Where The Sheep Bells Go We Follow... A Little Inspiration!

 

 

Where The Sheep Bells Go We Follow... A Little Inspiration! 

 I stumbled upon this on YouTube and this kind of thing gives me hope for the future! Tell me what you think? And enjoy! Lots more there on their Channel! Try and watch on a BIG screen if you can! 

Question- What The Hell Happened to Homesteading???

 

 

 

Question- What The Hell Happened to Homesteading???

I stumbled onto this Youtube video (link to article in Substack Jill Winger Substack) and was blown away. I had been thinking the same things for quite a while now. Video here, please comment on what you think? My comments on Youtube and Substack below video-

 

My comments- 

Really great post on Substack, interesting comments. I'm a little different where my husband and I started a little urban homestead back in the 2010 or so. I grew up in the city in Southern California, mostly in apartments and never had a yard until I was an adult. I got married and raised a family with a wonderful man who loved gardening! I started blogging in 2011, Little Homestead in Boise, which I still do. I thought it might be fun just to sort of document what we were doing as we did it and it's actually really great to be able to look back and see what we did over all the years. I think my grandparents would be proud! I grew up in the city with the only set of grandparents I knew who had fruit trees, avocado tree, Concord grapes and strawberries in their little tiny urban backyard. My grandmother also knitted, crocheted, embroidered, canned foods, made everything from scratch. That was the generation that were adults during the Depression. I'm almost 70. After I became a Master Gardener we bought our current house where I really wanted to pursue more self-sufficiency type skills. I had stumbled on to a California family that were doing hardcore "urban homesteading" and Permaculture. It was really inspiring to me. I didn't know what else to call it, so "urban homesteading" fit for me. So after we moved in we planted fruit trees, medicinal herbs, low water use plants (high desert here), got chickens, and planted another summer garden like our two previous houses. Almost all of this was done frugal and DIY. Sadly my husband has vetoed beekeeping as he is afraid of liability issues! Oh well, what can you do. My husband luckily had parents that were hardcore gardeners also, in Portland, Oregon. His Mom grew tons and tons of homegrown produce. Eventually I learned how to can and dehydrate foods, etc. I never really made any money off of my blog. When I started to see YouTube taking off years ago and a lot of bloggers going there or even just switching to Facebook I just sort of shook my head. I really didn't want to lose my privacy by going online and posting videos of myself doing stuff and I didn't really think there was much interest in it anyway. Boy was I wrong. While I'm not sure if I thought it was a movement, it was something. When chickens became a "thing" for instance, I saw a huge onslaught of cheaply made, inappropriate sized instant chicken coops for sale. I saw a lot of people buy a lot of chickens and a lot of them died. People didn't know what they were doing, but it sounded fun. I did about 6 months worth of research before we ever bought our three little chicks and built a nice sized big coop. We've been successfully raising chickens for years. Sadly many of my blogger pals who were around the same age or maybe younger have either stopped blogging or passed away. I used to have a real regular group where we crossed pollinated each other's blogs with comments and now I'm down to one or two. Sad.  Now we have the cosplay farmers and homesteaders who have millionaire husbands and dress up in overly expensive, quaint clothing and say that they are farmers. They have large families (some of them) and promote all their sales and/or services and the attitude of "you can do this too without any money"! It's also easy to raise lots of kids when you have lots and lots of staff doing most of the work. I do feel sorry for the children in that scenario as the ones who are all over social media have no choice in that sadly. I see a lot of therapy in their future. Good job on your post and you made some excellent points! Will be putting a link to this on my blog. Will be curious to see any comments. 

 

Happy Spring & The Winter That Wasn't, Upcoming Home Updates!!!

Happy Spring & The Winter That Wasn't:

Happy Spring to all of you out there! It was 80° yesterday which is crazy for March! We didn't really have much of a winter this year. It was 62° on Christmas day! I believe that was an all-time record. I really missed having very little snow this year and it's really not good for snow pack and water here. While it is really pretty to see all the green it is way too early to be this warm. I hope we're not going to have a brutal, early summer. It was nice to see some of the bees out pollinating the peach tree which has flowers just opening up. The backyard is super green and the Italian parsley that should have gone dormant on the deck never did because it was so mild- 

 

 

 

We did get a little bit of snow this winter, but just not very much. Meanwhile watching the news it was terrible to see what the Midwest and East Coast were going through with all of the blizzards, over and over. I guess nature is what it is, we just all have to stay prepared. Preparedness is one of those things that people need to keep taking seriously. A lot of people still don't seem to bother, which I don't understand! I guess we all do what we do. Luckily our new little dwarf apple tree did great over the winter. Hoping for apples in the coming years. Girls are laying eggs steadily also! 

