What Should I Plant in My Garden? (How to Prioritize in the Garden this Year +Free Worksheets)

What Should I Plant in My Garden? (How to Prioritize in the Garden this Year +Free Worksheets)

I love me a good seed catalog. Flipping through pages of colorful vegetables, berries, fruits, and flowers of all kinds. New and exciting varieties. Squirrel effect comes on in full force. “Oooh…look at that. Dragonfruit. I want dragonfruit.” But wait a second- dragonfruit is, like, Zone 100. Erin, you’re zone 3. “But it’s sooo pretty! […]

What to Can in Winter: Raspberry Mango Jam

What to Can in Winter: Raspberry Mango Jam

It may sound surprising, but I make most of my jam during the winter months. Primarily due to two reasons: (1) Berries freeze extremely well. And since you have to mash the berries to make jam, the freezing process makes that part significantly easier. (2) From the time the snow melts until it falls once […]

Home Canning: What Type of Canner Do I Even Use?

Home Canning: What Type of Canner Do I Even Use?

If colorful jars full of home grown food is what your dreams are made of, my-oh-my do I get you. My fascination with old food, old ways, and even old mason jars goes way back to my childhood. Hands-down my most favorite home we ever had was the 100-year old single room log cabin with […]

Resources for the Home Butcher (+FREE Printable Checklist)

Resources for the Home Butcher (+FREE Printable Checklist)

I was not always on board with processing my own animals. Not that I ever felt that somewhere other than home or someone else other than us would be better for the job. Not that at all. But I didn’t always have the heart. You see, growing up, my most favorite pets on the planet […]

Sausage Making at Home: 10 Tips for Success

Sausage Making at Home: 10 Tips for Success

Many animals have come and gone on this farm, but none leave behind their abundance quite like the pig. Hands down, pigs give us more diversity than any other animal. Sure, some of it takes work on our part. The belly, for example, needs some help to become bacon. But that is precisely the beauty […]

(Cook) Books I’m Loving Right Now.

(Cook) Books I’m Loving Right Now.

I find that the coldest, darkest time of the year (ahem, as in right now) is when I find myself the most inspired in the kitchen. Every day is a new adventure. A new recipe. A new plan. What can I cook today that will heat up the house this frosty morning? What can I […]

How to Prepare Garlic for Long Term Storage

How to Prepare Garlic for Long Term Storage

“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.” -Oscar Wilde In a world that is so fast-paced, so aggressive, so offended all the time, so self-absorbed, it can be hard to know…just where does one fit in? Where should your opinions lie? In which direction […]

Processing Broiler Chickens: Butcher Day Checklist

Processing Broiler Chickens: Butcher Day Checklist

Were it not for lists, I would surely die a slow death of walking in circles. It’s amazing how you can get up in the morning, determined to tackle all of those tasks you remembered as you tried to fall asleep the night before. It was alllllll there in your mental checklist: Get that turkey […]

Rose Petal & Rhubarb Syrup

Rose Petal & Rhubarb Syrup

Eating fresh foods in tune with the seasons has made me so very appreciative of bonafide, true blue freshness. Foods are no longer selected and consumed based upon what’s on sale in the grocery store. Rather, they are purchased only when they are really, truly in season. And not in season in some distant state. […]

To Everything There is a Season…

To Everything There is a Season…

Call me stodgy, but I don’t typically blog without a good reason. I’m not one of those bloggers who fills her blog posting “schedule” (whatever that is) with fluffy posts merely meant to take up space and keep my blog “current”. I don’t sit at my computer, pondering appropriate topics for the time of year […]