Joys

As the children are watching over our little yard sale to help empty our storage facility, I am working on staying cool.  Can you believe it is in the 90’s up here in northern Vermont today?  But, it is a blessing – the children are able to put on their bathing suits yet again and play in the water pools.  We don’t have a pool (that would simply not work without electricity).  However, we do fill up a baby pool and some plastic tubs for the children to have water fights and to get good and wet.

Our flowers are still beautiful.  Here is a picture of a sunflower I have in a vase on our wood stove.

Here is a picture of our kitchen table.  It has a hand embroidered runner on it with a small jar of zinnias from our gardens in the middle.  On the table are the children’s various homeschool books and some water mugs.  The lantern over head is an oil lamp that we purchased from Lehmans.  It has a reflector over it which reflects the light down toward the table for reading and game playing.

Tonight we are attending the first Friday of each month jam session at our church.  Various members play country gospel and of course there are plenty of goodies.

Tomorrow my eleven year old son and I head to the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival in Essex Junction.  I am so very excited and feel blessed to be able to go.  Thanks to family and friends with their generous birthday gift giving, I even have some spending money!  Our eleven year old son is a fiber enthusiast himself and is also looking forward to attending.  He is hoping to purchase a drop spindle.

We are very blessed!!

Tired but happy

 

A visit to the midwife on Tuesday was a very quick but joyful visit.  Nine year old son joined me and he was able to hear the baby’s heart beat and see the quick routine of blood pressure, pee stick test, weight and brief talk with the midwife.  The heartbeat was strong and my measurement was exactly on the 19 cm for 1 9 weeks. 

I am so thankful to be feeling better – some days being tired can make me a bit weary but overall I am very grateful to be able to keep up with the children and home. 

We went to the local natural food store this afternoon to stock up on organic flours, yeast, honey, molasses, sucanat, cashews, organic raisins.  We bought some local organic heavy cream and made some butter upon returning home.  It is a beautiful yellow color.  I was inspired when reading the blog at http://www.soulemama.typepad.com  .

Well, off to make a dinner of homemade tomato sauce with local naturally grown turkey sausage  and homegrown veggies over pasta.    Maybe if my energy holds out, some homemade cookies as well.

Blessings,

Tonya

Bounty

 

We are so thankful that our little first year garden has produced well.  We have baskets of tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli and a bit more lettuce.  The flowers (my favorite) have all done very well. 

Does anyone know of a good way to keep the chickens out of the garden besides a fence????

Blessings,

Tonya

Birthday Joys

I am so blessed to have family and friends that think of me…. I felt so special on Saturday when my Mom and her husband joined us at the beach for the day for a mini celebration with our family and my father.  When we returned to northern Vermont, what wonderful mail I had waiting…. birthday cards, some birthday money, cards from friends and one dear friend included some little wee felt folk she made herself as well as a bar of goat milk soap that a friend of hers made.

 

Blessings,  Tonya

Home from Vacation

We are home from a wonderful vacation near the beach.  What a restful time we had just taking each moment – one at a time.

Dear husband worked most of the week back at home and joined us Friday morning.

My father was gracious enough to have myself and the five children down for the week.  He reserved the home from his cousin.  It is in a beautiful quaint neighborhood and the private beach is just a two minute walk down the road.  Sitting on the back deck there is a lovely view of the bay.

Here is a picture at the beach.

More about Our Little Homestead

We are free ranging our twelve chickens.  This can often mean having to run out of the house to chase them out of the garden (they love tomatoes!) and being careful where you step:)

This picture was taken from our front steps.  I made the little flower garden this spring and grew sweet peas around the telephone pole to cover it up a bit.  Dear husband added the branch fence to accentuate our driveway entrance.  Sorry about the basketball – I didn’t notice until I uploaded the pictures.

We are very busy today preparing for our trip to Cape Cod.  Dear husband is bringing  us all down to my father’s and he will return on Sunday to work this week.  We are praying all will go well for him the week at work and he will be able to take Friday off and join us for the weekend at the Cape.

Blessings to all and warm wishes,

Tonya

Another Simple Day

 

 Just an amazingly beautiful day – for that I am thankful. With a touch of autumn in the air, baking is once again a joy. We, of course, do not have air conditioning or even fans, thus baking can really heat up the kitchen. I baked some oatmeal raisin cookies and made six large ones to put out at our little

farmstand table by the road and left plenty for us.

The day began with driving our oldest (13 1/2 year old son) to his theatre camp about a 30 minute drive each way. Upon returning home there

was lots to clean up. Time was spent directing the 9 year old son to his studies. We are working on resuming our homeschooling routine. He is the most difficult

as he is easily distracted and book work is not his favorite. I use some materials from Catholic Heritage Press and some from Rod and Staff. We keep the lessons

short.

Time was spent creating some bouquets from our flower gardens for in the house and one for the farmstand.

I need to head out and hang up the clothes that I hand washed this morning and bring in the dried ones from yesterday and then off to pick up

our oldest son.

Blessings,

Tonya

Small Scale Market Gardening

Our little farmstand table has been a blessing for our eleven year old whose modest first year garden has

yielded him a bounty of zucchini – he has sold about 6 and two bunches of carrots. My homemade oatmeal

raisin cookies sold as well. Mind you, we live on a gravel road, three miles away from

the main route. Of course, there is some traffic but it is very sporadic. God is so good.

I awoke this morning to a quiet house with the sky darkening to the west. As I prepared a batch of homemade

pancake mix, I anticipated having some more time to read a bit of the back issues I had purchased from

http://www.makingithomemagazine.com. Unfortunately, the family that publishes this encouraging magazine has decided

to stop as they were not receiving enough new subscriptions. What wonderfully encouraging articles. An area that I

continually need to pray and learn and grow in is honoring my husband and guarding my tongue – such a constant

struggle in my life. Many of the articles reinforce this important biblical concept.

Off to finish to morning dishes, prepare some lessons and crochet some bags for our branch blocks.

Blessings,

Tonya

Introduction

I am so blessed – five beautiful children, a patient husband that loves and cares for us all and another blessing on the way, due to arrive in January.We have chosen a path less traveled which has us currently living in the beautiful northeast kingdom of Vermont, three miles down a gravel road, on three leased acres, ina used mobile home that we own. At present we live off grid; my husband works full time, seasonally for a landscape company just three miles down our road; we have one vehicle; homeschool; garden; have twelve chickens that should be laying by this fall; live simply; cook as much from scratch as possible; create with our hands; and enjoy worshipping God and striving to live our life according to God’s plan.

This blog will chart our daily happenings as we live this very simple life.