A hidden gem in a tiny town

Homesteading doesn't lend itself to having a lot of money leftover for vacations, so we keep ours cheap and simple, yet fun!

One of the most frugal ways to take a vacation is to find some friends who are willing to open up their home for you. For the past few days we been at the home of a family of wonderful people. Southern Blessings lives about two hours from us, and my family always enjoy spending time at her home.

She lives in the country where the kids can run in and out all day and don't have to ask if they can go outside. When they aren't indoors playing, the children run amongst the chickens and guineas while doing their best to avoid the many fire ant hills (one of the few pitfalls of this particular area of the country).

Our husbands spent time fishing and my friend Nancy and I had plenty of time to visit with each other and even to drive to nearby towns to do some shopping at thrift stores. One of the places Nancy introduced me to was the River Rock Marketplace, a flea market with everything from antiques to modern "junk."

I loved the Marketplace, and fell in love with the building itself. It is made from true river rocks, not that fake facade that people call rock nowadays. Apparently the building used to be a school and even a sewing mill before it became the Marketplace. In a tiny town off the beaten path in South Carolina, not many people find this gem. I was sure happy that Nancy showed it to me!

A family field trip

Today we took the kids on a field trip to a county park. This particular park is in a neighboring city and offers a small wildlife habitat, a petting barn, a carousel, a mini-train, paddle-boats, miniature golf, camping and a fishing lake. That's me, above, with the kids in the nature center. No, I'm not really shorter than my kids, lol, they are standing on a ledge while I am standing on the ground.

Because we went on a weekday when most kids are in school, it was peaceful and quiet, and made for a great family adventure.

I only brought a $20 bill so we wouldn't spend any more than that. At the end of the day I had $1 left, and our family of five had bought tickets for the wildlife habitat ($1 each), the petting barn (50 cents each), two park fishing passes for Hubby and Justin, 13, ($2.50 each; Hubby already had his state fishing license which was also required for adults), and drinks for everyone. For lunch we ate cans of viennas that I had tossed into a backpack along with some styrofoam bowls.

Since the kids learned all about local wildlife like black bears, red wolves, bobcats and hawks, the day was educational. We even got to see a couple of bald eagles up close. At the barn, the kids got to pet goats, a miniature donkey and a calf. The farm animals didn't come with educational signs or materials, but it was still fun to pet them!

Then Hubby and Justin fished while the rest of us fed the many ducks and geese. For 25 cents, we could buy an ice cream cone filled with waterfowl feed. Most of the ducks were wild breeds, but the one lone Peking duck, below, was more aggressive and tried to snatch food out of our hands (he got a couple of fingers in the process)!

It was so peaceful and beautiful that I told the kids they could take off their shoes and socks and wade in the water. Swimming is not allowed, but I figured wading didn't count. The boys took fishing lures without hooks and played with them in the water. Adam, 5, apparently decided he couldn't bend over and play in the water, so he ended up sitting down in the water up to his waist - which meant that once he got out of the water 30 minutes later we couldn't stay much longer. He was soaking wet and the wind was blowing.

At one point while walking around the lake fishing and having a good time, we came across a small, injured duck in some rocks next to the bank. The duck couldn't walk, fly or do anything but drag itself a few inches on its belly. A pile of feathers on the bank told the story that the duck had probably been attacked by a predator but managed to escaped into the edge of the lake waters.

Even though it was a wild duck, it was obviously feeling badly. And because we were on the far side of the lake with only the woods at our back, we picked the duck up and carried it around the lake to the nearest concession stand, where they called a park ranger. The duck seemed to know we were there to help and was very docile. It never even tried to bite. We waited with it until the ranger came and took it away to the wildlife center.

Hopefully the day will become a wonderful memory for the children.

BFFF: Best feline friends forever

Those tiny kitties that we bottle-fed are now 15 weeks old, and doing well. The biggest difference between now and then is that Pumpkin (the orange and white one) turned out to be a boy. He was always more vocal and much more food-oriented than Sonora, but now he is also turning out to be quite muscular. Because "Pumpkin" was deemed too sissy, we are working on changing his name to "Jack" - so named because we decided he is going from being a pumpkin to a jack-o-lantern.

