We do just about everything big here 🙂 
Radishes!!! Radishes!!!
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Sweet Potato Slips ~ 2013
This is my very first time growing Sweet Potato Slips.
I bought 3 sweet potatoes from Azure Standard (Organic). They were huge!
You take a sweet potato and poke some tooth picks into the sides of it, place the bottom half into a mason pint jar of water and let it sprout. You pick the sprouts off and put them into another jar. 
Then, you wait for it to grow roots. This is what you plant into the ground. From those 3 sweet potatoes, I grew over 32 splits, they just keep growing!!
I placed them into a warm window sill where the grew roots 🙂
When it got warm enough, this is what I planted outside. Stay tuned!!
Blessings,
Momma
Then, you wait for it to grow roots. This is what you plant into the ground. From those 3 sweet potatoes, I grew over 32 splits, they just keep growing!!
I placed them into a warm window sill where the grew roots 🙂
When it got warm enough, this is what I planted outside. Stay tuned!!
Blessings,
Momma
Garden Update 6/15/13
I am so far behind, not necessarily on gardening (but actually – yes behind on weeding!) That being said ~ here is the new garden for this year.
New Garden!
We added a garden, it’s about 50*80. My plan for it this year is dried goods. I’m so interested in figuring out
1) how to grow dried goods that will last my family through this winter and
2) growing food that will help feed my animals into the winter. *this is a definite learning curve for me*
I have planted 10 sweet potato plants. (future link coming on growing from slips) ~ 8 16 ft panels of dried beans and a 5 ft panel I’m trying from my soup mix, corn ~~~ thinking dried corn. Squash ~Pumpkins~ stuff for the chickens to eat through the winter. Break one open and let them peck at them 🙂
I’ll keep you posted!
Making Butter :)
I’d love to share how we make butter. We make butter 2x a week 🙂
First, let your raw milk settle for about 24 hours, the cream will settle on top. i scoop my cream out with a turkey baster. It’s not the most professional way but it works!
I put 8 cups of cream into my Dimension mixer at a time and then I whip it. 
I whip it into the buttermilk and the butter separate and I get clobs of yummy delicious butter. 
Then I rinse and rinse and rinse it… you want to rinse it clear.
In the above picture, you can see some drops of buttermilk on it and my strainer. Seriously – get all of the buttermilk out. You can then rewhip it at this point with salt if you want salted butter. I usually skip this step.
Lastly, I mold my butters into 1/4 cup chunks of butter and place them on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. 
I flash freeze these in my freezer and then put them into a container in my freezer where they will store really well.
Of course, this is another option 🙂
Blessings,
Momma
Azure Standard
I was recently asked what I ordered from Azure Standard and I thought you would find it interesting to see what we do every month.
Azure carries organic and transitional as well as bulk items. Every month, we place our order by our route date and then about 5 days later, we drive to meet the truck at the “drop” site. When we get there, we sort everybody’s orders out and I bring home the orders for my town – (the picture above is not all mine!)
What do I buy?
- butter (Before I had a milking cow, I bought butter for the SAME price as the grocery store but I got yummy organic yellow butter. Now, I have a cow and as I’m drowning in milk (see later post) I have lots of our own.
- Potatoes (organic potatoes at cheaper prices then my local store, we buy the 5*10lb bags and use them up or can them if they start going bad)
- Almost always apples, apples to eat, apples to sauce, apples to can in plain syrup!
- Bulk goods – beans, oats and wheat berries for sure!
Do you have an Azure Standard near you? What do you purchase?
New farm members
Are you interested in Homesteading?
If you are interested in homesteading = this book is awesome! And you can win it this week at Homestead community! The Homestead community is an amazing place to connect with some other like-minded homesteaders. They are giving away 2 copies! Hope I you and I both win!!!
Where have we been…
We’ve been super busy on the farm. We have been getting seeds started, we’ve got about 500 starters going so far and another 200 to finish tomorrow, just got tired I guess. They are on trays under growth lights because we are getting 2″ of snow tonight into tomorrow – BOO!!! We buy only Heirloom, non-GMO seeds! We’re passionate about this obviously. 
We did quite a bit of canning over the weekend. One thing we’ve been wanting to get to is canning meat in our pressure canner. 
It was not as hard as it sounds. We did up about 20 lbs of boneless, skinless, chicken breasts. We did quarts and followed the directions from here: Food Storage Made Easy
It turned out well- notice I’m using my tattler lids! i tried to put my sales link on the side bar and right now that’s not working so if you are interested – go ahead and leave me a message in the comments and I’ll email you. I won’t post your private info 🙂 We love our tattler lids! I’m planning a future post on this really soon! we wanted to do a whole bunch so we could completely feel confident in our testimony!!
We also did a whole lot more of carrots/potatos mixed. We add these into our stews, or roasts. They are not mushy at all – and are really yummy.
We reorganized some food and living space – am very happy with how it turned out. We’ve started ordering from Azure Standard and I needed to have a spot to store organizing food. I really like how Laura from Heavenly Homemakers shares her Azure ordering – I’ve linked her bulk post and I ❤ how every month she lists the Azure specials. I’ll work in May on PICTURES like Laura does! We ordered wheat berries, honey, potatos,
We also have been very busy at church, the hubby part of the homestead was offered the Associate pastor position at church and is heading back to school!
Sorry I haven’t been posting, maybe with the snow, it will settle down a bit, baby chick pics coming soon!
