I Want To Be Like These Women!

I just listened watched a Ted Talks Talk from a woman named Chimamanda Adichie. She's a Nigerian Author, and in this Ted Talks she talks about the danger of a single story.

I love her perspective on this. In her talk she talks about how it is impossible to engage with people until you engage with all of their stories.

She talks about how there is never a single story, and she says that when we realize that, we reach paradise.

I also just found a wonderful woman named Glennon Melton. Her blog and website are here. She says sort of the same thing. She wrote:

"When it comes to God and faith and religion, I have some hunches…but I only know two things to be true-

1.      I am God’s beloved child.
2.      So is everyone else."

These are truths that I use to direct my life and my relationships.

I know that this world can be a difficult place to live. Everywhere I look (especially on Facebook!) there are sad and hateful things that just drag me down. I am especially tender-hearted and I get depressed when I focus on these things. 

I am so glad that I found at least two other women who feel the same way that I do. They are powerful women who are doing their best to change the world for the better. I just hope that I can be like them some day.

Spinning Straw Into Gold?

We are very interested in being able to sustain ourselves by running a farming/tourism/crafting business and we are always looking for ways to improve on the principles that we are using to build our little kingdom.

This photo is from this blog.

Recently Chris told me to look into SPIN Farming. It's cool. I really love the business model and the way it encourages people to use what they have access to. We are going to use SPIN techniques to plant and market our farm produce! Check out http://www.spinfarming.com/

Just today, Chris told me to check out STRAW Bale Gardening. It is also awesome. Check out http://strawbalegardens.com/

While we were talking I thought, "Why don't we do both! We could say we are spinning straw into gold! We could call it Rumplestiltskin Farming or something like that!"

I got really excited.

We will be implementing techniques from both of these schools of thought and we will let you know what we find out. Sign up to follow us through email to get regular updates on how and what we're doing!

From the Kitchen: English Muffins

Chris and I both really like English Muffins. I really love easy breakfasts. I am loving using my sourdough starter, so naturally, when I found a recipe for English Muffins on Sourdough Surprises, I had to try it.

Here's the recipe:
Sourdough English Muffins
1/2 C. Sourdough starter
3 C. Flour
2 C. Water
1/2 tsp. Baking soda
1tsp. Salt
2 T. Sugar
Cornmeal

In a large bowl combine starter, water, and 2 C. Flour. Let it sit overnight, or about 7-8 hours or so.

Mix in salt, sugar, and baking soda. Then add the remaining cup of flour 2 T. at a time until the dough isn't sticky. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and roll with a rolling pin to about a 1/2 inch thickness. Cut using a floured biscuit or cookie cutter. Lightly coat both sides of each round with cornmeal. Let rest on a cookie sheet for 45  min.

Fry muffins on a hot, lightly oiled pan, turning them like you would a pancake. Cook about 3 minutes on each side or until each side is browned.

The first three were a little burnt because my pan was too hot. I would recommend using a med-high heat. Then I got the hang of it and everything worked out just fine ;-) In fact, I was hard pressed to save any for breakfast!

I'm looking forward to making these over and over!

p.s. Please excuse the especially dirty stove... a vast majority of that was from dinner (we had spaghetti and you all know how messy that can be!) including the random spaghetti noodle draped over the burner on the left. and the burnt cornmeal from these made up the rest of it. I promise my kitchen is usually a lot cleaner!

Ideas, Sketches, and Dreams... How to be a Dream Achiever

When you are just a dreamer, your ideas usually stay in your head. Sometimes they make it to a notebook or a journal, but most times, your wonderful ideas and innovations just stay put in your head.

When you are a dream achiever, your dreams get drawn all over notebooks, napkins, paper scraps and anything you can get your hands on. Here'se the important part: as a dream achiever, you make a plan and take steps to achieve those dreams. Sometimes, dreams get filed away for another day, but as a dream achiever, you know that you will take them out again, and often, to remind yourself what you are working towards.

Here are some photos of our sketches and dreams. I just wanted to share with you our process. I'll start with the garden. Here is what we think we want our garden to be like...

The three half circles will be Lasagna-Style Mulch beds in a key hole shape. That shape will allow us to reach the bed from all sides and give us the most growing area:walking space ratio. The two rectangles at the kind top right side of this sketch will be more traditional shaped beds, possible for grains of some sort... and the big rectangle in the top left that is sort of labeled, that is where we would like the greenhouse to be.

We have a plan. Last fall we put in the first bed. This spring we are hoping to host a mulch gardening class to put in the other two half-circle beds. The green house will be constructed as we get the building materials, and the two rectangle beds (which are optional anyways) will be installed in the fall or next year. It all depends on how well our garden does, whether we want to put in "grain beds" or whether we need something here, or not.

As all plans go, it won't happen like we've planned. I can guarantee that. It might look a lot like this, or it might be completely different. The point is that we are working towards a goal. We keep that goal someplace we can see it, and we take steps to achieve it. That is how you become more than a dreamer!

Here are some crafts that I think would be great if we could make them, at least for ourselves and at most for others to buy to help support our Homestead. The honey dipper is my idea for a parting gift from our Bed and Breakfast, The Bunk House. The bunk beds I would like for the kids. If you are interested in buying one of these things, just let me know via my email or in the comments below!

Here's some sketches for houses that we've drawn... We like them all, but we haven't really decided what we want to do yet... I'm just going to post some photos, no explanations... I've written on the drawings, but I think they are all pretty self explanatory... If you really have questions, post a comment below and I'd love to share:)

The Sun Study: Episode 2

Hey there folks! Here's the second episode of The Sun Study, and possibly the last one without a video! Chris just bought me a time lapse camera! I'm so excited. This negates my need to beg on hands and knees for donations to help:) I'll tell more about the camera later. For now, here's what I've learned:

Middle of January. Foggy day @ 4pm

 Middle of January. Clear, but slightly foggy day @ 2pm(?)

Middle of January. Clear day @ 11am

Middle of January. Foggy day @ 12noon

In words, January is not a good time for sun to hit my garden.

Just the other day, my daughter said, "Mommy, why didn't the moon go to bed? It's day time!" It took me a minute to realize that she had seen the fog hiding behind a dense fog. This has been a really foggy month with more foggy days than sunny or rainy days put together.

I am feeling a little foggy myself. Somedays it's harder than others to get out of bed and I sometimes have a hard time putting together sentences. I think that I have paused writing at least six times now to gather my thoughts. I've heard that eating a lot of processed foods tends to make a person cloudy. Maybe once my garden grows, I can test this theory out for myself! 

I am excited to enter the exciting world of timelapse photography. Don't expect anything great at first, but I promise that once I get the hang of it, we will be cooking with gas!