I watched her toss a potato to the ground – it had ugly sprouts sticking out all over. She casually but intentionally threw some hay over top of the seed, taking enough care to make sure that it was covered completely but not much more. 

Ironically, I shoved some potato soup into my mouth as I watched, my first-born who was just six months old at the time squirming around at my feet. I quickly glanced out the window of our small rental house – suburban enough to be very close to a school and other homes, but rural enough that our landlord had allowed us to put five raised beds in the yard a few months prior. Not knowing what I was doing, or being careful enough to figure it out completely before diving in, I had also casually but intentionally filled our beds with whatever vegetable starts I could find at the hardware store – not paying attention, really, to seasons, preferences, or plant requirements. 

So far, things were okay-ish. I patted myself on the back a bit and finished the video of Ruth’s spring planting. 

Long before the millions of videos that now exist on YouTube, at this time, there was just hundreds of thousands. A small enough offering that one could find a fairly vibrant collection of how-to videos, documentaries, and television recordings of shows long-ago-aired. This potato-planting-video that I’d stumbled across was the later. 

The woman’s name was Ruth Stout. She was a champion of ugly-and-easy gardening, focused on getting the most harvest with the least amount of effort as possible. Ruth influenced (before that was a thing) an entire generation of gardeners to feel like it was possible. She wasn’t testing soil, measuring beds with rulers, or fussing over – well, anything really. Instead, Ruth encouraged others to simply try. Oh – and mulch the garden well. 

I took her advice to heart and began mulching my garden beds – I can picture them now, densely planted, mis-matched, scraggly. But that was Ruth’s way, so that could be my way too. Ruth made gardening feel more like a lifestyle with a purpose than a fanciful hobby.

When I was introduced to vegetable gardening, it was addiction at first sight. Yes, it’s a lovely way to pass time. And yes, it’s lovely to be out in nature… it’s therapeutic to have your hands in the soil and to hear the sounds of the birds… yes, of course, it’s wonderful to know where your food comes from and on… and on… and on…

Yes, and Amen… but…. 

I used to dream of the days when it would be more than that. Ruth, in many ways, started those dreams. I watched her gather up baskets and baskets of potatoes, simply raking the straw aside that had been covering the beds and plucking up the autumn root harvest. It was as beautiful to me as anything I’d ever seen. 

I didn’t just want to garden for the pleasure of gardening. One can do that with fussy plants and flowers (of which I have many). But I wanted to garden for harvest. With aspirations of root cellars stocked for winter time, my gardener’s mind went into overdrive on what could, maybe, be possible. 

I dreamt of tomato passata… dried bunches of herbs… tubs of new potatoes, storage potatoes, sweet potatoes… jars of elderberry syrup and echinacea tinctures… heads of cabbages lined up in a row… bins of carrots, purple onions, and yellow ones too… bowls of shallots and garlic… jams & jellies… pickles and preserves. 

I dreamt of harvest. 

If you doubt anything I speak here, or can relate in anyway to my goal, you simply must read this old blog post from thirteen years ago. I couldn’t have said it better myself (I wait… I wrote that post…). To feel better about any of your own gardening, browse around the 2011/2012 blog archives and enjoy how terrible (but motivated) I was.

I used to spend my free moments dreaming up recipes that I’d make with my bounty and learning new methods of preservation. (I would, after all, grow so much that I would need to be creative with the bounty.)

… do you know what happened next? Of course you do. 

My obsession with vegetables and dreams of harvest has carried me through fifteen years of learning. Our dreams are no longer dreams – they’re our lifestyle. I can face two-hundred pounds of sauce tomatoes with confidence and excitement. My arms have grown strong from stacking lugs of alliums, apples, carrots, apricots, and cabbages.

If we’ll get a harvest is no longer in question. The question instead is how much. 

Hallelujah! 

A gardeners hands must be trained to their soil, their seedlings, their needs. Watching gardener’s hands that know when to pull, when to push, and how to twist is a delight indeed. A simple fingertip pressed into the soil is all that’s needed for an experienced gardener to gauge temperature, soil health, and moisture levels. A quick glance at the foliage can diagnose a need or pest. A slight squeeze of produce can determine when to harvest. Have you ever seen how often a gardener looks up from the ground and looks to the sky? They understand weather, of sunlight and shadow, of rain and drought. Not necessarily because they read it in a book or were instructed in a particular way, but more often because their desire was enough to push them through years of getting it wrong. 