 

  

Old "buffet"

 

Upcoming Interior Home Updates:

We've been living in our house right now almost 20 years. We've done a lot of updating over the years with various things. When we first bought the house the carpeting was super cheap and wore out really fast, so that was one of the first things we did. Dave installed laminate through the main part of the house at one point. We had the kitchen cabinets refaced by professionals which luckily has held up really well. We painted all the rooms and the exterior, changed out all the light fixtures, redid both bathrooms, and that's just the inside! Since time goes on of course things wear out and need to be replaced. Then there are things you're just ready to update, and we saved up for. Since we have no plans to sell the house we decided to have some work done, by professionals. We don't want to be on the roof and have to be careful with lifting, etc. We got several bids and are happy with our choices. 

At this point we're going to be getting new light gray carpeting in all three bedrooms, new luxury vinyl planking in our kitchen and main bathroom, new countertop in the kitchen with under counter sink, new backsplash. We're also going to be removing our old microwave exhaust fan and replacing it with a vent/light that's ducted out. Will buy a new smaller microwave. We're going to be updating our current "buffet" that used to be an old computer desk the previous owners installed and we'll top with butcher block. I may whitewash it. Will probably keep the fabric for now but may pull that out and put in a couple of painted cabinets. Here's the previous blog post of on of the original updates Kitchen Update 

 

A couple MINOR updates first- 

hoping to replace the old Habitat brushed stainless dining fixture. We have a combo kitchen/dining room, hoping to get something like this, 

sort of rustic French/Scandinavian. Maybe thrifted, new one here Rustic Wood-Chandelier -

 

 Old one- 

We're removing this, to replace with a small vent/light like this in white Broan-NuTone  Nice and quiet, a good brand! We will remove and have the backsplash go up into that area, maybe add a shelf when they install the tile-

 

 

  

 

Small bathroom needs a new faucet, that's it! Old Ikea one getting pretty worn, too much hard water- 

 

 

Major changes- Old sage bedroom carpet, will get a light gray-

Old kitchen flooring beige- 

 

  

Old bathroom gray vinyl-

 

NEW kitchen and bathroom flooring will be LVP, same as our small bathroom. We will install a new toilet as well-

  

Old kitchen laminate counter/plastic backsplash-

 

 

New counter, quartz "Peppercorn", basically white with small particles of gray/off white. We were going to do a light gray, but it was too dark. We wanted something durable and simple-

 

Backsplash still to be decided. We got great advice- what until counter is in, then make the final decision! We are leaning towards a satin white/off white with a textured surface, like this- Apollo Tile White I REALLY wanted Zellige tile, but it's WAY too expensive. It's handmade (partially) and I love the rustic look-

 

Really looking forward to an UNDERCOUNTER sink, finally!!! Will be this one KRAUS Undermount    Counter top very similar to our new one-

 

 

I'll do some "after" shots once things start up. New roof coming first! Carpet, then counter/backsplash, then flooring. So excited!!! Work to start in about 3 weeks, roof sooner. Happy Spring!!!

 

 

 

Happy New Year!

 

Hope you have the best year ever in 2026!

Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

Merry Christmas!!! 

 

 

 

Happy Solstice!

 

Celebrating the return of the light!

Prepping for Winter!

Prepping for Winter!

