Little Homestead Mini Year in Review, After Holiday Deals/Thrifting, Kitchen Cabinet Organizing Re-Do

Little Homestead Mini Year in Review-
It's been a crazy couple of weeks, with our new Grand baby Oliver, holidays, record snow and cold, with more to come! We had almost 8" of snow in 2 days last week, single digits coming this next week and it's snowing!

  

We put birdfood out today and the squirrels came out big time! 

We had a lot of things happen at the Little Homestead this year, the most fun the additions to our family! Here's a snapshot of some of the big projects, etc. that happened-

We re-painted our house, still love it!

Sadly one after effect of our house painting was my wrenched back :(   I didn't post about it here because it was so awful. I wound up having severe nerve pain down my right leg from my L3 disc pushing on my spinal cord. After Xrays I went to an excellent Chiropractor, and after VERY intensive work, I'm about good as new! No injections, no surgery. I'm happy. Then... hand surgery- 

I had severe pain from my left thumb from bone rubbing on bone. Chunk of bone removed in late Oct., with a new structure created to support upper thumb bone. I had the cast for 10 days, then went to my "Terminator" brace-

the knob loosens the wires to take off

Now I'm wearing a neoprene soft support, doing stretching, pain gone, most of my grip strength still intact!

We hosted a baby shower for daughters Tami, then later Angie. We had a really great harvest season in the garden, with the soaker hoses helping quite a bit. For $10.00 each a great investment! 

Got our first peaches!

Nice harvest of huge pears

a small sampling of our veggies

Our old shed area was very productive with beans!!! 

I made frozen applesauce/apple slices, not enough time to can. Got several nice batches of tomato sauce too!

Chalk painting projects

There was lots of thrifting, and re-did our extra room with baby gear :) Free or thrifted!

I settled into my job, that's going well. I really MISSED the summer off and holiday time as well. Not much time for baking, etc. We babysat River yesterday and he's so BIG! Seven months, wow! My adult kids are all well, hubby too. 

The chickens doing well, survived their molts and are laying 2-3 eggs per day again, even in this long, dark winter!

Yummy!

I signed up for a free kit from our local Electric power company- free LED bulbs, shower head, faucet aerators, great stuff AND FREE! A very good price.

We bought a nice, larger, more reliable washing machine after ours died. It's been great! We didn't do a big vacation, with medical bills and "stuff". There's always more to reflect on, but those are the big things I can remember! 

Walmart, A birch star with LED lights, $3.00-

After Holiday Deals/Thrifting-

I bought some winter outfits for baby Oliver (born in winter) at Goodwill last week, all fleece and warm! He inherited a lot of new clothes from his cousin River, born in the summer. No warm clothes though! Grandma to the rescue. For $10.00 I got 4 fleece outfits with tops/bottoms, 1 long sleeved top, and 4 infant hats. I also was at Walmart and got these after holiday deals, 70% off, as well as some bows and 2 more stockings for babies-

A cute, round plastic tablecloth for a DIY no sew tree skirt

From Lowe's, perfect for my Yule shelf! $3.00 each

Off to Goodwill tomorrow as I deep cleaned some closets again. And speaking of organizing...

Kitchen Cabinet Organizing Re-Do-

While Dave and I had a few minutes today (3 day weekend) I swapped some contents of 2 cabinets. I always had to get down on my hands and knees for bake ware etc. So we emptied out all the contents, some was extra for the big pantry, some trash, some chicken treats (stale millet). We had the good sense when we had the cabinets re-faced to put in 2 corner pull out trays-

Cleaned out and empty

I added bake ware, microwave containers

Sorting foods

Foods moved into other cabinet, with storage containers

I even unearthed a 1 Qt. vintage jar with milk glass lined lid and a handle. What to fill it with? Dried lavender or??? 

It's Apple Harvest Time!!! Upcycled Flour Sifter Topiary, Organizing Craft Supplies

It's Apple Harvest Time!!!
We have a wonderful organic Pippin apple tree. Last spring, 2014, we had it professionally pruned, and had zero apples. Not a surprise. This year we have a BUMPER crop!

Branches bending low with fruit

It's also an early harvest, with the mild wet spring/early summer. Good for me as I go back to work next week! It's been really hot the last few days, and really windy. Apples are on the ground but I can fix that :) Dave will be picking the next few evenings on the orchard ladder, a gift from his previous boss. He was going to throw it away!!! Anyway, since we don't spray the apples have worms holes, but I cut around those and the chickens get the rest. They love the fruit! This week I'll be....

Canning apple slices in a light syrup, faster than sauce! Good for winter dishes like pork chops, cobblers.
Making chunky apple sauce, plain and spiced (think apple pie filling), great with anything!
Making apple butter, make it from the apple sauce in a crock pot. Great on toast, and you name it.
Making my first Apple Cider Vinegar, fermented with good probiotics, yummy! One or 2 gallons. Recipe here- Talesofakitchen
LOTS of apple cobblers!!!

Sifter "before"

Upcycled Flour Sifter Topiary-

I sold some vintage kitchen things on eBay recently and my vintage flour sifter was left over. What to do? I had been thinking about making a living room topiary and then had a "Eureka" moment! Why not a flour sifter topiary? I had some left over dry floral foam, moss and a hot glue gun. I bought a round foam sphere, more moss and one wood dowel, all about $12.00. I added some rocks in the bottom of the sifter for stability, the foam next, then topped with moss. I hot glued on the moss to the ball, let cool.

My funky vintage pan is now my hot glue tray :)

I pressed the ball onto the dowel and glued some twigs from the yard on top of the dowel.

Now it's done! I like it :)

"Before" Picture Crafts, misc. decorative things 

Organizing Craft Supplies- 

I tackled all my various craft supply things, eBay/Craigslist/donation items this summer, since they were scattered around the house. Some people have entire crafting rooms, and put $1,000s of dollars into that. Not me. I gathered everything into my spare bedroom, where the extra storage and sewing machine is. "Before" picture above, but that wasn't all of it :) When I was re-doing my kitchen I pulled out my rolling organizer, fits perfect in the closet, all filled.

Craft paints, brushes, silk flowers, raffia, misc. stuff

Fabrics, patterns, beading supplies organized too

Everything else was either sold, donated or gifted to my kids. It's great to be able to find everything easily, have more room and pull out the cart. It was easy and didn't cost anything!

My New Half Price Helper!

My New Half Price Helper!

I had my eye on one of these carts at Cost Plus since last fall. I got an email that today they were 1/2 price today only! $35.00, oh boy! I called and got the LAST one and they held it for me. I always need to squeeze in a little more storage into the dining area. I can use for seed starts, linens, summer veggies. It's heavy metal, kind of an industrial look.  And it rolls! Happy dance!

Harness Driving Goats and Dogs with Carts

Harness Driving Goats and Dogs with Carts-
When I ran across the book above today Halter Goats Book  it reminded me of the photos I saw as a kid, with dogs pulling carts in the Netherlands, and also other rural areas. There's also Zonkers!

Cool stuff for sale here, photo from Fidogear.com

And then there's Skijoring!

From BozemanDailyChronicle.com Great shelter dog program there!

Think of the things you could do with 4 legged friends and some training!