Williamsburg – part 1
We are very blessed to be part of a group of people that vacation together. We have done this consistently since spring of 2002. We have missed 3 years in all this time (2007 – house fire, 2008 – we did Florida instead, and 2010 grandbaby!) This year, we came home saying, “next year is a must do”. It is through a group called MOMYS that we get to go. MOMYS stands for Moms of Many Young Siblings. To qualify, at some point in your life you would need to have 4 children in an 8 year age span. (obviously I have qualified a few times over… I have 4 in one year age span) MOMYS has a web presence through their message boards, their wall, and through the daily email loop. We also have special loops for Adoptive MOMYS, Moms with Special needs blessings and more!
I’ve put our family photo out to see on the last post, so let me tell you a little more about our trip. We drove to Indiana to stay with friends from MOMYS -and this has been so wonderful in the past, that we stayed there an extra day (planned for!) We would also stay with them on the way home for an overnight as well. This greatly broke up our time in the car.
The activities included in our Williamsburg package are: a 4 bdrm, 3 bathroom, 2 living room, 2 kitchen resort with a hot tub that seats 6 as our accomodations.
beautiful resort
Activities included in our price for the week were
- a dad’s breakfast (does anyone have pictures of this??)
- a large group gathering the first whole day for family introductions and introductions to the dance
- a mom’s dessert (at the place that copyrighted Death By Chocolate)
- a girl’s tea
@ the girl's tea Williamsburg 2011
- a boy’s craft project – they made leather pouches to hold their “stuff”
Boys Craft Pouch
- a boy’s encampment with training in guns
Training "future men"
- multiple lectures by a heritage speaker with a heart for the children (Jamestown -1 day, Williamsburg on multiple occasions including one night-time tour, Yorktown, different talks than other years and greatly enjoyed by us!)
Discussing the growth of slavery in the colonies
- the King’s ball with provided desserts and beverages – amazing!
As the King's Ball is beginning, waiting dancers and waiting refreshments!
~many dancers~
Well, there were a few things we paid for on top of that, the parent’s dinner out (a wonderful treat!), the teenager dinner out and the costuming tour at Colonial Williamsburg (hopefully a separate post because it was amazing!) as well as the much requested visit to Coldstone Creamery.
I have more posts coming on our vacation, it was a wonderful time and very relaxing. We were able to do it on an incredibly tight budget that got tighter as gas went up yet it was so filled with activity that it didn’t matter!
Here are some other bloggers on their Williamsburg adventures:
http://thechurchcook.blogspot.com/2011/03/colonial-williamsburg-part-1-of-3.html
http://sissyprissyandmom.blogspot.com/2011/03/williamsburg-six-years-and-still-going.html
One of my favorite pictures – just for fun!
love this picture!
More to come,
Momma
All in a Day: House Cleaning
How do we keep our house clean…well… hmmm.. I’ll be back in just a bit (looking around)
In theory, we keep our house clean by:
1) being responsible for ourselves, picking up after ourselves. If you get something out, put it away.
2) spending a few minutes throughout the day tidying (10 minutes to clean at any point) – this is especially necessary with 14 children at home, 12 of whom are homeschooled and 2 who are… messy makers. Figure 12 students with a minimum of 6 subjects – 72 books plus pens, plus notebooks… especially since we are book lovers, and so some subjects have a lot of books! Everybody helps with this. It is part of living in a family 🙂
3) chores – our chore system is a paid system. It is 3 tiered. If you are a little – you don’t do a chore. You also don’t get paid AND you miss out on some things we do for just bigs. They’ll get it someday – when they are old enough or responsible enough to do a chore. Even in the chore system, there are 2 more levels, entry and professional. Entry level gets paid, but doesn’t get benefits. (think hourly employee!) They make $5.00 every other week and they do a fairly small chore. Professional levels make perks! They make significantly more money. The people who help with dishes at my house make significanly more money than the person who empties the garbage. The person who is currently on dishes does all the dishes for a family of 16 every day with no dishwasher! He makes 25$ every other week. Other perks we have – late night snack :), movies, etc.
4) it is my responsibility to ensure cleanliness in my home. I cannot “expect what I don’t inspect”. Below is an example of a chore gone BAD!!! 
((“THANKFULLY THIS IS NOT THE NORM!!))
Sometimes I am gone, sometimes I am busy or gone, sometimes I am tired. It isn’t an excuse. There are times where our house just doesn’t get clean. I try but recognize I am human, and that the bodies in my house will still be here tomorrow. I also try and recognize that disorder in the house makes others cranky (especially daddy who dislikes things under his feet!) Those are his feet in this picture and this is the only picture with him, his feet and floor).
5) keep my priorities right 🙂 be a Mary first off!!! Value family and relationship above all else. Here is our most recent family picture! (Vacation post forthcoming!!)
2011 @ The King's Ball
Check out the other All in a Day Bloggers…
Carrie @ Our Full House
Christi @ Where the Creek Meets the Lake
Elizabeth @ Yes They’re All Ours
Kathy @ Kathy Mom of Many
Kristy @ Homemaker’s Cottage
Lori @ Happy Busy Mama
Monica @ Natural Mama
Renee @ Bakers Dozen
Hope to see you more this week, as we recover from vacation, laundry, lack of sleep and photo overload…
Momma
Our Faith, Our Family, Our Farm 