Author Archives: Jamie Oliver

How to Pack for Overnight Summer Camp (with FREE Checklists!)

Posted on by July 13, 2017  
Packing tips for Summer Camp with 8-12 year old. One-two week overnight camp and church camp. Make it easy for the kids to help with the packing! via Walking in High Cotton

Well, it’s summer camp time again! The time when I buy new socks and boxes of Ziploc bags and start the sorting and organizing for the kiddos to head out to church camp for a week. Do your munchkins go to overnight camp? Our kiddos head off for a week each summer with their church group. Sometimes the different age groups go at different times, but this year all 3 of our farm kids are heading off together–that’s a new stage for us! {smile} Our first year I did a … Continue Reading…

History, Adventure, and Treasure…The Ultimate Guide to Studying Pirates

Posted on by July 7, 2017 6
History, Adventure, Treasure...the Ultimate Guide to Studying PIRATES. A fun family unit study via Walking in High Cotton

In the spring I mentioned that we would have two family unit studies this summer. One is our Astronomy unit study–which is continuing casually through the whole summer and has been very fun so far! (I’ll have an update on one of our projects soon.) The other topic I chose this year is Pirates. I had no idea they would overlap so much, but space pirates is totally a thing so it’s worked out great! The history of Pirates is an interesting topic because it can involve a lot of … Continue Reading…

A Simple Garden Gift Box Tutorial…Sending Love from the Garden

Posted on by June 29, 2017 3
A Simple Garden Gift Box Tutorial...Sending Love from the Garden via Walking in High Cotton. Frugal, Quick, Easy, Generous.

It’s the season-of-many-cucumbers around here. And while we’ve already made cucumber sandwiches, cucumber cream cheese wraps, cucumber salsa, and now creamed cucumbers, there are still so. many. cucumbers. Also suddenly an abundance of green peppers, blackberries and raspberries, tomatoes, and parsley. (Why did we plant so much parsley?!?) Much like our sudden spring abundance of eggs, we like to use what we can, and then share the garden goodies. So we’ve been sending out boxes of fresh, backyard goodness to co-workers, family, and customers. Here’s a quick, easy, and frugal way to … Continue Reading…

Great Football Movies for the Family

Posted on by June 28, 2017 12
Great football movies for the family...inspiration and motivation for kids. via Walking in High Cotton

Well, we registered the boys for football this Fall. Practice doesn’t start until August, but we’ve started accumulating their gear. And they are so excited that they’ve started wearing it around the house and to do their chores, especially walking the dogs. You know, just to get used to it. {smile} Speedracer is particularly excited about it and has been filling all his extra summer minutes with football movies–which then inspire him to throw his gear on and run around the backyard like a gridiron superstar. When it comes to sports … Continue Reading…

How to Make a Great Outdoor Space for Summer Family Time

Posted on by June 21, 2017 1
How to Make a Great Outdoor Space for Summer Family Time. Simple and budget friendly tips. via Walking in High Cotton

I’ve written before about how hard it can be to leave the farm for a vacation in the summer time. So we staycation a lot. And honestly, that’s probably more liberal than it deserves. We “staycation” a lot in the summer. On Friday and Saturday evenings. On our own back porch. After working all day. {smile} We’re blessed that the farm provides everything one could need to get a little rest and relaxation without having to go anywhere at all! It can truly feel like a “family vacation” with very little … Continue Reading…

How to Use Google Calendar for Farm and Home Maintenance Records

Posted on by June 12, 2017 3
How to Use Google Calendar to Track Farm and Home Maintenance Records via Walking in High Cotton

So, in the crazy-busy season of summer holidays and all the end-of-school “festivities” (annual testing, awards ceremonies, field days, summer camp registrations, etc.) I’m reminded again how glad I am that we’ve worked out a maintenance record-keeping system that is quick, easy, and efficient when I don’t have the time (or inclination) to go through the piles of paperwork that need filing in our home office. We’ve developed a system for using Google Calendar to track certain important information and events in our farm management–backed up by paper and digital records–so … Continue Reading…

How to Find and Use a Farm Sitter to Enjoy Vacation as a Homesteader

Posted on by June 2, 2017 7
How to Find and Use a Farm Sitter to Enjoy Vacation as a Homesteader... via Walking in High Cotton

We don’t go on vacation much. Hardly ever, really. And our version of a vacation is usually just a 3-day weekend visiting family. Between all the packing for five people; all the prep (and cost!) to leave the animals in someone else’s hands; all the stress of getting there and getting home–and worrying about everything while you’re gone!–then all the unpacking, washing, cleaning, and catching up when you do get home…blah! There’s nothing relaxing about it! Besides–we like being at home! But we also like our family. And we like adventuring … Continue Reading…

Farm Life Makes Vacations Hard

Posted on by May 30, 2017 2
family lake vacation

We just got back from a short family vacation over the 3-day weekend and I’m reminded why we don’t all go anywhere overnight very often! {smile} The farm is hard to leave. And the work is hard to come back to! We spent some refreshing time with family at the lake and the crew got to do all-things-water-sports for a couple days. Kayaking, canoeing, boating, some fishing, swimming, even paddle boarding. They got to stay up late and sleep in (a little bit!) and not have to do any chores. … Continue Reading…

The Quest for Truth Sci-Fi Series for Middle Grade Readers…A Review and GIVEAWAY!