That being said, I’ve yet to meet a gardener that does so in isolation. Many wonderful gardeners have directed me along the way: Scott, Aunt Vicki, Kathy, Grace, Marcè, Charles, Monty… Ruth.

Though some of them have walked my vegetable rows and others never will, all have bolstered up my love of not just gardening, but of harvesting. 

Ruth had no idea what fire she was starting in me when she kicked that ugly ‘ol potato into the ground. And neither did I.

I pulled a russet potato out of the ground last week that I joked it was the size of a small school bus. Though I’ve yet to pull up the entire potato harvest for the fall (I’ll wait until right before the last frost to do that), I expect it to be a good one if the few that we’ve dug up thus far are any indication of what’s to come. The potato harvest is always our last major crop to come out of the garden beds before winter, and in many ways, the one that makes the whole process feel complete. 

Not only because it’s a storage crop that we will eat on for the next six months, but because Ruth’s potatoes were where it started. The vegetable that made it feel possible. The humblest, dirtiest, most wonderful crop there is. 

Someone once asked me why we go to such great lengths to grow this produce each year – with all the tending and weeding and harvesting and preserving. 

My response was simple:

Someone’s hands need to know how. They may as well be mine.

And Ruth’s. 

And yours. 

Cheers,

Shaye

The post When I Saw Ruth’s Potatoes appeared first on Shaye Elliott.

Truth be told, no emails are finding me in such a state because this time of year I’m chronically overwhelmed. As a homeschool parent, this is when I wish we could throw in the towel on all the book studies and turn our attention at full-capacity to our small farm. Seemingly overnight, there’s so much to take care of outdoors! Perhaps this email finds you chronically overwhelmed as well… 

After all, spring crops wait for no one. 

I currently have a flock of a dozen lambs roaming around the property (electric fencing needs to be fixed), a leaking outdoor faucet (irrigation needs to be patched), too many mouths to feed (a steer that needs to be driven to the butcher), and no less than forty-eight (million) unfinished garden projects awaiting my attention. 

In fact, my gardens are an absolute wreck, which you’ll see very vividly in today’s video. I guess I plum ran out of steam last autumn? What the heck happened out there? 

They’re not hopeless, but are in dire need of their gardener. Turns out, gardens left to their own devices don’t actually thrive. They need constant care, attention, planting, and pruning to really be at their best. At least Stu and I give it our best effort for a few hours… 

(You know how years ago everyone was so keen on defining their ‘love language’? Well, Stuart and I never took the test, but I will say this: when he’s helping me out in the gardens, va va voom!)

After labor outdoors is finished for the day, we come inside to make my very favorite baked pasta recipe with Juliette. It’s a wonderful make-ahead dish that serves a crowd – supper can easily be on the table when the work is finished. I briefly mention this in the video, but this is the time of year when it’s absolutely essential to have the pantry stocked with good food. We come in hungry and the only way to keep nourishment flowing is to have proper ingredients on hand. Ground meat is a big one for us, be it lamb or beef, because we can make almost anything with it. Just like in the video today.

I also just did my monthly order of Bona Furtuna pasta so that I could have my pasta-shelf stocked with my very favorite food in the world. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and their wonderful blends of seasonings are also on the monthly list for pantry-basics. 

If you ever get “pasta belly” from eating pasta or feel a big crash after eating a plate of pasta, I strongly encourage you to try these pastas made with heirloom grains. They naturally have a lower glycemic profile and higher protein content – yum!

