Encouragement for Christian Sisters

Greetings sisters in Christ, Today I want to share with you, a post from my old homestead blog.  I think you will enjoy it... **************************************** There is a very interesting drive way I know of that I would like to tell you about. It begins just off of a quiet country road in the middle of a mostly pine and (some) mixed hardwood Wisconsin forest. It is about a quarter of a mile long through the peaceful woods where you can see many different plants and trees and animals as you pass by. The driveway is very special for many reasons. It not only leads to a joyful farm home but provides a path to harvest both firewood for winter warmth, delicious black berries, wild foraged food and quiet time in God's creation. As you drive or walk upon it and you pay attention you may see rabbits, song birds, porcupines, grouse, deer, owls, eagles etc. Many peace filled walks have been taken down on this driveway and it is surely appreciated as a gift from God in so ma

Greetings again sisters! Here's a simple recipe from my old homestead blog on how to make an easy sweet bread with 5 ingredients.    Toppings are additional. *************************************** Who doesn't like fresh sweet bread? It makes a delicious dessert or snack, is a great surprise in a lunch box and is a wonderful gift!  It has very few ingredients and is so simple to make that you can whip one up before bedtime when you forgot you needed something for the next day.  This recipe is perfect for a child to help with or do themselves with minimal guidance. Soda Bread *3 cups white flour *3/4 teaspoon salt *2 teaspoons baking powder *1/3 cup sugar  (could use less like 1/4 if you don't want it so sweet) *1 can of soda-yes, soda pop, whatever flavor you like. (We like to use Zevia or any other natural soda, however natural soda can be.) The next ingredients are optional: *2 tablespoons melted butter  *Sugar Cinnamon mix  (just take a couple teaspoon

Greetings sisters, Here's another post from my old homesteading blog, canning beans.  It goes well with the 'canning rice' post I just did.  Open up one of each, stir together in a pan and you have a meal ready to go in minutes. Hope you enjoy. *********************************** If you are looking for an inexpensive nutritious food that is shelf stable for long periods of time then look no further than dry beans.  As we've mentioned before, we shop in bulk and store our dry goods in large air tight containers such as 5 gallon buckets, gallon glass and plastic jars, mason jars etc.  By shopping in bulk for beans, rice, white flour, sugar, grains etc you pay a fraction per pound compared to the smaller packages.  The same goes for spices.  I can get 1 lb of spices for the same or less than buying one little bottle at the grocery store.  (Yes there is controversy as to how long spices will last... ours last much longer than what you read on the internet.  Feel fre

Greetings to my Titus 2 sisters, Here's a post from my old homestead blog about canning rice.  I used to love canning (and dehydrating) anything I could get my hands on and now that we're in the van full time it's far in the past.  It is fun digging through the homestead blog seeing what we used to do, though now all our time is for the service of the Lord. Enjoy. ******************************** We really like rice...a lot...with basmati brown rice being our favorite but it takes 45 minutes to cook on the regular stove and sometimes much longer on the woodstove.  (Nothing beats a pot of steaming rice with a hunk of butter and a generous dose of salt.  Yum).  Normally we don't eat a lot of canned rice but we sure like to have a few jars on the shelf for those last minute dinners that we forgot to prepare for.  It's great to take a jar of home canned rice, mix it in with home canned beans ( click here to learn how to can your own beans) and add some salsa to

Greetings sisters, Here's another post from my blog...solar cooking. ************************** It's spring and although we still have the woodstove going, it's fun to use the solar oven when you have a sunny day.  It started out sunny today but turned cloudy later on so I'm impressed on how the solar cooker heated the food despite the cold wind, 40 degree, party cloudy day!  I just took a chicken breast and chunked it up, added cubed potatoes and some peas.  Toss it with a generous dose of olive oil and a sprinkle each of thyme, sage and oregano as well as a generous helping of garlic salt a 1/2 cup water and we're ready to go. Just a note: at this time of year in Wisconsin with the weather being very cool and an even cooler wind, it's wise to use smaller pieces of food to ensure full cooking until the weather warms up and the temps in the solar oven can get higher.  I did give it a jump start on the gas stove for 10 minutes, just bringing it to a