Sonora has turned into a loving, affectionate, little girl and Pumpkin - I mean Jack - has turned into a demanding and pushy, but beautiful big boy.

We considered giving one of them away, but look at these faces. They do everything together and I think they would be heart-broken to be separated. They are not only litter mates, they are best friends forever!

Canned caterpillars

When I started preserving food from the garden, I never imagined I would be "canning" caterpillars. But sometimes nature provides a better science experiment than a laboratory could.

When Hubby came home from work today, he picked up a caterpillar sauntering across the walkway. It's colors were awesome - bright green with black and orange stripes. He brought it in and punched holes in the top of a jar so the kids could look at it.

We had to do some Internet research, but discovered that this is the caterpillar of a swallowtail butterfly. I couldn't figure out what it was eating in our yard until I came across something that said these caterpillars enjoy parsley.

Out to the herb garden I went to cut some parsley for our new house guest. I was quite surprised to find this.

The plant was covered in these caterpillars. I brought two more in, and Hubby punched holes in the tops of two more jars. Our new guests are named Stella, Luna, and Bubba. With any luck the kids will get to see the process of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, which will lead to some good research and reports.

I just hope my parsley plant holds out! I'm not sure how my one little parsley plant, which didn't get very big this year, will feed all those caterpillars. And I guess this means I won't be getting any for our kitchen this year ... sigh. Oh well, I guess I'm willing to share in in exchange for a great lesson!

Homestead breakfast

We are trying to go from eating cold cereal at breakfast to eating more wholesome, filling meals. I never buy cold cereal with marshmallows or bright colors (the ones the kids love), but stick to things like raisin bran and shredded wheat. But however convenient these are items are, they aren't conducive to leading a self-sufficient lifestyle.

So in the coming weeks I will be trying to actually cook breakfast from scratch. That will be a challenge to me as I generally don't feel like pulling out pots and pans out first thing in the morning.

Yesterday I made these "Homestead Biscuits" that my bloggy friend 50s Housewife featured. They are very simple and easy to make and really only required three ingredients. I have made these biscuits before, but not for breakfast. Like usual, they turned out well this time, except that I think they were way too thin. Since breakfast biscuits usually get cut open and slathered with butter and homemade jam, next time I'll make them thicker so they are easier to open.

An added bonus (most of the time) is that my son, 5, loves to cut out the biscuits. This means the process takes a little longer, but gives us quality time together.

This morning the boys were taking off to go fishing, so I just made scrambled eggs. Anyone have any good ideas for simple, quick - yet "homemade" breakfasts foods?

signs of autumn

Yes! Fall is finally in the air! I know this because my sedum "Autumn Joy" is turning colors as it does every fall. Right now it is pink, but soon it will be a deep autumn goldish brown. In the meantime, the bees and the butterflies are enjoying the sedum as much as I am! Look closely and you can see the butterfly on the right side of the sedum photo below.

Drying herbs: The old fashioned way

One of my goals this year as an "urban homesteader" was to plant and use an herb garden. I have never been big into using herbs, mainly because I never cooked from scratch (seasonings are already added on frozen dinners, lol). But all that changed when we decided to change our lifestyle a year and a half ago.

Now I am cooking as much from scratch as possible. Through trial and error, I am also learning to use herbs and spices in various dishes, and have even experimented with using them for medicinal purposes.

This morning, it felt like autumn was in the air (finally), so I decided I need to start harvesting all my herbs that are still growing.

I cut huge bunches of lemon verbena, sage, and some small bunches of lavender, and hung them up to dry. Hubby said he loves the look and the smell of herb hung up to dry, and I have to say that I agree.

But even with all this, I barely made a dent in the garden! I can't wait to see how much dried herbs I end up with in my cupboard.

Preserving herbs: Drying

This week I will be trying to harvest and dry all the herbs in my herb garden. I have grown a few herbs in pots before, but this will be my first time growing an actual organic herb garden and preserving the herbs.

