Simple "Non-Petroleum Jelly"

You are about to see what I mean by the "simple" things in life.

 I'm not sure what to officially call this recipe because "Vaseline" is just a brand name of  "petroleum jelly". This is neither Vaseline nor petroleum so I like to call it "Non-Petroleum Jelly".... Genius, right?!


Okay, you better go get your pen and paper, just in case you can't remember this all.

Here goes:

Put about 1/2 cup of organic olive oil in a small pot
Add about a teaspoon of beeswax

Warm on low until beeswax is melted. Pour into a small glass jar. (A baby food jar works well)

Let it cool and there you have it...Healthy non petroleum jelly!

*Note -If you'd like it to be more solid add more beeswax. If you want it to be more oily add more olive oil.

Did you catch all of that? I know, I know. It's really tricky but don't worry you'll figure it out eventually!

Seriously, you cannot mess this up. It's perfectly simple and you can use it for everything. I put it on myself, my kids and my animals as a moisturizer.  Also, to all you new moms out there, don't forget the sometimes necessary rectal thermometer. This non-petroleum jelly could really come in handy since I'm sure you don't want to be putting anything related to gasoline into their....you know. I'm much happier to use this more natural product.

Moving on....

Go ahead and give this a try and let me know what you think. Also if you figure out an exact measurement of how you like it best, please do share!

Easy Crockpot Yogurt Recipe

I was going to write this post yesterday but it ended up turning into a raw milk post. So.....

Here's how I make my yogurt. It really makes a lot of yogurt for less than half the price of store bought and it's twice as healthy! Plus... it's ridiculously easy!!

You will need:

-A crock pot

-1/2 Gallon of milk (Raw or pasteurized)

-1/2-1 cup of some plain, store bought, organic, pro biotic yogurt. (or if you have a friend that makes yogurt ask them for a 1/2 cup to get you started)

*note- you only need the store bought "starter" the first time you make it. After that just keep a scoop from your previous batch aside for next time!

The method:

-Put the milk in your crock and turn it on low for 2 hours.

-After 2 hours unplug the crock pot for another 2 hours.

-After that, add in your yogurt starter and replace the lid (keeping the crock unplugged). wrap a bath towel around the crock pot and let it sit for 8-9 hours.

-Open the lid and be amazed that your milk just turned into yogurt!!

I only have a picture of ours nearly gone...

If you want really thick yogurt-strain off the whey by pouring it through a cheesecloth. (Use your whey in place of water next time you bake bread!)

 If you want really thick Greek yogurt then let it strain for a few hours until all the whey has dripped from it.

Finish the yogurt with your favorite toppings and enjoy!!

I love mine with honey and granola, or any fresh fruit that I have. I also love it mixed with a dollop of my favorite homemade jam. The possibilities are endless!

 

My kids' favorite way to eat it is blended with a half of a banana....But they only like it If I hang a piece of banana on the side of the glass...Go figure!

 

Now go ahead, get out your crock pot and fill 'er up with some milk. You know you want to have fresh yogurt for breakfast tomorrow!!

 

 

The Road Less Traveled...To the Raw Milk Farm!

(The funny thing is this started out as a crock pot yogurt post. It evolved to a milk post. Yogurt recipe coming soon)


One of the skills you just have to have as a homesteader is to be able to make your own dairy products out of milk. If you're really lucky, like I am you will be able to make things out of local raw milk. (This is where the post veered off the yogurt topic..just sayin')

I'm so fortunate to be in a state where raw milk is legal and in a community where it's easy to find. For cheap! I read so many other blogs that have talked about raw milk and all of the troubles they go through to find or to be able to "purchase" it. I've met some women online that travel 2 to 3 hours a week and pay $10 or $12 for a gallon!  It really made me think about how I buy my milk. Again, I say I'm fortunate.. Just to make some of you extremely jealous, I'll tell you my milk acquiring story!

The farm that I buy from is about 8 minutes away. It's the most beautiful drive in the world and I always find myself especially aware and filled with gratitude while I travel the back roads to get there.

Let me take you there with me for a minute:

 I start by passing through my little small town and crossing onto a winding back road. This road takes me through a vineyard...a beautiful vineyard that hosts beautiful concerts every Saturday night all summer long. A vineyard that has rows of grapes that seem never ending with the backdrop  of  rolling hills and far off tree lines. After the vineyard, I make a left. This road takes me directly along a beautiful stream that reminds me of all of the times I would go fishing there with my dad as a little girl. On a warm day with the windows down, you can hear the sound of the water babbling along as you drive by. After coming to a stop at the end of that road I make a right and proceed to pass nothing but farms and distant trees. This is the part I especially love in fall before they harvest the corn from the fields. It's just wide open pastures and crops that no matter what the weather may be it always make the sky seem to burst with colors. After a sharp wind in the road I turn into the farm and park by a humble little yellow shed with an open sign on the door and an "honor box" and notepad inside. The system is..You drop of your empty gallon jars and pick up your filled ones. Then you put your money in the box, writing what you've purchased so the farmer can keep track of the sales. If you don't have the exact change? Well that's okay just pay next time! This is a Farmer that still trusts his patrons. AMAZING! This is truly the way I want to do my business. This is who I want to give my money to!! I love everything about this dairy farm and I love the 8 minute drive there to reflect on the beautiful simplicities of nature that are abundant all around me. And most of all.....I love the milk!

