

When I became a stay-at-home mom two years ago, I assumed I would be bored. Without work to keep me busy 40-60 hours a week, what would I do with myself?

So I immediately began volunteering for a couple of different things. Once people found out I was no longer going to be working, they sought me out and asked me to be a volunteer. If it had to do with a Christian organization, I felt God would want me to do it. Fast forward a year later. I had so much stuff to do outside of the home that my whole point in being a stay-at-home mom was lost. I was not staying at home.

Eventually, my husband put his foot down and said, "Enough is enough." I am very glad he did. Under my husband's urging, I took a look at all my volunteer positions. They included Cubmaster of a Cub Scout pack, director of the Woman's Missionary Union at my church, teacher/leader of my church's youth drama team, nursery worker, media relations coordinator for the southeast team of our state's efforts for Operation Christmas Child, youth group volunteer leader, board member and vice president of a local junior dog handler club, and volunteer publisher for my church.

On top of this I was homeschooling the children, managing a household and had recently taken on the challenge of "homesteading" and becoming self-sufficient (growing our own food, etc.).

What was I thinking?

I was busier than I ever had been at work, and I was doing my children and my husband a great disservice. Because I had obligations and people were counting on me, my home and even my children's education suffered on particularly busy days (which was quite often). My priorities were with other people instead of with my family.

Nearly a year ago I began taking steps to relieve myself of these outside burdens so that I could focus on my home and family. But being a conscientious person, I couldn't just tell all these organizations that I was leaving right away. Instead, I began a slow and sometimes painful process of finding others to take my place.

My goal was to reduce all my outside obligations to one: being the part-time, volunteer secretary and publisher for the church. This was a job I enjoyed that gave me some time to be around other adults, and yet is a job I can do at home or at church, and at my own leisure.

Seven months later, I am happy to say I am almost to that point! I have three weeks of scouts left before the person I have been training takes over. And though I still volunteer as a youth group leader, I have cut back greatly on that task - to only 1 hour a week. That just leaves my publishing work at the church. With God's direction, I have managed to remove everything else off my schedule.

You cannot imagine (or maybe you can) how freeing it is. It's almost like quiting work to stay home again. If you are considering becoming a stay-at-home mom, don't jump into becoming everyone's "can do" volunteer! Take the time to learn all about your husband, your children and your home. Remember, they are your priorities!

Remember your whole purpose in staying home and serving them. Doing so will save you and your family from a lot of stressful situations and will put you serving in accordance to God's Word.

The other day I planted basil, thyme, dill, and fennel seeds inside. This will be my first time planting seeds inside, so we'll see how it goes.

I tried planting some sage seeds directly into the herb garden, but they have since been covered by mulch and I can't even tell where I planted them! This is a direct results of the scratching of.... cats.

I have always liked cats, but I have discovered that they can wreak havoc on a garden. Our neighborhood has never had many stray cats - most of the residents have dogs. But last year one of our neighbors brought home a stray cat. She decided it would be an "outside" cat and didn't get it spayed. It bred. Several times. And each of its babies grew up and had its own litter of babies, who will someday soon have their own litter of babies. Get the picture?

In the space of a year our neighborhood has become overrun in cats. And cats like to use freshly turned dirt for a litter box. So every day I go out into my "organic" garden and scoop cat feces out it. Can you tell this is driving me nuts?

Because my garden is organic, I don't want to put any kind of chemical "cat chaser" spray on it, or mothballs, which can also leach into the garden. So taking a tip off the Internet, I purchased a huge bottle of cayenne pepper from a warehouse club. I will sprinkle it on the garden and see if it helps keep the cats away. I'll let you know if it works!

City boys on the farm

Yesterday was a busy day! I volunteered at the church all day, then went to Sam's Club to pick up an economy sized bottle of cayenne pepper (more on that in a future post), then went to Cub Scouts.
The scouts had been invited to the 160-acre of an couple from church. Some of these boys never get out of their subdivisions or school playgrounds, so it was great to see them get to run around with the farm dogs and just be boys! This farm raises chickens (about 12,000 at a time) and a few head of beef cattle.

The couple was generous enough to fix the group a picnic of sandwiches, chips and dip, and the weather was fantastic - not too cold, not too hot, and not too windy. We had a great time. This is the scouts, siblings and parents who attended.