As a test run, I bought a couple of stems of fresh basil at the Farmer's Market. I brought them home, picked off the leaves and put them in my dehydrator. I bought the dehydrator last summer at a yard sale for $4, and this was the first time I used it.

It worked wonderfully. The herbs dried in about four hours. After they dried, I crushed them and put them in an old - but clean - glass herb jar. And now I have local basil to use whenever I make pasta! (Note to self: Get a mortar and pestle so crushing them will be less messy.)

My dehydrator is just a run of the mill, cheap Magic Chef. All is has is an on/off button, no temperature setting. I may start dehydrating a lot of our garden veggies and herbs, so next summer I may invest in a better dehydrator. But I think this will work great this year!

Fall decorating

Last weekend I found this cute pumpkin basket at a thrift store for a dollar. The sticker on the bottom says it is a Hallmark basket that retails for $11.99. Then yesterday I was at a dollar store and one of the kids begged me to buy candy corn. I did and put it in this tall jar. It was full, you can see we have already been nibbling on the corn.

I am getting excited, folks. I love autumn! It is my favorite season of the year. A nip in the air, the gorgeous colors, pumpkin pie... the promise of the coming holidays. Fall is really the only season I decorate for besides Christmas - which is actually a holiday, not a season.

I want to get started, but it is still in the mid-80s outside. It seems wrong somehow to be decorating for fall when it is so hot outside.

But yesterday I saw a post over at Warm Pie, Happy Home with pictures of her recently decorated house. It's beautiful, and it makes me want pull out the pumpkins and scarecrows!

What do you think? When do you start decorating for the fall season?

Fishing for.... what???

Hubby was off work today (for a late Labor Day) so he took the oldest kids fishing this morning. They caught a few fish, but Hubby also ended up catching two huge snapping turtles!

They got up at 5 a.m. and were at the pond by sunrise (6:57 a.m.). As soon as the sun comes up, the fish start biting. The kids caught some brim.

Meet some special chicks

The coop finally dried out after the flood and we were able to put clean litter down. The chickens are very happy! Let me introduce you to three of our fourteen chickens. Above is our Salmon Favorelle, "Cinco." She might have a Spanish name, but her breed actually originated in France. This breed is unusual in that they have five toes on each foot instead of the standard four. They also have "beards" and feathered feet.

This is Doe, our one and only rooster - and my husband's favorite pet.

This is Goldilocks, one of our three Crested Polish (a.k.a. Tophatters) hens. She is a Golden-laced Polish. We also have a silver-laced and buff-laced Polish. You can see behind her the dirt that got washed up against the back of the coop during the flood.

I received a blog award!

I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to my sweet friend Nancy over at Southern Blessings, who is passing an award on to me.

Nancy gave me the I Love Your Blog Award, which I, in turn, am supposed to pass on to seven blogs that I love.

So many blogs to read, so little time! I currently have 124 blogs on Bloglines that I try to read as often as possible. There are so many more that I enjoy and could include. But even though I have gotten pretty fast at reading and commenting, one can only spend so much time reading blogs.

Here are some that I love and would like to pass this award on to:

50s Housewife - One of my long-time favorites. She and I seem to have so much in common, I feel like I "really" know her (you know, not just in cyberspace).

Down to Earth - As someone who took to simple living later in life, Rhonda is a inspiration. Although it is a little confusing, as she lives in Australia. We are coming to the end of summer and her spring is just beginning!

Heavenly Homemakers - Laura always has great ideas for home living on her blog. She's currently doing some posts on canning, so check it out!

Married to the Empire - I just recently found this blog of a stay-at-home wife but had to add to my Bloglines list simply because I am also married to a Star Wars fanatic. (At least he doesn't dress up like a Storm Trooper like her husband does, lol.)

Making a House a Home - Mrs. U is always sharing great homemaking tips.

The Simple Woman's Cannery & Garden - Peggy gives wonderful tips and recipes for home canning!

Tomatoe Creek Prims - Another blog that I have found only recently, but I love looking at the pictures of all her primitive finds and decor.