I wish I had pictures of this beautiful path less traveled to share with you. Unfortunately it's dark outside as I type this or I would be taking that spirit lifting drive right now, camera in hand.

I will add some photos to this post the next time I fill my jars, in the meantime here is a photo of my  milk jar....which in my opinion is pretty all by itself!

 

 

And the real kicker is it's only $2.50 a gallon!!

 

Where do you all get your raw milk? How much do you pay?

(If you say from your own cow then I will be the jealous one!)

Milling lumber and my husbands love of wood

My husband LOVES wood!

I mean he really, really loves it, or anything at all that has to do with a tree really. He carries tree books in his jacket pocket and constantly stops to ask our girls if they can "name that tree."

His favorite hobby is splitting wood....by hand! Even though our family has a wood splitter, he likes the rugged workout of swinging the ax. But that's okay because I kinda like watching him swing the ax! Since this is his favorite thing to do, it's only natural that he would eventually get in to the craft of woodworking. He's just learning the basics and has made some pretty cool things so far. Mostly he's making decorative items for me to display around the house. His eventual dream is to turn one of our sheds into a woodworking shop so he can be a pro carpenter. (The same way I dream of having a dairy pasture and living off grid) but we realize that these things we must learn one step at a time.

Right now he's learning how to mill and dry lumber.

He has been collecting tree trunks from my grandfathers' farm and stashing them away for the day when a friend would bring over his portable saw mill....

And finally the day had come, my husband was ready to learn how to mill his own lumber. 
Here's a picture of the lumberjacks at work...

 

It was amazing to watch this machine saw so perfectly through such big, heavy logs!

 

 

If you look closely at the last picture you can see that it's been cut every 2". Justin's planning on making us a table out of this English Walnut tree.

 

 

That's  Casey, the awesome guy who owns the mill.

 

 

This is a picture of the whole setup from a distance.

 

 

That's my husband Justin!

 

 

 

 

And this is just some of the wood we had milled that day! The cost for all of this wood was less than $200- Far less than what even a portion of this lumber would have costs at the store. And it only costs us that because we wanted to give the guys a little something for the time.

 

Now that you understand my husbands love of wood, you can look forward to many more posts about anything "trees".. and even some pictures of his milled wood projects. He makes beautiful cutting boards from some of the English Walnut, But that's a whole other post entirely!

 

What's your favorite homesteading hobby?  I'd love to hear about it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spinach, tomato and sausage Ziti

 

You know the nights when you have nothing ready for supper...When your husband's already on his way home? Usually when this happens to me I find myself reaching for a simple pasta dish. Well the other night I was going to do my standard ziti recipe when I happened to notice a fresh bag of spinach in my fridge and my gleaming cans of garden fresh tomatoes that I had learned to can over the summer. I decided to just throw some fresh stuff in my dutch oven and hope it was delicious...And boy was it ever! Like top 10 best things I've ever made kind of delicious. I had to write the recipe down and tuck it into my recipe box. I'm kind of good at just coming up with recipes on the spot but I'm not very good at writing them down so I can make them again! This one was worth it though. Again I'm not great with measurements since I don't measure stuff but here is what I did.

 

 

 

 

Ingredients:

 

1 lb- fresh loose sausage (preferably from your own backyard pigs. haha)

1 bag of the freshest most locally grown spinach you can get

1- box of ziti or any other noodle

1 small can of tomatoes (preferably from your garden canned stash)

a generous sprinkling of garlic salt

and any white cheese you have on hand. I used Parmesan and mozzarella.

And like a Tbls. of butter

 

I cooked my pasta in my dutch oven (stove top, of course) and drained and set aside. Then I put my sausage in the dutch oven with a small bit of water and let it cook until browned. Add spinach and let wilt. Then put everything else in, including the ziti and stir. I also added a generous amount of cracked black pepper to the top.

 

I'm telling you this meal is delicious! Serve it with freshly baked bread...mmmmm!



 

 

 

 

Our Story

Hello!

 

I'm Georgia and my husband's name is Justin. We have three beautiful daughters that we are trying to teach to live humble, simple and grateful lives.

