Pioneer Woman at Heart

  March was, not what I call "busy" for us, but adventurous, and filled with more of "living life" than doing all the "doing" stuff we do all day every day.  Warning:  Post is long today (gulp!).  Grab a cup of java or tea. "Busy" is sort of synonymous with negative vibes.  I mean, we still had medical appointments (some regular, some needed), hair appointments, husband's full time job, but only a few commitments.  However, we spent much of the month "enjoying" life  (maintaining balance).  I have not harvested much other than fresh grown green onions.  I do have some oil on order to restock homemade hand/body lotion. Not sure if I will re-stock our homemade lip balm just yet.  We have a plan to build one more item for the chicken castle (more on that later), and we plan to better landscape one flower bed. Planted:  Feverfew, Mullein, Radishes (two types), Beets Harvested: Green onions Purchased:  Seed potatoes On the "to-buy...

  We have discovered bulk, smoked bacon.  It is a drive for us, but the packages are packed with 150 slices of smoked bacon.  We do not own a smoker, so this was a nice discovery.  Did you know that smoked bacon loses it's fat when smoked?  It greatly reduces the amount of time to cook it as well.  On a side note, it is even more cost saving to cure, smoke and slice your own bacon with pork, if you have a smoker (so many instructions online for this). It costs a lot less to buy the bacon this way (bulk), and saves us so much money.  We will be stocking up on this, from now on.  We don't use bacon in every meal, but the savings are wonderful.   We are finding more and more ways to locate supplies at lower prices, organic herbs and other items when we do take the drive for supplies.  We are now incorporating the shopping trips with an outdoor hike/walk.  It's something new for us, but we are loving this new idea.  We are exp...

  The rain is slowly bringing the outdoors back to life, and we see more green again.  We have had snow flurries, which deterred me from harvesting any of those baby green onions coming up, but everything is brighter outside for spring. The Daffodils were blooming like crazy, and I would love to cut some to bring inside, but the snow just keeps on coming.  Not a lot, but enough to remind us that winter is still not over with. The rain is also giving us gifts from the Earth.  We have three wild growing mullein plants in the flower beds.  I need to dig them up to move them, so we can utilize them this year.  If I leave them in the flower beds, they will continue to replant in there, and the wild plants grow very tall.  We dehydrate this medicinal weed for tea. We took a drive to do some hiking.  I have to admit, that outdoor hiking uses more muscles than what you may use on a treadmill.  Good gravy we were happy sore, and have plans to get more...

Another day, another hike. I was super excited to see we have a "Poor Man's Banana Tree" on the property.  I never saw it until this year.  It's kind of hidden in the trees.  I will have to see if it is still bearing fruit too.   Although, I think the fruit ripened last month. I was so excited I forgot to get a closer look.   It's technical name is The technical name for this tree is Asimina triloba.  The fruit is edible.   I was even more excited to see another black walnut tree also.  I think I need to do some more hiking in the back woods more often.    ...found yet another black walnut tree!  Yippee!    ...and even another one!  Four years ago, I would not be jumping of joy to see these trees.  As a kid, when we'd visit my grandparents, we'd toss these out into the street and wait to hear a "pop" when cars ran over them. Next on the hike..... ...another orb weaver spi...