Baked Rigatoni with Lamb Ragù and Ricotta

3 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, peeled and finely chopped

3 stalks celery, finely chopped

2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped 

3 cloves garlic

1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes

1 cup white wine

1.5 pounds ground lamb

28 ounces tomato passata (available here from Bona Furtuna)

1 pound rigatoni (available here from Bona Furtuna)

1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup ricotta

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. 
2. Melt the butter and olive oil together in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Add in the onion, celery, carrots, garlic, and chili flakes. Cook for 10 minutes until softened. 
3. Add in the white wine and ground lamb. Continue to cook until the ground meat is browned, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon as needed. Add in the tomato passata and bring the ragù to a simmer. Cover and let simmer over low heat. Season to taste with salt and pepper. 
4. While the ragù simmers, cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water until al dente. Error on the side of undercooking the rigatoni, as it will have time to finish cooking in the oven. Reserve the pasta water.
5. Butter a large baking dish. Add the cooked rigatoni into the dish. Pour the ragù over top of the rigatoni and gently fold it together until it’s well combined. Add 1 cup of the reserved pasta water into the dish. 
6. Sprinkle the top of the pasta with the Parmesan cheese and place generous scoops of the ricotta over top of the pasta. Drizzle with additional olive oil, if desired. 
7. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden. Enjoy! 

I hope you can enjoy a few moments break from your spring overwhelm, pour a glass, and enjoy some time in the garden and in the kitchen with us today. I often find that a bit of inspiration can take us a long way in our overwhelm.

I would love to hear what you’ve been up to outside and in the kitchen recently. Here’s to sunnier days and delicious food, my friends. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Shaye

The post Baked Rigatoni (+ Spring Garden Cleanup) appeared first on Shaye Elliott.

Because sourdough works slowly, did you know that you can often stretch proofing times by large amounts of time? More on this in the video…

I love sourdough baking as much as the next, but the reality is I’m a homeschooling, homesteading, business-owner who has to answer to a lot of schedule demands. My sourdough starter is not my baby (I’ve got four real ones of those) and frankly, I need it to pull its weight without requiring too much of me. (That’s why I opt for keeping a stiff-starter that only requires me to feed it once a week… more on this in the video as well.)

All that being said, sourdough bread is non-negotiable for our family. Because we’ve spent years cultivating not only our starter, but also our gut biome, we’re able to digest and enjoy lots of bread products each week. There’s no wheat belly, no constipation, no bloating. But this doesn’t just happen – high quality bread products demand time and attention. 

If you’re on the fence about actually learning how to bake with sourdough in real-life, let me remind you a few important points: 

• Stop trying to figure it out and just try it
• Nothing will teach you faster than first-hand experience

Alright, so that maybe wasn’t the most scientific answer re: sourdough’s benefit and digestibility, but there’s plenty of scientific research out there for those of you inclined to look up just how wonderful the health benefits of sourdough bread are. Stop beating this skill to death and instead, start baking! 

A few notes on what you’ll see in the video:

• I use a bulk olive oil for my focaccia bread. I get a gallon from Azure Standard monthly for having an olive oil on hand to bake and roast with.
• I also use a bulk maple syrup to naturally sweeten my bakes, again, available from Azure Standard. 
• Bulk einkorn flour is purchase from, you guessed it, Azure Standard.
• If you’d like to get started as a customer with Azure Standard, you can do so right here and use code ElliottHomestead10 for 10% off your first order. This promotion expires April 2024, and is only available for the first time Azure customer order, with a minimum of $100 order or more (orders to drop locations only). One time use per customer.
• If you’d like more information on keeping a stiff-starter, I wrote a blog and made a video about that a few years back, available right here.
• As much as I’d like to share my starter with the entire world, that’s not feasible, so instead I share pieces of it with my Cooking Community members exclusively. If you’d like a piece, join us!

Bagel Recipe

This is a recipe I use at least weekly. You can get the exact recipe right here.

Focaccia Recipe

The focaccia recipe featured in the video is piggybacked off a recipe that I created for Jovial Foods this past October. I follow the recipe as-is, but add in a cup or so of sourdough starter for additional flavor and digestibility. When I do so, I also decrease the amount of yeast used to just a pinch (or completely omit it all together). You can find that recipe right here.

That sumptuous Sourdough Honey Cake with Italian Meringue is a Cooking Community recipe from this past February and is available below the paywall for paid newsletter supporters. Every once in a while, I love to share recipes from CC with you so that you can peek behind the curtain to the recipes that we create and share over there. I hope you enjoy the video and the recipes… and most important, I hope you can see how sourdough baking can fit into the margins of your every day life.

