Our Quarter-Acre Homestead Has Moved!

I have decided to rename this blog so I could broaden it't content a bit. I would love to have you come on over and check things out at Claire and Rose!

www.claireandrose.com

The Eggs Hatched!!

The eggs in the wreath on my front door have hatched! These little guys are so ugly they're cute. I will try to get pictures every couple of days so you can watch them grow with us. My kids will be so excited when they get home from their summer classes today.

Great Deal On Canning Supplies!

I have been canning for several years now and love it. I am hoping to get some canning tutorials done sometime this summer to post on here. but for today I thought I would share this deal I posted on my other blog on a pressure canner.

Currently Amazon has the Presto 23-Quart Pressure Canner and Cooker on sale for $79.95 down from $109.99. This is a great deal just in time for canning season. I have done a lot of water bath canning, but have not been brave enough to try pressure canning yet. Since this is such a great deal on a pressure canner I may have to give it a try this summer.

If you have not yet tried canning and would like to give water bath canning a try then you might want to start with this Presto 09995 7 Function Canning Kit.


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Dryer Balls

Today I thought I would give you a quick tutorial on how I make dryer balls. I hate to buy dryer sheets because I am just going to throw them away once they are used plus I didn't like the idea of adding chemicals to my clothing just to make them soft and smell good. So for years I used nothing. I had friends who thought I was crazy and that my towels must feel like burlap. I have never dad any complaints from the family unless I line dry clothes. 

I kept seeing dryer balls on homesteading sites so about a year ago I decided to go ahead and try making my own. I called up my mother-in-law and asked if she had any leftover wool yarn from one of her many projects. She sent home a bunch of remnants and my 10 year old and I set to work making dryer balls. 

I have decided that dryer balls are wonderful! You can add your own essential oils to them to freshen your laundry. If you use 5 or 6 in a load it will not only soften your clothes, but will help cut drying time!

Here is a photo of some of what we ended up with. Sorry the picture came out so blurry, but you get the idea. Since it was May when we were making them I decided to go ahead and send some to the kids teachers along with some essential oils as an end of the year teacher gift. They were a hit. 

I did my best to get step by step pictures of how I made our dryer balls so you can get started making your own.

To get started you need to make sure you are working with 100% wool yarn or this project will not work properly. At the end you need to felt your balls. So wool is essential. 

I start my balls by simply looping some yarn around my fingers a couple of times. 

Next I wrap the yarn around the loops I just made to give me something to hang onto. The first steps can be a bit frustrating since there is not a large amount of yarn to hold.

Keep wrapping until you start to form a small ball. Then keep wrapping some more. Making sure you move the yarn around the whole ball so  it is round.

After a while you should have a good size ball. The size is really up to you. I did not make the one for this tutorial very large because I started to run out of yarn, plus I was feeling a bit lazy.

To finish off your ball take a crotchet hook and do your best to pull the yarn through the center of the ball. As you can see from this picture I looped it through the side. This is really not the best idea because it may unravel slightly. It will still work, but may not be as pretty. 

I typically pull my yarn through several time before tying it off to make sure everything is secure. 

The final step to making dryer balls is to felt them so they don't unravel in the dryer leaving you with a big mess of clumped yarn along with your clothes. To felt them you can place them in an old pair of panty hoses and tie them off to make a bag. Run the balls threw the washing machine 3-4 times. I usually just toss the bag in with a load I am washing so I am not wasting water. 

After you have washed them several times they should have felted or stuck together. Above is a picture of an unfelted ball (purple) and a felted one (green). It is hard to tell from the photo, but the purple one is much looser and the green one is tight and stuck together. 

There you have it! Easy dryer balls. Don't forget to add a couple of drops of essential oils to one before tossing it in with your laundry. My families favorite is lavender or some sort of citrus. 

Spring Cleanup

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Kansas so the family decided to get out and get some spring cleaning done in the garden and animal areas. I was so excited to finally get out and get my hands in the dirt after a long winter. I am still so thankful for the garden space the previous homeowner started. It makes getting the spring garden in this year so much easier. Just look at the great soil I get to work with. The only thing we added last fall was some old bedding we had saved from cleaning up from the chickens. Hopefully we will have a good year. 

While cleaning up the garden space we found lots of these onions growing that we did not plant. They must have been leftovers from the previous owner. I decided to go ahead and pull them to free up as much space as possible in our small garden.

We had plans to go ahead and expand the size of our garden this year, but we have not had a chance to get around to it. I may still go ahead with our plans...maybe. If I do I am sure the hens would be happy to pull their weight around here and clear an area for me if I pen them up where I want the new plot. They are great at their job. 

I told this little cutie I would pay her if she would help me pull some weeds that have already popped up. She was so excited to get to help, especially when I told her she could use the new gardening tool we inherited from my parents. Work is always more fun when you get to use a new toy. 

Ignore the mess behind her. Like I said it was cleaning day and there was stuff strung all over the place from the shed clean out. I am not sure if you can see or not, but we more then doubled the size of the chicken pen since we are not allowing them to free range as much as we have in the past. They were just too destructive in the garden last year. We will let them out if we need some clean up done. 

This is Olaf, our new puppy. We were told he is possibly part Greater Swiss Mountain dog. To be honest I am not sure what he is. The Humane Society can only give us their best guess. After looking up the breed he definitely has many of the behavior characteristics and markings. So far he has been a great guard dog and he just LOVES our kids. At 6 months old he already weighs 57 lbs! I think we have a potentially huge dog on our hands. I am excited to see how big he actually gets.