Posted on by May 26, 2017  
Quest for Truth sci-fi series for middle graders by Brock Eastman--A Review and Giveaway! via Walking in High Cotton

We’ve continued with our slow, steady, and FUN family Astronomy study this month. So far we’ve already seen and documented several moon phases including a full moon and a new moon; visible Jupiter; visible Mercury, and learned to recognize the Big and Little Dipper.  We’ve also watched several space and sci-fi movies as a family, including a special at-home family movie night presentation of Rogue One (which my kiddos hadn’t seen yet) and a splurge on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 in the theater. We’ve been keeping a list of … Continue Reading…

5 Tips for Raising Kids That Are Self-Motivated

Posted on by May 23, 2017 8

We got a late night call from the sheep shearing about rescheduling our appointment due to rain on Sunday. You can’t shear wet sheep, so they had some cancellations from folks that couldn’t get their animals under cover. They knew we could, and asked if we wanted to bump our appointment up to first thing the next morning. It meant that Mr. Fix-It and I had to move the sheep from one side of the farm to the other and pen them in the tractor shed. In the dark. Without … Continue Reading…

The Homestead Garage…More Than Duct Tape and Baling Twine

Posted on by May 22, 2017 1
The Homestead Garage...more than just duct tape and baling twine. Thinking through tools and toolboxes. via Walking in High Cotton

This is our second weekend with the Hemi in a bazillion pieces in the garage while we work on the exhaust. It started as a loose exhaust manifold heat shield. Turned out the shield was messed up from a couple broken bolts in the actual manifold. So we order the bolts, a new gasket, and started taking it apart–only to realize the whole exhaust is just rusted to dust and the tailpipe bracket broke off while we were taking it down. Sigh So we had to order more parts and … Continue Reading…

Putting the Summer Cover on the Chicken Hoop House

Posted on by May 16, 2017  
chicken hoop house cover

Our busy Sunday this past weekend also included putting a new, summer cover on our chicken hoop house. Mr. Fix-It decided to try adding a little brown spray paint to the plastic cover to offer a little bit of sun filtering and shade. We also hang a tarp on the side to create real shade, but I didn’t object to the extra step because it’s a great opportunity to let the kids practice spray painting something they couldn’t mess up. Who knew spray painting was a life skill? Like everything else, … Continue Reading…

Building a Mobile Shade Shelter (Part 2) The Roof

Posted on by May 18, 2017 2
Building A Mobile Shade Shelter (Part Two) The Roof...for pasture based, rotational grazing livestock via Walking in High Cotton

Well, it rained all day on Friday. It was raining, soggy, and overcast all day on Saturday and we had some special events with the kiddos. So we were up with the sun on Sunday and got a lot of things knocked off the TO-DO list, including finishing up the rebuild on our mobile shade shelter. I talked last week about completing the structural rebuild and throwing a tarp over it until we could get to the permanent roof. This weekend we got the roof done. Building a Mobile Shade … Continue Reading…

There’s Nothing Wrong with Crooked Rows

Posted on by June 2, 2017 2
Don't let your Pin-perfect visions keep you from seeing the REAL point of gardening with kids ... There's Nothing Wrong with Crooked Rows via Walking in High Cotton

We were having grilled chicken, steamed green beans, and salad for dinner the other night when Speedracer came over and asked me to make some broccoli for him because he doesn’t like green beans or salad. Now, he’s not known for liking broccoli either! But while planting the garden a few weeks ago he told me that “this year I’m going to eat this broccoli” and I guess he meant it. Not wanting to waste the opportunity to get my 5-item-eater to add something to his picky palate, I handed … Continue Reading…

Space and Science-Fiction Adventure Books for 8-12 Year Olds

Posted on by May 6, 2017 6
Space and Science Fiction Adventure Books for 8-12 yo via Walking in High Cotton

When outlining our simple family unit studies, I mentioned that I like to use a fiction read-aloud on the topic as the backbone of our unit. Then I laid out our summer-long Astronomy unit study for you and there were no fiction books! I struggled with finding fiction books in the space and sci-fi genre because it’s not one that I’m very familiar with, personally. It took a lot of searching, chatting with our librarian, and reading reviews on Amazon to find a list of books to consider that meet … Continue Reading…