2023 Yearly Goals!

January 13, 2023January 13, 2023 / sdllewellyn / 2 Comments

Oh my goodness, it has been so long since I blogged! Covid happened. My Mom’s cancer returned and we lost her after so many radiation’s, chemos and surgeries. I left teaching after a 17 year career. I did get a new greenhouse. And, that should have you caught up!

As for my goals for 2023, I’m feeling weirdly positive this year. So, here’s what I’m hoping to achieve

1. Anniversary Plan! Plan something to commemorate being married for 20 years! I was a whopping 20 when I got married. We were young and broke. I’d love to be able to celebrate this anniversary in a special way!

2. Can 100 jars- Last year we only canned tomato sauce, green beans and a couple pickles. This year, I’d like to do more!

3. Grow 1,000 pounds of food! I love a lofty goal and I hope to have extras in order to offset the chicken feed bill!

4. Make 20 quilted things this year! Last year I really got into quilting. (I inherited my Mom’s supplies!) I’m hoping to have many extras to sell!

5. Get the bonus house ready to be rented! So, we got tired of looking at the neighbor’s house that has been abandoned for 10 years. So, we picked it up for a great price and now we need to fix it up!

6. Go on a hike! This fall I taught outdoor school and hiked through the swamp daily. It reminded me how much I love hiking. Something about being outside and taking in nature.

7. Finish our own bathroom remodel. We have been working on our remodel for too long! All that is left is new flooring and a new sink. I don’t mind that they’re out of style, but they’ve been in rough shape for a while.

8. 2023 in 2023! We did this minimalising challenge before, but we are hoping to do it again. It’s purging the house of 2,023 things over the course of the year. That’s almost 170 things per month!

9. Grow mushrooms! I’m hoping to find newly fallen hardwood logs to inoculate. But, if not, I’ll find another way to grow some!

10. Grow something new! Last year I grew a couple new flower varieties and found out how delicious honey nut squash taste! This year, I’m hoping to grow something new to us!

11. Start a YouTube! I’m kind of nervous about this one. I’m not sure if my tech skills are up to par, but I’m going to give it a try! Between baking sourdough, making rugs, raising chickens and greenhouse growing, I’ll be looking forward to sharing our progress!

12. Date a month! This is a fun goal. Like I stated above, we’ve been married quite a while. I’m looking forward to planning to do more fun things together. We are guilty of not doing that enough.

13. Make 50 flower arrangements! I love growing and arranging flowers. And, I love sharing their beauty with others!

I hope that you’ve all been well, and I’m looking forward to finding my way back to blogging more!

Keep blooming!

You’re right, we aren’t living on Little House on the Prairie

November 8, 2020November 10, 2020 / sdllewellyn / 3 Comments

Last month I had an unkind message sent to me saying that I needed to stop pretending that I live this little house on the prairie life. That hurt. It didn’t really hurt because I thought that I am living a lifestyle like that. It hurt because someone took time out of their schedule to to try to hurt me. But, good news, it gave me time to reflect instead.

So, even though we don’t live that yesteryear kind of life, we do have some similarities. (Weirdly enough)

1.I’ve always been transparent that we don’t have much land, but use what we have! We have less than an acre, but managed to grow and harvest over 1,000 pounds of food this summer!

2. We also don’t have a large amount of farm animals, so that’s true. We raise hens for their eggs and have a couple ducks for the same reason. We use our eggs, share some and even use them for making deliciousness like egg noodles!

3. We don’t live solely off of our food, but we did can over 100 jars of food. Plus, we spun lots of honey, made so many loaves of sourdough bread, homemade noodles and lots of other yumminess!

4. Everything we own isn’t homemade. But, the Mr can fix almost anything and he has been forging a lot! I have been working on teaching myself skills and I have been quilting, crocheting, making salves and lip balms and sewing in general.

5. We don’t have beautiful fields of wildflowers, but we do have a pretty certified wildlife habitat/monarch waystation/pollinator garden.

6. I don’t have to cook over an open flame or wear an apron. But, I do wear an apron in the garden. I also hang my laundry anytime that I can. And, I’m big on reusing what we have avoiding anything disposable.

So, I figured I would end this up with my homestead kind of life photo:

So, let it be known that I do not live on a prairie, I live in a small town in Appalachia. I don’t have a huge garden or farm when compared to others, but it provides well for us. I own less than an acre, but use what we have well.

No matter what you have going on, who you compare yourself to or what others think about you, keep blooming where you are planted! 🌸❤️

Revitalizing Sourdough Starter

October 27, 2020October 27, 2020 / sdllewellyn / Leave a comment

Over on our Facebook page we are doing a giveaway of our dehydrated starter. It’s so much easier to ship and already contains all the right things to get your starter going faster! I will be adding some of our dehydrated starter to our Etsy shop soon too!