From my research this dog was bred to be a working dog. Unfortunately there is not a ton of herding to be done in my backyard. The website suggested we get him a doggie backpack to wear on walks to help him feel like he is helping. I think we will get one and see how it goes. This breed is also known for pulling carts. I am sure the kids will have no problem hooking him up to a wagon or sled in the winter so he can "help". 

The chickens were very excited about cleaning day. We kept finding lots of bugs and weeds to toss into their pen. 

                           

I have been wanting to get this shed cleaned out all winter. I hate it when things are disorganized. I was grateful to have the help of these two. My oldest does not like having a small farm in her backyard or getting her hands dirty. I just had to get a picture as proof that she does help out occasionally. If she had her way we would be living in an apartment in New York City. 

After about an hour of work I looked around and these two had disappeared. Apparently they decided it was time for a break and helped themselves to a snack. 

There is still lots of work that needs to get done, but it decided to go from 70 degrees yesterday to snowing today! You have to love spring in Kansas. I did manage to get in some radishes, spinach and lettuce in some planters on the porch. I had planned to start the snap peas and beets today, but that will have to wait until the weekend. 

Amazon: Etekcity Personal Water Filter Just $15.99

This is a post I put together for my other blog. I thought some of my readers here might be interested in this. 

If you are a camper or just like to be prepared then you need to check out this deal on the highly rated Etekcity 1500L Water Personal Filter Purifier Chemical Free: Filter to 0.01 Microns.  I have been eyeing a different brand to keep in our emergency bag, but at this price I may have to get this one.
They are currently priced at $19.99, but when you use coupon code YTGOK8MO you will get $4 off bringing your total down to $15.99. If you are a prime member you will also get free 2 days shipping. 

Order Summary

Items:	$19.99
Shipping & handling:	$0.00
Promotion Applied:	-$4.00
Total before tax:	$15.99
Estimated tax to be collected:	$0.00
Order total:	$15.99

Thanks Hip2Save

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February Homestead Update- Eggs, Garden Plans and A Year Without A Purchase

We are thinking about taking this flower garden out. It is really beautiful during the spring and summer, but it is right in the middle of our yard. I think I would prefer to give the kid more play space and myself more vegetable space. Although I may leave it for the bees. 

It's February already and that means it is officially time to start planning my spring garden!! I am planning to use the same software as last year. If you want to take a look at last year's garden you can go here to check it out. As soon as I have everything laid out I will write a post to share our plans for the year.

Unfortunately the pictures for today's post are not too spectacular, I am having issues getting my phone to send them to me so I can get them on here. I had more, but I finally gave up trying to get them off my phone.

The winter garden looks so sad. You can see in the corner some green sprouts from the garlic I planted in October.

In the winter there really is not a ton to report on in the area of homesteading. It is basically a time to relax from the hard work of summer and to plan for the next year. I like to take the down time of winter to research other small homesteads to see what I can implement into ours as well as try to learn a few new skills.



Here is a great list of small, suburban homesteading blogs in case you wanted to check them out.

--- The 104 Homestead
--- The Urban Homestead
--- Lil' Suburban Homestead

The skills I am trying to learn this year include knitting, crocheting and studying the no till method.

There is not a huge amount of productivity in the winter, but in January we had 115 eggs from our 7 hens. Not too bad.

I have also been doing some preserving when I am able to buy produce in bulk, such as the 40 pounds of pears we dried, ate, or canned in December. We were also blessed with a friend who got a deer, but did not want the meat. That was a huge blessing to help fill our freezer.


Here is a list of our future goals for this year on the homestead.

• In the picture below you can see the grassy area to the left of the garden. We are planning to use the no till method this spring to double the size of our current garden. We are going to add a pallet fence all the way around the garden to keep the chickens and children out of the plants.
• We are also planning to double the size of the chicken's fenced in area so that we can keep them fenced in all the time and stop dealing with chicken poo all over the yard getting stuck on our shoes and eventually into the house. Gross! 
• If I have my way we will be adding goats by this time next year. We have a great area near the chicken coop that would be perfect for them.
• I will take pictures as we get these projects finished and keep you updated.  

Our family also decided to embark on a new journey this year that is a bit different then the norm. I had a friend read the book The Year Without a Purchase. She mentioned it on facebook and that turned into several of us asking her questions about the book and eventually an accountability group forming.

As of January 1st our family has decided that we will not be making any purchases unless they are consumable or foster family togetherness. Basically no new clothes (except for growing kids and only if there is nothing else in the house to hand down), toys, furniture, decor...you get the picture.

I have to admit that it has taken some getting used to. There have been several times where I have absent mindedly started to buy something and then realized it doesn't fit into the rules. For instance, our chicken waterer cracked due to ice. I thought no big deal I am headed to the feed store today anyway. I will just pick up a new one, Nope not in the rules.  So I had to get creative and see what we had around that would work. I rummaged through my potting stand and found a metal planter without holes...instant waterer and it was FREE.

We have managed to save some money so far by not buying anything new, but really the whole point of the experiment is to foster togetherness as a family and to learn to really enjoy what we already have. We live in a throw away society. If it is broken just go get a new one, Don't try to fix it or do without, just buy something new.

I have actually begun to enjoy not spending money. It is nice to go into a store and not buy anything. I know it sounds strange. I have also had to learn to find other ways to entertain myself without shopping. This has included staying away from coupon blogs and tossing ads as soon as they come in the mail.

I will keep you updated as the year goes along. There will inevitably be a few purchases that we had not thought about. We also decided that if there is something we as a family really need or want we have to sell enough items around the house to cover the cost of the item or we don't get it.


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