(A picture from when our youngest was born)

 

We did not always have this specific goal in life. Just last year we decided that we were going to sell our very big, very nice home. A home with 5 bedrooms and 5 bathroom and sat on 2.5 acres. A home with an in-ground pool....

 

                                  

 

(our old living room)



 

 

 .....So we could buy a 3.5 acre property with spectacular river views within walking distance of all of my family and friends. The appeal of this property was easy to see...the less appealing aspect of it was that instead of a house, in the center of the property...was a trailer!  Now I'm not judgemental about trailer living but we knew it was going to be a very big adjustment for us to go from 5000 sq. feet (literally our kids would ride their Barbie jeep through the old house) to a small trailer where we would have a strict "no running inside" rule. Needless to say...within 24 hours the trailer property was ours and the big house was going on the market.! I can honestly say that we have never regretted taking such a huge leap of faith and the rewards have been endless. Plus the trailer's pretty cool. It was pretty and new and super clean. Now go ahead and check out the new view.....

 

 

 (what we see out our sliding glass door)

 

When we moved here we did not even know what "homesteading" meant. We just knew that we were getting chickens and going to plant some tomatoes. We also assumed that we would have had a house built by now. (wrong!) Right after we moved here I remember having an old friend stop over one morning (Hey Katieann!!) and she listened to all of the dreams I had for our new property and said that her and her family were  "homesteading" too. Imagine that...There was a word for what I had been dreaming of!! I could hardly wait to start researching!! Within minutes of googling the word she had taught me, I had my life's mission spelled out in front of me....

....Produce more, consume less, be humble, be grateful, give back to our community, have a stellar garden and raise some animals with love and humanity. It was also clear that I wanted to raise my daughters to work hard, live on less, eat healthier and know where healthy food comes from.  We've been happily homesteading ever since!

 

 

So that's our story! well, that's the very short version of our story and  how we ended becoming homesteaders. I have so many things to fill you in on that have happened here in the past year but will have to get to each thing one at a time.Until then...thanks for stopping by our little homestead!

The Neefe Family

Organic Homemade Degongesting Vapor Rub

 

It's that time of year again.

 

When every kid you see has a snotty nose and every mom is carrying around tissues in their pockets. Nothing quite soothes a cold the way that Vick's Vapor Rub does and since we have ventured into our "homesteading" lifestyle I have sworn off running to the store to buy everything we need (or that we think we need) I have been instead running to the kitchen  to try to make something similar. This recipe is absolutely amazing to me, even though I've only smelled it yet with my congested nose, I believe that it smells the same or better than the name brand stuff. I made it a few days ago and have been using it 3x daily since then. The other great thing is that you can customize the strength of it by simply using less oils. I think that makes it a little more appropriate for my kids. You could even play with the oils you are adding to the Eucalyptus. I chose to add Lavender and chamomile. It's soothing and relaxing..Just the comfort I'm looking for when I'm feeling under the weather!

 

Here's how I made it: (as you can tell I don't really measure when I make stuff so I'm giving estimates...you can figure out how thick, thin or strongly scented you'd like it to be and go from there. You can't mess it up, if you want to change the consistency after it cools just put it back in a warm pan and add more beeswax or oil!)

 

 

You'll need:

 

1 cup- organic Evoo

1 tbls. -Beeswax shavings (Try to find a local source for your beeswax, if you can't hen you can order it online)

30ish- drops Eucalyptus essential oil

20ish- drops Lavender essential oil

15ish- drops of chamomile essential oil (or any other essential oil you think compliments the Eucalyptus)

 

To make:

 

Put Evoo and beeswax in a small saucepan over low heat until beeswax is melted, stirring often. Remove from heat and add essential oils. Pour in pretty jars ( I used 4oz. Jelly jars)  And..

THAT'S IT!!  Easy, huh?!

 

 

   

The oils in it help it to have a decent shelf life, but you should try to use it within one year.

 

Isn't it amazing how simple these things really are to make at home?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Chickens

 

 

So since I'm trying to fill you in on some of the happenings around here over the past year I of course have to tell you a little bit about my darling girls out back.

 

Last year at this time we were eagerly awaiting our order of 10 chicks. I had researched the breeds I was interested in and decided on 2 each of 5 different breeds. (all about the same size, dual purpose birds) We ended up choosing Americanas, Buff Orphingtons, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Reds,  and White Leghorns. They have gotten along flawlessly over the past year and I'm happy that we chose to go with mixing breeds. We picked our order up early spring last year and they spent a few weeks in the house in a storage tote getting to know us all. Oh man did these girls (and as it turned out...1 boy) ever have unique personalities! We had initially planned on raising these birds for eggs and later on in life for their meat but this group of birds will NEVER make it to the table. They are our pets and we love them too much! We will eventually be getting a fair amount of broilers and raising them knowing that they will be for food, until then our birds are for eggs only. Anyway, back to the point. Here is a picture of them when they were one day old and in their tote.... weren't they sweet?