And this is my son Justin (in the back with the light blue shirt on) and a couple of other boys. Justin introduced them to the joys of sucking on honeysuckle!

It gets harder every day to find good role models for young kids. With the latest scandal regarding Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana) and the provocative photos of the 15-year-old, many parents have become very discouraged.

But take heart! There are still some good role models out there. Today my kids introduced me to PureNRG, a young group of two girls and a boy who have extremely high-energy music and videos with Christian themes.

If you have kids in the "tween" years, check them out!

The cherry tomato mistake

Last week I stopped somewhere to buy my mother-in-law a tomato seedling she could plant. The sign said "Better Boy" but when I got home the plant marker in the soil said it was a cherry tomato. Somebody had put it in the wrong place, I guess, and I didn't check it carefully.

So I went to the farmer's market and bought MIL another tomato. This cherry tomato plant wasn't organic like all our garden veggie are. Even though I will raise it organic, I didn't know if it could contaminate all our organic veggies in the garden soil, so I stuck it in a pot on the front porch.

I was raised in a metropolitan city, but my mom always had a potted cherry tomato on our concrete patio. So I am confident this one will grow well even in a pot. It will be my first cherry tomato plant, as we have always grown either sandwich tomatoes or canning tomatoes.

Career woman vs. homestead woman

As I read back over my first-ever blog post (posted on my former blog in March of 2007), I realized how lucky I was that my husband and I have the same goals. What if he thought all these goals of trying to be self-sustaining were a bunch of nonesense? What if he thought that if he worked, I should, too? What if he wasn't a Christian?

I thank God that I have a husband who listens to my harebrained ideas, tosses out those that will never work, and wholeheartedly supports those that are best for our family unit. I was only 18 years old when we got married, and my friends and family thought I was giving up my life (college, career, etc.). Determined I was not going to "give up my life," I did have a career. I worked 40-60 hours a week at the career I had always wanted while my children became "latch-key" kids and learned about life from their peers at school.

It took me six years to realize that the career that everyone (including myself) thought would make me happy only made me - and my family - miserable. Hubby and I recently celebrated our 14th anniversary. Our lives aren't easy today. I homeschool the kids, work the homestead, and volunteer at church. Hubby works about 70 hours a week at an outside job in addition to working the soil at home to make sure I can do this. We sometimes struggle to pay our almost $1,000 a month mortgage and our utilities, but we are on a slow and steady pace toward self-sustainability. And I have never been happier.

I now hope to teach my teenage daughter that she can make learning to be a good wife and mother her priority, rather college and a career. Allen at Promised Land recently wrote a great article, "Where Have All the Daughters Gone," concerning raising daughters for this purpose. I pray my daughter will not have to learn the hard way what God has planned for her.

Feed the birds

This winter we decided to combat the blahs by inviting the birds to our yard. We set up a couple of bird feeders, including this one. I placed it right outside our kitchen window and we have had such fun watching the various birds come and go. Some we have been able to identify, and some we are still confused about.

The arrival of spring meant that the birds are depending less and less on our feeders, but it's still great to see them when they come.

This clay bird house has been hanging in a small tree in the back yard for two years, and this year some tiny finches decided to make a home in it! I wish I could get some pictures, but the finches are shy and fly away whenever I come near. They are so sweet, though!

With the addition of the bird bath I received for Mother's Day, I hope the birds will find a sanctuary on Victoria Hill Farm!

Random Iris

In front of my house are two small flower beds. Unfortunately, they are largely ignored. The biggest reason for this is because our only outdoor water spigot (facet if you don't live in the south) is in the very back of the house. To get a hose pipe (garden hose if you don't live in the south) to reach the front flower beds would require hooking three hoses together and would be a pain in the you-know-what. And I'm not lugging buckets of water up there, so these gardens only get whatever rain we have. During our drought of the past couple of years, that hasn't been much.

But we love plants of any kind: houseplants, flowers, shrubs, vegetables. And if somebody gives us one we will find somewhere to plant it.

Somebody must have a given us a couple of these beautiful irises at one time, because there is one growing in each of the two front gardens. (We just don't remember who gave them to us or when.)

It was a nice surprise to see these beautiful flowers come up last week!