Enjoy!

Shaye

The post A Week of Sourdough Baking appeared first on Shaye Elliott.

In this week’s new YouTube video, we’re talking about letting go of Miss Perfect. Perhaps you’ve met her?

Let me tell you a story. I am currently reading through the murder-mystery The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers. In the first few chapters of the books, I struggled deeply to understand the nuanced vocabulary of early-twentieth-century Britain. The book is filled with jargon unfamiliar to me and I began to thoroughly dread reading through the pages as it rambled on with funky words and phrasing. Not one to give up, I took my concern to Stuart, who has read and taught on this book for years in various classes. He encouraged me to read through the pages quickly, skimming over words and phrases unfamiliar to me, and at a pace fast enough to take in the plot and important character points without getting slogged down in trying to understand the minute details of things I couldn’t quite understand. So I attempted just that and soon began to find myself drawn into the story, not needing all the nuanced details (that I’m sure Miss Sayers put much time into, sorry about that), but was not essential to understanding the engaging plot and twists of the story. Turns out, Miss Perfect isn’t always the best reading companion (she can be a bit of an overachiever, ya know.)

That same week, my Italian tutor and I had a very similar conversation. “Shaye, you know what I’m saying, but you’re getting held up by what you don’t understand. Listen to me. Find the verb, find the preposition, cling to what you know.” He told me to forget the forest around me and focus on the single tree at hand. He continued, “You have to stop trying to understand it all and trying to translate each word. Move quickly. Respond with instinct. Focus on the most important pieces.”

Later that same week (perhaps I’m a bit bull-headed?), for the first time in years, our family calendar was so full I couldn’t actually complete my normal cleaning schedule (living room on Mondays, bedrooms on Tuesdays, dining room and office on Wednesdays, etc.). There simple wasn’t space enough for me to do what I like to do and clean and keep the home in a particular way. Miss Perfect can also be a dreadful emotional companion in such circumstances, allowing thoughts of failure to creep in and get comfortable.

It’s a season of dying to my idols and dialing back, to be blunt, what I know I’m capable of. 

When my babies were little, I remember a particularly difficult day when I had been home changing diapers, preparing snacks, mopping floors, and reading board books to the littles. Stuart came home from work and I collapsed in tears. “I’m capable of adult conversation. I’m smart. I can think deep thoughts and process hard problems. I’m capable of so much more than potty training.” To become a mother is die to a piece of yourself, especially in those early years, when the physical, emotional, and spiritual demands are so high. It can feel a bit regressive to set aside those adult thoughts, adult problems, adult desires, and adult skills to teach colors and change sheets. But I believe this is blessed work – work that has eternal value in the souls of those whom I’ve been charged with carrying for. 

It became essential for me to die to those adult pieces, in a way, so that I could meet my children where their needs were at that particular time. That was were I needed to be.

Now, that looks a bit different. The children’s needs revolve less around diaper changing (thank the Lord!) and more around rigorous home-education, character development, peers, and skill development. All of these needs require Miss Perfect to keep-her-desires-in-check and meet her children where they need her in this season. This certainly isn’t exclusive to being a mother, either. Plenty of my own peers have been charged with seasons of life that pull their demands from “normal” to “sacrifice”, be it for children, for work, for community, for parents, etc. 

This point is this: I know what I am capable of: being organized, having deep thoughts, tackling complex problems that don’t revolve around the home, cleaning my house well, staying on top of laundry, preparing beautiful dishes, growing our food, and ultimately creating beautiful things. These are all good desires. 

But it’s time to die, once again, to Miss Perfect who can do all these things – in the right season. This is not her time to shine. 

Instead, this is a season of focusing on the main things and keeping the ship on course. That means I don’t get to wash my windows or mop my floors as often as I’d like. It means that my dining room table is more often than not covered with school books and pencils. It means that as soon as I prepare food, it’s quickly devoured. It means that there’s a lot of driving to and from town for gatherings and that our priorities of work often have to surpass the quiet desires I have at home. This is a season of meeting needs. 

Lest it all sound a bit stodgy, it’s a good thing she’s being knocked off her pedestal. Miss Perfect is capable, but frankly, weak. I often remind myself of Proverbs 14:4:

“Where no oxen are, the trough is clean; but increase comes by the strength of an ox.”