So, here’s how to have starter to use in about a week, step by step:

Day 1: Add dehydrated starter, 1.5 Tbsp. water and 1 Tbsp flour and cover loosely for 24 hours

Day 2- add another Tbsp. Flour and 2 tea. warm filtered water. Mix well and cover for another 24 hours

Day 3- look for little bubbles! Then, add 1 Tbsp. Flour and 2 tea. water

Day 4- it should be smelling more like bread! Add 1/3 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water. It should rise and fall!

By day 4, I recommend having it in a quart size mason jar or larger container

Day 5- you should officially have a starter! Always leave behind at least 1/2 cup starter for the next time baking! (By the way, now is a great time to give your starter a name!)

I keep my starter refrigerated between uses and get it out to warm up the night before. Then, I feed it the next day!

To feed the mature starter, mix 1/2 cup starter to 1 cup flour and 1/2 cup warm water. It should be doubling in size before baking with it!

Fair warning, sourdough baking is addictive and delicious! I plan on sharing tested and enjoyed recipes!

2020 Goals update

October 24, 2020 / sdllewellyn / Leave a comment

I’m proud to say that even though our life has been much different, we have still been able to do so much! Here’s where we are at since the last update:

1. Get rid of more, use less and be more minimalistic– Since the last update, we have put work into cleaning up the garage. I have also been letting go of a lot of clothes that I have no idea why I was holding on to them. Over covid break the Mr. lost about 20 pounds and I lost 10. So, goodbye lots of poorly fitting clothes!

2. Do good, be a good person and spread kindness– Masks, masks and more masks. I made and gave away a ton of them. The money that I did receive will be going towards creating a free seed library for our town! I’m so looking forward to seeing people enjoying growing their own food and flowers!

I made hundreds of masks and many scrub hats too!

The future seed library! I’m so excited about this idea!

3. Grow food, flowers and enjoy new plants– This year I definitely had a bounty! My best growers were the cushaw squash, but I did get a monster Dickinson pumpkin! Plus, the pollinator garden turned out beautiful. I actually starting clipping blooms and sharing their beauty! Overall, I grew around 1,000 pounds of food!

4. Be creative! Craft, forge, sew and do whatever makes our creative souls happy!– I spent so much time sewing masks, that I took a long break from sewing! I started baking everything sourdough, and I love it! I also started making my own calendula salve from my blooms! That’s fun too!

And the Mr. has been making so much in the forge too!

5. Travel, spend as much quality time that we can with our ever growing teen. Time is precious. There were no big trips, unfortunately! We spent most of our time here, enjoying sitting on our newly created patio. We did get to go to Northbay and do zip lining and a ropes course. That was a great time!

Secret goal! We accomplished this a month or 2 early! We are debt free! We are super excited about this! Read about it: https://littlellewellynhomestead.com/2020/02/16/were-debt-free/

Even though everything has been strange and different, the garden brought me to my happy place daily!

The world is weird right now, but I know that we have found a lot to smile about!

Keep blooming!

Amazing photo of my sulphur cosmos by tydrew photography!

Sourdough, my new favorite obsession!

October 16, 2020October 16, 2020 / sdllewellyn / 2 Comments

Since March, bread became scarce, yeast impossible to find and eating at home the norm. So, I decided that starting to make sourdough should be on my to do list!

It turns out that getting a starter going takes more work than I thought it would. After so many weeks of failure, we finally got one going! And, the results were pretty great:

Next up was gathering the supplies that were necessary. There’s a long list of things that make it easier, but I just needed a food scale, bread and whole wheat flour and a cast iron combo cooker. Here’s my go to: https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Cooker-Pre-seasoned-Skillet-Convertible/dp/B0009JKG9M

I also eventually bought a banneton basket. But, you could just line a bowl with a floured kitchen towel and it works the same!

And to safeguard my awesome starter, I dehydrate some. It took too much work to go back to making starter again! (And it’s easier to share this way too!)

After many loaves of bread, I have noticed that every single one is unique. The scored line changes the top of the bread and sometimes it cracks right through the scored line and other times it doesn’t. Regardless, I think they are the most beautiful loaves of bread!

I’ll be reopening my Etsy store by the end of the month and sharing sourdough starter, along with some hand forged bread lames that the Mr. made!

I’ll be sharing my recipe that has been created from other recipes on here soon too! Happy baking and keep blooming!

Finally, a new post!

October 13, 2020 / sdllewellyn / Leave a comment

Wow! June was my last post! I am back and hoping to start sharing more of what I have been up to!

Over the summer, the garden produced all kinds of huge fruits! I grew cushaw squash that were over 20 pounds:

My Dickinson pumpkin plant decided that one pumpkin was enough, but that pumpkin is close to 50 pounds!