We've been having some pretty weird weather. It's been swinging between the 60s and the lowest temperature so far was about 28°. We've had nice weather and then lots of rain. I think the next week or two will be kind of the end of our Autumn weather but that's a guess. We've been doing lots of little prepping things inside and out getting ready for winter. I have some nice Autumn decor on our front porch, took down the Halloween goodies from our front yard that we like to put out. It was fun seeing the trick-or-treaters again this year! Now we have some more regular decor out and prepping for Thanksgiving. Lots of leaves coming down daily- 

 

 

Turkey prices are seeming a bit high in our area, but I'm not seeing any shortages yet. Anybody seeing anything interesting out there? We will be hosting this year, doing a potluck with our adult kids and grandkids. Sometimes we have a little snow in November that doesn't last, but comes down. I'll be curious to see if we get some before Thanksgiving. The leaves are definitely coming down! Dave already cleaned out the gutters once-

 

We both got new wiper blades for both cars the other ones were toast. Got out out winter woolens and fleece, gloves, hats, etc. Had to buy some new wool socks at Costco, mine wore out. I love theirs, just throw in the washer dryer! Snow scrapers in the cars with emergency blankets. Cleaned out the garden beds, picked the last of the tomatoes. Caulked some of our windows. Dave repainted our house trim, gor new address numbers, all looks great! Chickens are still on strike since they molted, but that's normal for them! Dave put up the coop sunroom while it was still mild. Gives them lot of extra dry space during the snow and rain. We just take apart in the spring and store the frame-

 

 

Luna on the left Sunny on the right

 

I put our winter bedding out, nice heavy comforter to keep us warmer on the cold nights. I put out our faux sheep skins from Ikea. I have a few on our living room furniture pieces which we love. Makes it look a little bit more warm and cozy and they're easy to throw in the washer and dryer. I bought a couple blue ones too and Bonnie loves them on the foot of the  spare bed. I think she enjoys the fuzziness too!

 

 

I fermented some pickles for the winter. Also stocked up on some French baguettes, low-cost at a local French bakery. They freeze really great! Nice to have those on hand for soups in the winter. So nice to also have our homegrown, organic peaches and tomatoes frozen for the future.  I decided to try my hand at making my own sourdough starter soon and make some sourdough breads. I found a YouTube channel, Our Gabled Home, that had a really great video on how to easily make your own starter. Great video How To Easily Start Sourdough  She also has tons of simple Sourdough recipes and German food videos too. Enjoy! How is your autumn weather going???   

Garden Update/ Successes & Failures, New Coop Interior, Great Score on New Tableware

 

Garden Update/ Successes & Failures-

It has been a really crazy summer for everybody in our area with gardening. We had cool weather with rain, then heat. We got into a pattern of monsoonal moisture which is a blessing especially living in the high desert. Sadly it brought lightning and we're having terrible fires. Also that rain makes every single weed seed sprout! Just trying to keep things weeded was really insane. We did have a few good ideas though since we were desperate. We had some leftover weed barrier and there was a really bad area right in front of our blackberries that's a walkway. So I suggested to Dave that we throw down the weed barrier and cover with bark dust. We did that, problem solved! We did a lot of extra watering with the 100° days off and on, it just it was so hot. Good news we've had some nice big tomatoes coming off of some of the plants. The flip side is we got almost 1/3 of our usual Early Girl tomatoes, almost no paste tomatoes, and very few cherry tomatoes. Our Siberian black prince tomatoes and cukes all went crazy! Almost 5' tall!

We try to grow mostly Heritage but I do the others just for a quicker Harvest. So I do have lots of fresh tomatoes in the freezer that are vacuum sealed. We had a really good crop of pears. I made several giant crisps out of those. I gave the rest to my two daughters since I still had some canned ones left from last time. Froze a lot of peaches! I may do some canning this winter when things are cooler and it's quieter. We did get our first new black currants that we planted in our front yard as a shrub.

We've had some kind of disease or fungus in our front lawn resulting in a big brown patch. I contacted the Master Gardener program for help with that. At first I thought it's because we cut down our really old apple tree and it has full exposure to the sun burning it. But then it spread and spread. I spoke with them and sounds like a fungus hitting the valley. Will take a sample in. Sounds like we'll need to re-seed. So with gardening there's just always ups and downs every year. Another reason why we try to plant a variety of veggies and fruits. If you have a failure over a couple varieties you have some backups. We did get about four or five apples off our brand new baby apple tree! Looking forward to having more apples next year. Herbs did great and got a new pump for the pond-

