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The Romance of Homesteading
It is a compelling and romantic dream to be able to live off the land and be completely self-sufficient. It is a dream that involves living lightly on the planet and finding satisfaction in freedom and independence. Though we no longer have the skills or the inclination to live like the pioneers, the idea of a homestead that provides for the needs of the family remains an inspiration to many. For me, homesteading involves the dream of being my own boss, working from home, and being part of my local community but also being part of a virtual community providing mutual help and support. And I am getting closer to…
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Growing Apples in the Backyard
These lovely, homegrown apples are my daughter’s reward for growing apples in the backyard. She has two trees that she planted herself five years ago, one for each of her children, and they are already loaded with beautiful and tasty fruit. Once a staple in backyards everywhere, apple trees are relatively easy to grow and yield a rewarding harvest. When my mother was growing up, her small-town backyard contained apples, pears, plums, mulberries, and as many vegetables as could be planted on the property. I remember enjoying the fruit from my grandmother’s trees when I was a girl, so I am thrilled that my grandsons will have the same wonderful…
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Blogging for Your Home Business
If you are considering building a home-based business, be sure include blogging for your home business as part of your plan. Blogs really can be a great way to promote your business. They rank highly in search engines, they’re easy to promote, and they can be entertaining enough to gather a large following of people who look forward to reading them on a daily basis. Keep Your Blog Fresh One of the biggest keys to success when blogging is posting regularly. If you don’t post often enough, you likely won’t get much traffic, and people won’t come back for more. Posting frequently also ensures that search engines will see your…
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Raised Bed Vegetable Gardening – Big Yield in a Small Space
Spring is just around the corner here in North America, and the thoughts of many are turning to vegetable gardening. If you haven’t yet considered raised bed gardening, you are missing out on a lot of benefits! The Biggest Benefit of Raised Bed Vegetable Gardening One of the biggest advantages to growing in raised beds is that you can save a lot of space over the traditional row style of gardening. When planting in rows, remember that half of your available space can be taken up in walkways between the rows. That’s a lot of wasted space! Planting in raised beds allows you to plant more per square foot than…
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Easy Record Keeping for Your Homeschool
As a homeschooling mom for 18 years, I was never much at record keeping. Each year I vowed I would dutifully keep track of every remotely educational thing my sweeties did every day. Each year I failed miserably at this! Thankfully, I always made sure that my kids were working from a well laid-out curriculum. This ensured that however badly I had kept track of the daily activities, at the end of the year I could say we had completed such-and-such program and so covered all the necessary scholastic bases. I always advise that homeschoolers, especially those who are new, work from established curricula to ensure that their children don’t…
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Do You Have What It Takes to Work from Home?
The internet is full of wild claims of people getting rich working from home by building an online business of some sort. Are any of these claims true? What are the odds that an ordinary person like me or you could actually make an income from the internet? While it does seem true that some people have made fantastic amounts of money online,
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Make-a-Mix Cookery
When I was a new mom, I was thankful to have a very useful cookbook called Make-a-Mix Cookery. This gem contained recipes for such things as homemade pancake mix, muffin mixes, and seasoning mixes. In addition to these practical mixes, the ladies behind Make-a-Mix Cookery provided recipes for frozen meat and vegetable mixes, cooked in bulk and packaged in family sized servings. Just add pasta or rice for a quick and hearty family meal. These books helped make meal planning a breeze! Good time management, planning and cooking ahead can free you for more home teaching time, but don’t forget that all that food preparation is another great learning opportunity…
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What to Do With Giant Zucchini
Anyone in my part of the world who has grown zucchini knows how prolific they are. They grow faster than you can give them away! My super-gardener friend Sue had only one zucchini plant in her garden this year and still managed to feed her family plus her friends and neighbors throughout the summer. Thankfully, zucchini is an incredibly versatile vegetable. A mild-flavored member of the squash family, zucchini can be used raw in salads or sandwiches, added to stir-fries, made into tasty relish, or baked into a sweet, delicious bread. Knowledgeable gardeners soon come to appreciate zucchini for its many uses. Even better, plants keep producing throughout the summer,…
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Sarah’s Pumpkin Harvest
“It’s that time of year – the squash and pumpkin vines are starting to die back and reveal the hidden goodies underneath!” And if you are like me, you are already craving a delicious, spicy slice of pumpkin pie with a dollop of whipped cream, or for my lactose-intolerant self, non-dairy whipped topping. Sarah writes about her pumpkin harvest here at Sarah’s Kitchen Gardens. Do you have a favourite pumpkin recipe you’d like to share? Email me here at HomeFreeMedia.com.
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Good Manners Go Beyond the Surface
Before my grandson William was one year old, his mother was already training him to say please. When William wanted something, she reminded him, “Say please,” and he responded by making a circular motion on his chest in the manner of American Sign Language. What can be the advantage in teaching a child who is still working on “Mama,” “Dada,” and “Nana” how to say please when he can’t even really “say” it? All around the world parents devote much time and literally thousands of repetitions to teaching their children good manners. Politeness is the social grace and the slippery grease that lubricates our personal interactions. Without politeness the painful…
