Here's a change of pace, in case you're "homesteaded-out"

Are you homesteaded-out yet?  If you're part of the Modern Homesteading Summit, you have been getting bombarded with homesteading skills and might be sick of them by now.  Or like me, you are even MORE inspired (if you missed signing up, you can still do so HERE <---).

Either way, let's take a break from homesteading and get a dose of beautiful wilderness, shall we?  I took these pictures on various walks straight out of the back door from our homestead.  I love living in the wild!

Feel better?  Good.

Let's walk back to our homestead and look at what's been happing lately.

We've been having lots of bonfires, because the weather has been so summery.  You can see that our dog has to restrain herself to behave around the hot dogs...  

I put this picture on Facebook and told people to give me captions, and I literally snorted coffee out of my nose reading some of them.

Also: chicks.  Sorry, dear vegetarian readers, these guys are for meat.  They are Cornish Crosses, a breed we usually don't raise because they are so weird, since they are bred for one reason only: to put on lots of meat very quickly.  This makes them a little bit grotesque when they are ready to be harvested, but we really wanted to try them out this year. 

Usually we raise groovy heritage meat breeds, and I wish we had done it this year, because these weird Cornish Crosses are not very hardy.  We started with 27, and 7 died.  My heart is breaking every time I find one dead.  I think the hatchery sent us a bad hatch...

Talking of chickens: the ones below are our egg chickens, which we raised from tiny, tiny chicks ourselves, so they are super tame.  

One of them (I call her Princess), jumps on my lap every time I come to feed them.  I adore them, and I can't wait for them to start giving us eggs!

Other news of the week: Last week was my birthday.  I am now officially speeding towards having lived for half a century.  Not quite yet, but I can see that big number looming a few years down the road.

Okay, if you want to know... 4 years from now.  Do the math yourself.

My 13-year-old son Luke baked me a fancy three-layer cake, without any help at all.  That kid is gonna make a woman very happy one day.

In the meantime, I don't have to share him yet, and it's all mine (his love, I mean, not the cake.  I shared the cake with our party guests, I promise).

Other happenings at the homestead: my boys are working away on the cabin.  We all cleared land together, and now my hubby is teaching our teenagers how to actually build a cabin.

They're hard workers, these guys.

I'll leave you with images of last week...

... rose petals from my garden for making rose water, 

... a Tiger Lily I met on a walk, 

... and an art event at our kids' school, where Steve demonstrated how to make traditional wooden bows, and I showed kids (and a bunch of fascinated adults) how to spin wool into yarn.

Life is good.

How are you doin'?

PS: 
~~~ Remember, our kids homesteading and wilderness retreat at our place happens in July ~~~ Learn more HERE <----

~~~ Our homesteading and wilderness retreat for adults happens in August ~~~ Learn more HERE <---

You think you can't do this. But you're wrong!!!

Eight years ago, our son almost died of a rare, scary disease (I wrote about it here).  Although I've always been interested in healthy living and natural remedies, his brush with death really stepped up my commitment to more wholesome living. Can you imagine losing your 5-year old kid to a sudden, obscure disease?

I feel like my whole life has revolved around fulfilling on this commitment of living a simpler, healthier, more sustainable life . And many of you want to achieve the same, but you feel like you don't have time or enough knowledge to pull it off.

Here's what I have to say to this: It's not true!!! You can learn new things (I didn't even know that vegetables grow from seeds when I first started gardening 20 years ago. Embarrassing, I know).

And you would be surprised how much time you can actually save by learning how to do some of these homesteading skills, and how pleasurable and rewarding they are, instead of, say, whittling your time away on Facebook (No judgement here, I'm guilty of that, too).

This is why I want to invite you to the FREE online Homesteading Summit, where I will be presenting as well.

---> Sign up for free here <---

This is for you if:

You know you want to create a natural and self-sufficient lifestyle for you and your family.

You strongly desire to reconnect with the land.