While I’m not perfect, I am growing in strength – and even better – in love for those around me who make my life hard, complicated, overwhelming, and messy. 

I’d rather be strong than clean anyway.

Cheers,

Shaye

The post Letting go of Miss Perfect appeared first on Shaye Elliott.

I enjoy meeting here with you here and sharing the homestead garden goals, wins, highlights, and victories that we get to experience on our 2.5 acre, from-scratch farm. In our 15 years, we’ve had some good ones! 

But let’s get real for sec.

As I was pulling out slimy, dead vegetables from the market garden rows this past Saturday, I actually had the thought:

WHO THE HECK EVEN WANTS A GARDEN. 

THIS IS SO MUCH WORK.

My back hurt. Dirt was everywhere. The morning glory was not nearly as affected by the deep winter frosts as the okra and it seemed to cover every single bed, its spaghetti-like roots crawling and sprawling everywhere. I felt the deep desire to torch the entire thing and start over, or never to garden again. 

Every pathway in the garden needs to be redressed with mulch of some sort and that d#^! poison ivy patch is still thriving, despite my best efforts. (What’s next? A tarp?)

I guess you could say I got good and properly overwhelmed. 

It happens often in the gardens. How can it not? As my dear friend Angela often reminds me “We’re trying to have the type of life that people usually have staff to help them with.” – and it’s true. It’s an impossible task for it all to be done the way I’d like by me alone. Yet here we are. 

Instead, I find myself needing to die to perfectionism and to keep climbing regardless of the overwhelm that can easily cloak the gardener at any given moment. 

And so, we march forth and set goals. Here are mine for this year. What are yours? 

Cheers,

Shaye

The post Homestead Garden Goals appeared first on Shaye Elliott.

Frankly, I should be cleaning my house right now. There are needed and practical tasks that demand attention! Dusty bunnies gather in the corners as we speak. Yet the call of this little two and a half acre farm I love so much is louder – and this week is all about listening to those calls. This is the week that my desire of three years was finally realized – it finally happened. New creatures arrived at the farm… any guesses as to what new animal joined our homestead? 

For the record, when I do decide to clean my house, I have most incredible cleaning concentrate in my arsenal. Kudos to Branch Basics. If you listen to my podcast, you know how much I delight in cleaning (strange?). We are hard on everything it seems, from countertops to socks. This is a cleaning concentrate that you can use for everything from laundry, to stains, to floors, to windows, to toilets, to showers, to dog kennels (ya, just did this one.) This makes it versatile, cost-effective, and sustainable (I use the glass bottles and just refill). But my point is to tell you that this cleaning concentrate from Branch Basics gets the most grotesque animal stains out of my clothes. 

Animal stains (and smells) that I will now be getting from… our new dairy sheep!

AND THE CROWD GOES WILD! 

I realize that dairy sheep may not be on everyone’s list of “must haves”, but I am been looking for good breeding stock for years and am so grateful to have finally found the right girls for our farm. I cannot say enough good about Harmony Heritage Farm, another Washington State based family. They’ve been so kind in problem solving, answering questions, and pairing us with the right girls for our needs. If you’re near to me, they’ve got beautiful lambs for sale each spring. You can learn more on their website here. 

What breed are they? 

East Fresian x Rideau Arcott x Border Leicester x Finn

Ultimately, we really wanted to concentrate on bringing sturdy sheep to the farm for easy of management. Usually, “sturdy” isn’t a word connected to purebreds. “Hybrid-vigor” is a genetic term meant to draw attention to the sturdiness created by crossing two or more breeds together. My genetics professor used to call this the only free lunch a farmer ever gets. For us, a solid crossbreed means sheep that can tolerate 110° summers, -10° winters, hold their condition well, are good mothers without intervention, and have good temperament. 

But Shaye… don’t you have a dairy cow already?