New Coop Interior-

The chickens are doing really well in the new coop. We decided to do a second coat of paint since it weathered a bit in the Sun and winter is around the corner. Here's some photos of the inside to show you the layout, which is a little different. We did the same footprint but because we did the flooring and foundation the way we did it's a little bit narrower. After I saw another blogger had this idea we built in a little mini-enclosure inside the coop for either sick chickens or new chicks. For new chicks it would obviously be when it's warm enough for them to be out there and the temporary situation. The girls love sleeping at night up in the nesting boxes. They were used to being up on a shelf by the upper window, but we put the new (used) window down low this time to avoid falls. Everything else is going well with the coop through good ventilation and everybody was happy this summer. Super grateful that we have our huge maple tree in the backyard, gives us lots and lots of shade! Here's the main area, feed and water on the left, floating perch on the right-

New temp enclosure for chicks or ill birds-

Window above nesting boxes and enclosure-

Naturewood first batch

Great Score on New Tableware-

A couple years ago I had stumbled on a stoneware pattern that I really loved on Facebook Marketplace. Sadly I just couldn't afford it at the time. I left Facebook for a while and then went back recently to follow local businesses and have access to Marketplace. Then I spotted the Pfaltzgraff Naturewood stoneware pattern again! And the price was way down, not sure if it's the economy? To make a long story very short I was able to get a great price on a set from two different sellers. The first seller had mixed in a second pattern called Perennial Flowers which coordinates with the Naturewood. After doing some research I decided to sell those on Marketplace. It's actually a quite expensive pattern since it was only in production for about 5 years. Long story short is also I may wind up actually making quite a chunk of money on this as it is very valuable, and I am selling it for a really good price. Will be listing it in a day or so. Worked out great!

Naturewood pattern

New Coop Finished/Weird Weather, My Free Skywarn Storm Spotter Class I Took With The National Weather Service

 

New Coop Finished/Weird Weather!

We finally finished the coop! We had a lot of really weird weather in April thru July. We had hot weather, cold weather, Monsoon rain, thunder, lightning and wind. It really held up the coop construction, we just had to wait it out. In April Dave decided to bite the bullet and get started. We set up a temporary coop for a few days for the chickens, which worked out great! They even used the cardboard box I put in there as a nesting box and laid. Dave and I talked a lot ahead of time about what we wanted to do and basically we used the same footprint of the previous coop. Our main thing that we did different was the roof line, and we have the nesting box with inside access only because we like the way it looked. Dave did most of the construction, I had to protect my back. I helped with a few two person holds! Old coop below showing the damage, ready for a tear down. Here are the photos!

 

 

 

 

 

Dave started the tear down, we recycled what we could

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My last picture of Debbie, she lasted 2 years after the Vet said she would, passed peacefully in the house with me, RIP  

 

 

 

 Temporary coop with rain cover

Dave wanted to build the foundation with concrete blocks on the ground but I suggested that it would be really hard to level. So he used recycled bricks that we had with pressure treated lumber on top of that, then leveled. Then he did concrete blocks on top of that. Should last a long time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Girls using the nesting cardboard box!

 

 

 

We bought a used window and used storm door for the coop. Dave cut up the old storm door to create a window vent which is great to get cool air in from the north side in the summer. We also have the glass for in the winter when we can close it up to keep it warmer. The storm door also has a panel that goes up and down depending on the weather so it's nice cross ventilation along with the little window, also has a metal vent on the southside-

 

 

 

 

 

 

We decided to paint the coop the same color as the house, and leave the cedar trim natural for contrast. I basically did all the painting except for the part that I couldn't reach, love the color! 

 

Plastic roof over the plywood, Dave added soffitts

  

I repainted the "Eggs 5 cents" sign that we got from a yard sale years ago

 

We put the wind vane back up, and added some Japanese wind socks as they go with the ones in the garden!

Garden windsocks, love them! 

Bye bye old coop, she lasted 13 years or so mostly from recycled materials-

Interior pictures coming soon...

 

My Free Skywarn Storm Spotter Class I Took With The NWS-

A few months ago I took a free live online class with The National Weather Service. It was fun and very informative! Lots of good info. For more information go here NWS SKYWARN Storm Spotter Program for classes near you. They gave us all a nice packet afterwards with other resources we could use. It's great to be able to know who to contact if you see something important.