And my newest hobby, after taking way too long to get it started, is making sourdough bread!

Over the weekend, I met so many people who wanted to learn more about our way of living. They asked questions about plants that we grow, questions about honeybees and chickens. They wanted to know how to grow more plants for the pollinators and how to grow milkweed. I loved talking plants and sourdough!

I met so many great people at the craft show this weekend!

I’m looking forward to get back to writing about how our goals have been coming along. I want to share some of our exciting plans for next year. And I want to start sharing more of my favorite things that we have been up to around here!

Walk through the garden 6/30/20

June 30, 2020 / sdllewellyn / Leave a comment

It’s the last day of the month, so I wanted to share what’s going well and what’s a work in progress!

View from the bottom (and newly added green bean teepee)

Cucamelons are enjoying the cattle panel

A bumblebee kicked back enjoying the squash bloom

The San Marzano tomatoes are growing the best. The cucumbers are growing well, so far this year! I will totally admit that I am not a great cucumber grower! The flea beetles are being terrible pests this year.

What’s growing great in your neck of the woods? Are you dealing with some pests? Keep celebrating the positives and know that every year something will be a challenge. And, keep blooming! 🌼

Walk through the garden 6/25

June 25, 2020 / sdllewellyn / Leave a comment

Does anyone else see other gardens and then get worried that yours isn’t great enough? Like garden envy? Turns out that social media is pretty great at only showing the pretty pictures! So, before I show my pretty pictures, know that flea beetles are trying to eat everything in my garden. It has taken me replanting several squash plants so many times because either they didn’t germinate or something are them. Oh, and the ants are trying to farm aphids on everything. EVERYTHING!!!!

And now, here are my pretty pictures!

Pole beans (with lots of weeds in the background!)

I think the last several days of rain have helped to get the garden growing! Today my goal is to dig up the garlic! Anyone else dealing with some pests? Do your best to keep blooming!!

March to May Goals Update

June 16, 2020 / sdllewellyn / Leave a comment

So, I haven’t been updating in a really long time! My momma was in the hospital for all of April. It was scary times for sure. It’s like life was the same every single day! But, goals are still being worked on and checked off!

1. Get rid of more, use less and be more minimalistic– We spent a nice chunk of quarantine decluttering. We majorly cleaned out the garage. We cleaned out closets and even gave away the teen’s bike that he’s too big for. It’s been great knowing that so many are getting things that they want and we are getting rid of clutter!

2. Do good, be a good person and spread kindness– I made several seed giveaways, since seeds were hard to find. I also made face masks for sooo many people. I’m so tired of sewing them!

Seed share at the master gardener little free library! (We had one in our little free library too!)

I’m sure that I made well over 100 masks! And then some surgical hats too!

3. Grow food, flowers and enjoy new plants– I have planted out the backyard garden, the big garden and pollinator garden! Everything is growing!

4. Be creative! Craft, forge, sew and do whatever makes our creative souls happy!– I mainly spent my time making masks! The two guys in the house built our new patio area and the Mr. blacksmithed a kindling cutter and wood rack.

For chopping kindling
(And he put a new handle on that hatchet too!)

Firewood rack (with some of my old derby wheels!)

New patio area! (I love that I can see my boy’s fingerprints all through it!)

5. Travel, spend as much quality time that we can with our ever growing teen. Time is precious. Oh my! This is hard to achieve over quarantine times! We did take a couple little trips out hiking locally! Great times!

Secret goal! We accomplished this a month or 2 early! We are debt free! We are super excited about this! Read about it: https://littlellewellynhomestead.com/2020/02/16/were-debt-free/

Overall, goals are still being checked off. I hope that you all are staying healthy and happy! Let me know what you’re growing at your place and if you’re still accomplishing goals!

Keep blooming! 🌸🌱💚❤️

Exciting project and walk through the garden Wednesday!

April 15, 2020 / sdllewellyn / Leave a comment

Are you having a seed shortage where you live too? It’s hard to find anything that you may want to grow! I’m so lucky that I got my seeds early! But, I decided to share lots of my seeds in my little free library! It’s like a seed share!

I have organized it, so that hopefully people can find what they are looking for!

I’m really hoping that it is used and that people are able to grow some of their own yummy food!

I also decided to walk through the greenhouse and gardens and get a few pictures of what’s growing so far!

Potatoes popping up! (And I saved the seed potatoes from what I grew last year!)

Lots of seedlings slowly growing in the greenhouse!

And I just love the beautiful redbud tree! (and I can’t wait until the garden isn’t so naked!)

I need to start the melons in the next weeks and then lastly the squashes! It’s getting to be my busy time of year! Happy gardening and keep blooming! 🌱🌼❤️