 

 

Here is when they moved to their new coop. They were so happy to be able to run around! See Dandy dipping into her food bowl?

 

 

 

Aww...here is Winnie one of my reds, checking out the new coop. She is my sweet and slightly shy bird.

 

Oh my gosh...And Briquitta...The top of the pecking order around here and my most curious chicken. She is front and center in every picture because she is so intrigued by the shiny camera.

 

Okay sorry for all the pictures but I can't believe how fast they've grown!

Here are some of my ladies now, enjoying some nice hot oatmeal I made them yesterday.....

 

 

 

I could talk about them for hours but I will leave that for another day. I should introduce them to you more formally by telling you their names.

 

Our ladies are:

 

Briquitta

Gertie

Henny (Henrietta)

Dandy

Mama (Mother Clucker)

Winnie

Betty White

Chicken Little

Gypsy

And RIP Nugget, the rooster that we shot because he was a jerk to our kids. But that's a separate post entirely.

 

Thanks for getting to know a little about our birds. You'll be seeing lots of updates about them....And eventually the full story of Nugget the Rooster!

 

 

A little taste of Heaven- homemade vanilla coffee creamer

 

Two of my favorite things in life are making things at home and vanilla coffee creamer. So, it only makes sense that I would eventually figure out how to make the worlds best coffee creamer, right? Well I did..and it is heavenly! I couldn't start my day off right without a hot cup of coffee and a morning phone call from my big sister. Okay, so maybe I should have said my 3 favorite things in life because my big sister is pretty high up on the favorites list. Now you know what makes my heart happy- Making things, drinking coffee and my big sister!  In this recipe you can play with the amounts of each ingredient in the recipe and adapt it to your own personal taste but here is what I do:

 

 

2 to 3 cups - Heavy cream -I ladle mine off the top of our raw milk but you could use any cream such as half and half

 

1/4 cup -organic brown sugar -or any alternative sugar you prefer

 

about 1 Tbls-Pure Vanilla Extract -I use my own homemade vanilla extract. I got the recipe from my all time favorite blogger here-

 http://theelliotthomestead.com/

 

 



 

Put the brown sugar in the bottom of a saucepan along with the vanilla. Heat on low until sugar is warm and moist looking. Remove from heat and whisk in heavy cream. Pour it in a pretty jar and keep it in the refrigerator. 

 

Use within 7-10 days. Unless you're like me...then you can invite over a girlfriend or two and drink coffee all day long, in which case it only last about two days. Good thing it's so easy to whip up another batch! 

 



 

 

 

What is your favorite coffee creamer flavor? Maybe I can come up with a recipe for it!

Super easy sugar scrub

 One of the quickest things to make yourself is this vanilla brown sugar body scrub. I made it as part of my  Christmas present baskets this year. I wanted it to have a warm and cozy winter smell so I chose to use brown sugar and vanilla to scent it. You can whip up a batch of this and clean up your kitchen in less than 5 minutes so I figured it was a great recipe to start my blog with. I keep a mason jar on the side of my tub and it leaves my skin feeling luxuriously moisturized. Here is the recipe:

 

 

 

1 cup brown sugar

 

1 cup white sugar

 

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

 

and a few teaspoons vanilla extract

 

Stir all ingredients in a bowl until combine. (If it's too runny just add more sugar. If it's too dry add more oil) Put in a pretty glass jar and you're done. Here is a photo of mine. I chose to put it in a wide mouth jelly jar for my gifts and tied some jute around a piece of brown paper bag to make it match my rustic gift baskets.

 

 

 

And here is a picture of one of my gift baskets since I know you're all just dying to see them!

 

 

 

 

 

What homemade gifts did you give for Christmas this year?

 

 

 





So I'm going to be a blogger

I feel the need to have a space where I can share all of my homesteading adventures with those of you who'd like to read about them. Everything from learning how to prepare whole food meals for my husband and our three daughters to butchering pigs, inoculating mushrooms spores or sharing my all natural home product recipes that I've tried and loved. We've been on a path towards simple living for the last year and half since we sold our 5,000 square foot house (along with nearly all of our belongings) to create a home life where we are producing more then we are consuming. We bought 3.5 acres of land overlooking the beautiful Susquehanna River in Lancaster County Pa and have been enjoying the simple things in life ever since. I've been so humbled by the things I've learned since taking this leap of faith and so grateful for the friendships I've been lucky enough to have made.

This is my first time ever doing a blog and this is my first post so as you can imagine, I'm typing this particular post as quickly as possible. I promise there is more and better posts to come!!

Thanks for reading,
Georgia

And since I have to practice putting up pictures, I decided  to post one of our first two piglets. This is a picture of Piggly and Wiggly last year helping us to till the new garden. Aww...