Yes. Cece is currently in milk and is lovely as ever. However, one issue we run into time and time again with Cece is getting her bred. This gets a bit into the homesteading weeds, but to breed a cow that is in milk already (which they usually are in a small-scale management like ours), we must:

• Bring a bull to our home so that we can continue to milk Cece as normal. This presents obvious issues with size, temperament, feed, and fences. Our fences are not built for bulls who are eager to chase cows or find greener grass. We’ve had issues in the past with bulls I’m not keen to repeat. 
• Find someone to artificially inseminate Cece. So far, we have not been able to do this locally. I’ve thought about getting certified, but it would require a few weekends away from home and I haven’t been willing to do that yet. I took a class on AI in college but that was many moons ago and I would need a serious refresher course to be successful. 
• Cece could go to a farm with a bull, but that would require someone to milk her daily still OR be willing to take her bull calf with her. This can present it’s own set of problems because calves are not halter trained (typically) and are a bit spunkier than old dairy cows. We’ve also made the mistake of sending a heifer calf with Cece to a farm with a bull, in an attempt to breed Cece, only to have the heifer calf get bred way earlier than she should have. 

Point being, there are a lot of management decisions small-holders like us have to make when it comes to breeding and managing livestock. We have to be smart, resourceful, and level-headed about decisions that will ultimately affect our soil, checkbook, and table. 

Ooh – and to keep it extra exciting, and to keep us extra humble, the phases and goals are always shifting slightly. 

When my children were younger, we were drinking so much milk a dairy cow was the only reasonable option. I weaned my babies directly to raw milk from our first dairy cow, Sally, and she nourished them well for years. I can’t even begin to count how many gallons of milk were consumed – it was a lot. 

That was 10 years ago, and in that time, the children have grown significantly. I’m not filling sippy-cups endlessly with milk anymore, so the consumption level has changed. Raw milk is still essential for us – but the demand isn’t as high. That presents its own set of management decisions when it comes to managing a dairy cow. The question becomes:

• Do I have the capacity in my schedule to allow of the tasks of fermenting, culturing, and processing “x” amount of milk per day from my dairy cow? 
• Is that my priority right now?

If I’m being honest, there’s few tasks I enjoy more in the world than being a milkmaid. Again, like cleaning, I absolutely delight in it. But realistically, I’ve had to let go of a few of my precious things over the past few years to create a bit more space for our homeschool schedule, kids’ social desires, church coops, piano lessons, and creativity of their own to chase. We are in the thick of the best and fullest years of our life! I think it’s possible (and wonderful) to have a dairy animal during this time of life. But it’s not a season where I can invest half a day in cheesemaking. I’ll be there again. 

Why Sheep

All of these management decisions, coupled with the fact that Cece is almost nine years old now and not currently bred (for reasons listed above), we decided it was finally time to try our hand at dairy sheep.

I talk about this more in this week’s video, but here’s a few bullet points:

• We keep a ram year round already. Breeding dairy sheep is a non-issue for us and will require no extra management on our part besides exposing the dairy girls to the ram. 
• Two dairy sheep require a lot less spring/summer pasture than a cow and her calf. This will allow our dairy animals to have exposure to more pasture on our small farm, thus increasing the quality of their milk. 
• The two girls we brought to the farm give 1/2 – 1 gallon per day (so 1 – 2 gallons per day total for us). This will be plenty for us to have fresh milk as well as culture yogurt, kefir, and make super quick cheeses like mozzarella or ricotta. 
• I really want my children to feel a bit more comfortable milking and build up the confidence and skill to do it all by themselves. The boys have learned to milk Cece, but it’s not something we can just send them out to do alone. She’s too big, she has horns, there’s a huge calf to manage, and cows are just big when you’re that small.
• We’ve had sheep for over a decade. We already manage 6-20 sheep in our small herd (depending on how many lambs we have and what time of year it is) and they’re an animal that we not only are comfortable with managing, but an animal that we actually love having around. 

Now What? 

Both the new ewes are due to lamb in just a few days. We’ve made our first management decisions to leave the lambs on for three weeks, after which, we will begin to milk. But more on lambs/milking/scheduling later… 

We will continue to milk Cece for the time being until we decide it’s time to dry her up. Ideally, I’d like to send her (dry) to a farm for breeding. After calving nine months later, we could milk if we wanted or just let her raise us a beautiful fat calf for beef orraise us a replacement heifer for the future. Cece has been our pride and joy for eight years now and she will live out all her days on our farm, regardless of what her milking capacity looks like for the season. 

