A Day on the homestead

What is a typical day for me? busy...especially the three weeks leading up to the first day of school. I will go through everything we own and donate or throw away things we dont use. Then I will wipe down all the walls and wood work and windows. I leave no stone dirty in this house. That way we have a nice fresh start to the school year.  Here was my schedule for today.
6 am woke up
6 to 730 i cleaned out my lady bugs closet, went through  my moms shoes and put them away. threw out the trash before the truck came.
730 fed kids breakfast and ate mine
8 am did a craft with the kids
830 did dishes and wiped down kitchen
9 am put baby down for nap
10 am made strawberry jam
1130 made lunch for kids
noon folded laundry
1 pm put both babies down for nap
1 to 3 checked emails, entered contests and pinned on pinterest
3pm snack time
3 to 430 colored with the kids
430 to 500 played outside with the kids and weeded the garden beds
5  to 6 made and ate dinner
6 to 730 more outside play, more weeding
730 to 8 bathed all 3 kids, put on pjs and read a book.
now Im back to emails, pinterest and blogging, I did a lot of tidying up after the kids through out the day too, But this is our typical day. 01 02 18

How To Make Your Own Laundry Soap

I know a lot of us are looking for ways to save money. One easy way I found was to make my own soaps. Laundry soap is something I first started off with and found it to be easy to do, and lasted quite some time. When we were a family of four, it lasted an entire year! Now we are a family of five, one of which is a baby, I find I'm making it twice a year. Still, considering the ingredients cost 8.00 dollars I think that is still an incredible deal! Here is my step by step detailed instructions with pictures!

                       1)    This is what you will need.

2) these are the kitchen gadgets you will need

3) having some cute helpers doesn't hurt

4) Let the fun begin! Take a cheese grater or an apple peeler and grate (peel) down the soap bar until its into little bits.

 5) place the shavings into a pot cover with water and then cook on medium heat while stirring occasionally.

6) All the soap will melt down into liquid.

7) I buy one of these large wonderfully orange home depot buckets to keep the condensed laundry soap in. You will store it in here, but save a regular soap dispenser to use while doing laundry.

8) Take a cup of super washing soda and throw in the bucket. (gently of course)

 .

9)1/2 a cup of Borax

10) It will look like this!

11) Put the liquid soap in with the Borax and super washing soda and mix!

12) fill the bucket the rest of the way with hot water

13) Put your soap mixture to bed for the nite. nitey nitey!

14) In the morning get your saved soap dispenser, i usually will save a water bottle and cut the top off and use that to pour the soap in.

15) Open up your bucket and stir the soap really good, put half of the mixture into your dispenser then fill the dispenser the rest of the way with hot water and shake!

You now have your very own home made laundry soap! Enjoy!

01 02 18

Raising heck.....

Just kidding. No heck raising here! But we will be raising the garden beds this week. Thats if my washing machine is fixed quickly. The machine decided to start making a really strange sound and stop working a few days ago while i was on my second soaking of my clothe diapers. I have since, been washing in the bathtub with a broom as the agitator, with a baby in my arm. Thankfully its not too hard, I find it adventerous, and I managed to get three loads done pretty quickly. I am thankful for having that option to wash, and atleast my dryer is still working.
So this Sunday, my husband (I cant lift heavy due to my birth a few weeks ago) will be lining our veggie beds with cinder blocks. Then we will be filling them with dirt, up to the level of the block. Inside the blocks I will fill with dirt as well and plant strawberries in each one. I figure it will give us the ultimate spacing options so that we can grow more veggies this year, then last.
I will take photos of the progress and post them on here as we go! 01 02 18

The First Post

So we have finally purchased our first home. Its in an undesirable area. Not much space of gardening and we are cramped right onto our neighbors. They dont know much about homesteading and dont seem to interested in the idea. Who is these days? Not many, but you would be surprised to know that after it faded out in the early 1900's its making a big comeback. Ive not had a hard time finding books and blogs about it. Its been my passion for years now and always renting have never been able to dive into it. So the first thing I did when we got made setttlement on this house was start a compost. You cant have a good garden if you dont have good soil. the soil around here is mostly rocks and beer bottles. Left over from years and years of drunks no doubt! lol
Homesteading is basicely making everything you need on your own without help from a grocery store or market of some sourt. though we do go to farmers markets to get the things we cant grow in our own yard. which so far is much of it. we are just starting out. hopefully next year well have more food produced from our own yard!  We also make our own laundery detergant, bread, clothes, (not allclothes but an ammount) wash clothes, blankets. Im learning how to can fruits and veggies for the winter too, which is an adventure on its own. In this blog Ill talk about our adventures as new homesteaders and overcoming the issues of living on very little and cramped land while doing so!  Think we are weird? Dont worry Im sure our neighbors do too. Its just par for the course! Hope you enjoy reading thru our journey! 01 02 18