You want to stop relying on huge corporations, living in fear about what is in your food, and all the secret toxins, GMOs, etc., in store-bought items.

You crave learning new self-sufficient skills that are applicable to your lifestyle, no matter where you live.

---> Sign up for free here <---

This event is FREE and it allows you to watch from home as over 27(!!!) expert homesteaders teach you a huge bunch of amazing tips on how to be self-sufficient with your food, cleaning products, and health.

Here’s what I really love about the Modern Homesteading Summit: You can watch the classes at the time that works best for your schedule within a 24 hour period of that presentation. 

For a whole week, starting Sunday, June 10, you will learn valuable skill sets and knowledge FOR FREE from some of the most admirable homesteading experts out there. 

Here’s just a brief overview of the teachers and classes at this Modern Homesteading Summit:

• Jill Winger, from The Prairie Homestead, about a Home Dairy and Goats & Cows

• Lisa Steele, from Fresh Eggs Daily, about Creating a Healthy & Productive Chicken Flock

• Teri Page, from Homestead Honey, about Root Cellar Planting & Storage

• Laurie Neverman, from Common Sense Homesteading, about Survival Gardening

• Kathie Lapcevic, from Homespun Seasonal Living, about Preserving Fresh Herbs

• Amy Stross, from Tenth Acre Farm, about Easy Ways to Add Permaculture to Your Garden

• Kris Bordessa, from Attainable Sustainable, about Easy Pantry Homemade Versions

This is just a handful of the awesome homesteaders that are going to be doing this Live Virtual event because they desire to teach you about the path towards self-sufficiency.

I am also thrilled to announce that I am also doing a presentation at this Homesteading Summit about how to make Gouda cheese. This is usually only available in my paid online cheesemaking course, but you can learn it for free in the summit!

---> Sign up for free here <---

Here is just a small sample of what you will learn:

• Home food preservation tips, skills, and knowledge (including: fermentation, canning food, preserving fresh herbs, and more!)

• Stellar gardening tips that can help you no matter where you live (including: vertical gardening, permaculture, gardening in your golden years, hydroponics and more!)

• Advice on livestock and homesteading(including: dairy animals, chickens, root cellars, natural medicine cabinets, homesteading preparedness, and more!)

• Self-Sufficient DIY tips that you can do anywhere! (including: homemade natural cleaning products, homemade cheese, homemade candles, sewing tips, and more!)

Talking of homesteading, let's get to our past two weeks on our homestead.  Man, oh, man, everything grows so much this time of year, I can't keep up with the pictures I want to show you!

Let's start with some of my blooming things.  It smells heavenly here at Marblemount Homestead.  I walk around to milk the goats or weed the garden, and every five minutes I get distracted by the lilacs or roses and have to stick my nose into them.  I almost sucked up a bee with my nostril the other day.

We've been clearing land here, enough to carve out a site for a little cabin.  We rented an excavator over Memorial Day weekend and worked our buns off.  Every muscle in my body is still sore...  But what progress we made!  The whole family had to help, and let me tell you, it's amazing how much work you can get out of two teenagers!

Keeping everyone fed and motivated is another story altogether...

I made herbed Focaccia  bread, and it was devoured within 15 minutes.

Anyway. We got a lot of work done.  And since this post is already hugely stuffed with text, I will just show you pictures.  It's all about homesteading, and it all happened here within the past couple of weeks.  YOU can learn a lot of these skills in the Homesteading Summit.

I made goat milk soap, worked in the garden, made cheese, ordered 27 baby chicks, made calendula infused oil, milked goats, and so much more...

Also, there was some play time, too: cross-country skiing up at the pass with my sweetie, and hanging out with my best girlfriend on Samish Island so we could plan or women's retreat.

Lastly, I'll leave you with some of my favorite images:

~ Steve drinking our home-made blackberry mead

~ On a walk by our creek

~ The full moon over our backyard

~ What's happening in YOUR life?

PS: Don't forget to sign up for the Homesteading Summit! 

---> Sign up for free here <---