A relaxing Mother's Day

I'm a little late in saying this, but I do hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. In church, the pastor preached on Proverbs 31, that great passage that describes a godly wife and mother. Months ago I printed this passage out and put in on the cover of my Household Management Binder for inspiration. If you've never read it, look it up! The Bible is God's instruction manual, telling us how to go about this thing called life.

We also visited Hubby's mother, after which I was allowed to relax in bed with a book. With a busy volunteer life, three homeschooled children and a homestead to run, I don't get this opportunity very often.

I've been talking about getting a bird bath to go in the middle of my herb garden for some time, so Hubby and the kids took me to pick one out for Mother's Day. We went on Saturday and Hubby set up it up so that on Sunday I was able to just sit and admire it. My only concern is that mosquitoes lay their larvae in stagnate water. I can't stand mosquitoes, as I am one of those people they love to chew on! I'll have to make sure I keep the water in my bird bath fresh. I'm hoping the birds will enjoy it as much as I do!

Container Gardening binge

Yesterday I went on some kind of container gardening binge. I don't know how it happened, it just did. A few bags of potting soil, some pots from my stash in the basement, a few flowers we got for free and some we paid for - and the next thing I know the porch is overflowing. Most of these flowers aren't "productive" at all and many are annuals. But they sure are pretty, aren't they? Sometimes we just need a little "pretty" in our lives.

And I was really sure I didn't waste my time or money when I found this huge wrought iron plant stand for $5 at an estate sale this morning. Now I have somewhere to put all those containers!

The Challenge

**This was the first post (March 2007) on my former blog.

I thought it would be helpful to share it here.**

I had decided it was the perfect idea. Pick up the family, move to a farm in the mountains and never look at a city again.

When that didn’t fly with hubby, I changed tactics. We would do what we could to live a simple, “country” life here in the city. Little did I know that millions of people all over the world had the same idea, and the idea had actually become something of a movement.

According to the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the movement is called homesteading. It was when I started looking on the Internet for ideas on how to simplify our lives that I noticed the word homesteading kept popping up again and again.

Loosely defined in today’s terms, homesteading is the act of living a simple life of self-sufficiency. It’s what our forbearers did for centuries.

Here’s what Wikipedia had to say: “Currently the term homesteading applies to anyone who is part of the back to the land movement and who chooses to live a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle… A new movement, called urban homesteading, can be viewed as a simple living lifestyle, incorporating small-scale agriculture, sustainable and permaculture gardening, and home food production and storage into suburban or city living.”

Perfect! Here on our “urban homestead,” our family of five will attempt to slowly but surely learn to live a simpler, more self-sustainable lifestyle. We don’t plan to become tree huggers or join Greenpeace, what we do plan on doing is learning – step by step – to live like our grandparents did. To stop relying on movie rentals, the mall and last minute runs to the grocery store to survive.

We will learn to live frugally and simply. We will stop paying others to do things for us and will instead learn to do for ourselves.

We plan to grow our own vegetables, make our own cleaning supplies and learn to cook from scratch. We plan to teach our children the value of hard work and God’s creations instead of the value of the latest video game. We plan to focus on our family instead of the world around us.
It’s a journey that I am sure will be full of sweat and tears. But I am also sure that if we persevere with the slow, and probably sometimes painful, process of simplifying our life we will feel a sense of accomplishment like we have never felt before.

The process will be painful because we, like most young families today, are used to convenience. We are used to having everything done for us if we just put a certain amount of time into the corporate world each day. We are used to having someone else teach our children, cook our food and tell us what we should spend our hard-earned money on.

If you are thinking full-fledged homesteading may not be for you, listen to yourself. As I learned from my first mistaken idea, homesteading isn’t about moving to the country. It can be done in the 3-bedroom house and 1/3 acre we live on in a small city, and it can even be done in a metro city apartment. We don’t aim to never have to buy anything again, but to slowly reduce our dependence on mass-produced items.

The great thing about homesteading, especially urban homesteading, is that you don’t have to “go all the way.” Homesteading works best when you start small. Get into the spirit and then decide if you want to continue working through these small steps. Pick and choose the ideas that fit your own interests and lifestyle. You have the option of sticking a toe in to test the water or jumping in with both feet.

While homesteading does involve some research, it is also very much a “learn as you go” process. Give it a try with us. Together, we can become more secure in our own ability to be ourselves and provide for our families.