This Is Us

  We bought a dehydrator from  Dash  in March of this year and absolutely love it.  It's not very loud, and it works great. Plus right now (August 4, 2023) it's on sale for $39.99! What!! We have dehydrated strawberries, apples, mangos, bananas, and now I can't remember what else.  lol  I will be dehydrating herbs like Rosemary, Oregano, Sage, Thyme, Lemon Balm, and others. You can do jerky and so many other things.

  Today it was warm enough that we could take our sweet ladies, Bluey and Bingo, outside.  Pullets (adolescent hens) can only be outside full time if the temperature is constantly above 50 and after they have slowly been taken outside for a few hours at first, then adding a few hours more and more to add up to a whole day.  This is to get them used to the weather. After they have been outside all summer, they will be fine with fall, winter, and spring, because they will be used to it. We are so blessed to be able to have chickens and I wish we could have more. 

  On Saturday we (I mean Nick) not only built  this trellis  but he made some of our garden boxes taller with metal that he had. We moved our strawberries over so we could get rid of all the stupid weed grass stuff.  We need to do the other two boxes. It's so nice to have them taller.  It's easier to weed, when we need to, gather the fruits/veggies, and see what needs to be done. This is what they looked like before. This is Lydia and Tyler helping me move the strawberries over.

  Our sweet little chickens, Bluey and Bingo, are doing so good.  They are getting so big and they are so cute. We let them out of their brooder for a little while today and they were so funny to watch. Here they are...

  My sister Jessica sent me a new sourdough jar, just because she loves me and she wanted my opinion on how it was. I do like the mouth of the glass jar being so wide, it makes it easier to add flour and water to feed it.  It is much easier to clean.  However, I like just having a paper towel on top instead of having it completely closed off, like the silicone lid this one has. *UPDATE* 8/7 - I started just using the yellow measuring band to hold on a paper towel instead of using the lid.  I like it so much better. If you would like to know more about sourdough here are some more blog posts I did about it. Sourdough 101   Sourdough Bread Recipe Here is what the jar looks like...

For a long time, I wanted to make bread.  I was so afraid that I would mess up that I never tried.  Silly, I know.  Well, I just decided one day that I would make french bread.  Guess what... It turned out so good.  Nick and the kids love it!  Once I felt comfortable with it, I started making sourdough. It's been over a year now of making sourdough and I have eaten and shared several loafs.  It's so fun to make and yummy to eat. Here is the post I did on  Sourdough 101 . This has post has some basic information on how to start sourdough, the definitions you need to know, the supplies you need, and how to make a starter.  Here is the link to my post for my  Sourdough Bread Recipe .  I am going to see if I can shorten the time on making it, so I'll let you know how that goes. We also use the sourdough to make Sourdough Pizza Recipe . I found the recipe for the french bread that I make from my cousin, and it's on pinterest.  ...

  Day 1 of our March Photo Challenge ( This Post Here ) is: Your Garden Now Here is our garden right now. Covered in a blanket of snow and so very cold!

  I couldn’t find a photo challenge for March, so last night I threw one together. We will be doing this on Instagram, so come join us! There aren’t any prompts for the Sunday’s because I rest from social media. 

For those of you who don’t know, we are growing a lemon tree in our house.  It’s small but we have gotten a couple lemons so far.  The flowers are so pretty and smell like lemons! Did you know it takes about 6-9 months for the lemons to grow and ripen. Crazy huh? Lemons are high in Vitamin C, and also contain Vitamins A & B6, fiber, iron, and potassium. These vitamins and minerals help with: Heart Health Control Weight Prevent Kidney Stones Reduce Risk of Cancer Digestive Health They can also help to freshen your breath, keep you hydrated, and improve your skin quality. It’s recommend by some nutritionist to have the juice of 2 lemons a day and lemon water every day is perfectly healthy. Have a wonderful Wednesday! ✖️Please Note✖️ I am not a doctor, nor do I claim to be. I am posting this for information purposes. Please make sure to consult a doctor before proceeding with any form of health treatment from these.  

Sourdough help for beginners (this is me!) I started this post last year and forgot to finish it. Oops. 🙊  So I’ve been trying to make my own sourdough starter. It was going really well for the first few days, but then when I had to discard some of it and use a small amount of the starter to feed, it quit growing. So I started over and it didn’t work again. I decided to buy unbleached flou r to see if that was the problem. I started over again and it was going good, but then my starter grew mold. 😭 So today January 26th 2022 I started yet again.  I was confused about some of the process. I keep seeing everyone with discard and making recipes from it. If they are using discard what are they using for bread? How much of their starter do they keep? How much do they feed their starter? So I’m going to break things down to hopefully help others understand more about sourdough. Supplies needed: Starter Unbleached Flour Warm Water (not over 110°) Salt Scale Measuring Cups Mixing Bo...

Today I made a Reel on Instagram about the benefits of tomatoes. There are lots of benefits to eating healthy food, especially homegrown food. Some from tomatoes are Vitamin A, Fiber, Antioxidants, Vitamin K, Potassium, Folate, and Vitamin C. They can help with heart, eye, skin, menopause, and more. These articles are where we found our information. 5 Health Benefits of Tomatoes Tomatoes 101 Do you like tomatoes?