Hello sisters, I found this post from my old blog that shows our homemade solar cooker and thought you might find it interesting. **************************************** In a world that is fast paced everything, we love living our home life in a simple and uncomplicated way.  Yes, we do use modern conveniences but as we go through our daily lives we look for ways to do things the 'old fashioned' :-) way or by using the resources that God has given us, thereby saving us money as well as a growing appreciation for the conveniences that we do have. In the wintertime I cook most of our meals in cast iron cookware on the woodstove (which is our source of heat).  It's not only economical (free) to cook that way but it's also fun and can be quite challenging.  In the warmer part of the year when the woodstove is not going, I try to use our solar oven as much as possible, which is not as often as I'd like as it all depends on the sun and lack of cloud cover. Aft

Good evening sisters, I found another post from my past blog that I'll share with you here: ********************************************* Making lip balm can seem intimidating because if you go on the internet and start searching you are bound to find hundreds of recipes.  We like simplicity so I chose to find the least uncomplicated method using quality products. This lip balm uses 3 ingredients: 5 teaspoons oil 3 teaspoons beeswax 6-10 drops of essential oil (your choice) I used olive oil and infused it with calendula to add nourishing properties to it.  All I did was cover dry calendula flowers with oil and let sit for 6 weeks, strain and use. To make lip balm you simply add the beeswax to the oil and warm it (while stirring) until the wax melts.  Try not to heat the oil any more than necessary to get the wax to melt. Tip: I use a discarded (clean) tin can to make this so that I can just toss it out when done because it is VERY DIFFICULT to clean containers after

Greetings sisters,  Here's another post from my past homestead blog that might be of encouragement for some of you... ******************************* All too often we hear of people cleaning out their freezers and tossing out food that has been there longer than someone deemed necessary.  For some reason there is the conception that food that has been in the freezer for (___fill in the blank with a time__) months or years, that it is inedible?  Dangerous?  Should be thrown away?  I wonder who came up with this idea? Seems pretty wasteful to us but then again sometimes people just do things because that's what they've heard or been taught but they don't seek to see if there is any truth behind it. Well, I'm here to say that we don't throw out (waste) food just because it has a bit of freezer burn/ frost on it, or a date beyond what someone told us and we encourage you think twice about doing it yourself. Here are a few ideas for you to do when you find s

Hello sisters! Here is another blast from my past post.  For those of you on a homestead, trying to live a simple and maybe off grid life, you might appreciate this: ******************************************** After we sold the farm at the back of the property and moved up here to our little cabin, we thought about going totally off the grid and therefore tossed out the electric stove that came with the place. Our plan was to add a small wood stove out in the back canning and processing kitchen but based on the heat in an enclosed area, in the summer....well, I decided that a bit more convenience (at this point) would be nice.  So we found a propane stove that does not need electricity to light it, only a match. It's a few years old :-o but in great shape! It's a very sturdy, hard working piece of equipment. The most fun aspect about this stove is that the oven takes some finesse to keep the temperature at a constant level so what I've found out, in dealing wi

We truly appreciate our simple life...and by simple we don't mean ' easy ' we mean ' uncomplicated '. In a sense that's why people love camping, or 'roughing it', because of the simplicity of it. Nobody cares if you wash your dishes the old fashioned way (by hand:-) instead of a dishwasher. Nobody cares if there is a little sand tracked in the floor of the tent or camper, that comes with the territory and you just sweep it up. Nobody cares if you wear the same shirt or skirt several days in a row, that's simply what you do when you're not worried about what everyone else thinks. Nobody cares if you just wing your meals over a fire and eat whatever you have without making a big fuss. That's simplicity and is what we appreciate in our lives. Since we heat with wood, cooking with the woodstove is just the normal thing to do and it doesn't get much more simple than wrapping up a potato and putting it in the woodstove to cook. It's a

Hello Sisters, Here is another post from my old homestead blog that I though you may find useful. ************************************************* Here's one of my favorite recipes I turn to when I want something quick, healthy (for the most part) and something small to nibble on with a cup of coffee for an afternoon 'pick us up; give us energy' snack:-)  These cookies are made entirely of dry goods, yes, everything is dry except the water.  If you've read enough of the posts here you will see that we have a lot of bulk dry goods in various forms such as rice, beans, lentils, grains, flour etc but we also have a small supply of unusual dry goods....such as chicken, turkey, beef, peanut butter powder, tomato powder, powdered eggs, butter powder, shortening powder etc. We prefer the whole foods in their natural forms but we also like to be prepared for all times which makes for a well stocked pantry for every occasion from needing quick meals; regular 'f