Phew. Sorry. That was a lot of words. I guess I have a few passions in life: 

1. Good food
2. Gardening
3. All things related to milk

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, my friends. Thank you for being here and learning alongside us! 

Cheers,

Shaye

The post Dairy Sheep: It Finally Happened! appeared first on Shaye Elliott.

The toilets stopped working. 

The heaters couldn’t take the pressure. 

Even Cece, my precious dairy cow, was shivering during morning milking. Animals can take the cold (apparently a lot better than our old-house-pipes can), but even still, they feel it. They know when it’s hot, when the sun is out, when to find shade, when to seek shelter from rain and storms, and when to bed down in the chill of winter. They’re strong, but they’re still living creatures in need of water, food, shelter, and warmth. We obviously take that job quite seriously.

On this week’s video, I wanted to share with you how we’ve been managing in -12 degree temperatures – as well as share an absolutely delightful and simple pantry soup recipe. Because so much time has been devoted to keeping things functioning around here, there was little time for ‘extra’ in the kitchen this week. That’s when something like pantry soup comes in handy. The bonus is it warms the bones, fills the belly, and is full of nourishment. 

Don’t feel sorry for us, warm-weather-dwellers. Cold weather gives us much to value! For starters, the snowpack fills our well and water reservoirs each winter – something that here in the high-desert of Washington State, we cannot live without in the blazing summers. Secondly, it kills off many nasty bugs (think fleas). Bugs are simply not a problem here – it seems like a fair-trade for a few months of beautiful, cold weather. 

It’s hard work keeping it all afloat during weather this extreme, but frankly, it’s painfully gorgeous. I’m grateful I get to experience it.

So come and chat with Stuart and I for a few moments while we talk about making it through, what we’ve found helpful, and fill your bellies with soup while you’re at it. 

Have a blessed and warm weekend my friends.

Cheers,

Shaye

The post Life At -12°… appeared first on Shaye Elliott.

We saved for our Planta greenhouse for a year, waited anxiously for its arrival, and were quickly forced to submit to the months and months it took us to put it together. Projects for homesteaders who run a business and homeschool four kids tend to take time – and the 80,000 pieces (yes, I’m exaggerating slightly) that this greenhouse arrived in meant this project took us a long, long time to finally execute.

It took renting a trencher and studying a lot of electrical basics to finally get power run from the shop to the greenhouse, but have mercy, we finally did it! We made this greenhouse grow in winter. 

Words cannot express how unsexy some of these projects are behind the scenes. 

Technically the greenhouse hasn’t actually grown anything yet, but now that it’s averaging 75 degrees and staying 30 degrees above the coldest outside temperatures, we may finally be in business!

Stay warm out there!

Cheers,

Shaye

The post Making This Greenhouse Grow In Winter! appeared first on Shaye Elliott.

Though I wish I magically felt refreshed by the flipping of the calendar, I (quite pathetically) stumbled into January exhausted from the holiday season and with a small head cold as an added bonus. So while many spent the beginning days of January beginning new habits or deep cleaning their house, I happily curled up in front of the fire, spent lots of time writing for myself, practiced my Italian verbs, and snuggled new baby lambs.

Yes! New lambs – can you believe it!

Without sounding too precious about it, I really felt grateful for the stillness that followed the holiday madness. I’ve never been one for the holiday madness. Since the beginning of our blog over a decade ago, we’ve always focused on the beauty in the ordinary. And true to form, I feel much better at an average Monday than I am grand events or gestures. 

Perhaps this is one of the reasons I felt like making our new video this week – it is, as you’ll see, a celebration of ordinary. Farm chores, simple breakfasts, and gathering firewood. But it’s so much more than that. You’ll know it when you see it.

So we’re entering the year softly and slowly, focused on gratitude and feeling blessed by the new nostalgia that we’re creating together as a family. Ooh – and celebrating the delicious taste of nostalgia (which, in this case, tastes like homemade cream of wheat!).

I hope you enjoy.

Cheers,

Shaye

The post Creating New Nostalgia appeared first on Shaye Elliott.