Author Archives: Jamie Oliver

Football, Fairgrounds, and Finding Lost Socks…the Daily Farm Adventures {125}

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Fall is in high gear around here. The sheep are moving into breeding season and doing all kinds of crazy, unpredictable things like getting stuck upside down on the compost pile and accidentally locking themselves in the chicken house while trying to steal chicken food. We’ve been checking on them more than normal lately to try and keep up with their shennanigans. Football and Volleyball season are also rolling along for our two oldest and this week we also had the local county fair going on. The Ladybug is in … Continue Reading…

School Days, Hurricanes, and Chickens in the Mist…the Daily Farm Adventures {124}

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The start of September means the start of the official school year around here. We’ve got a 10th, 7th, and 6th grader here this year! It’s also the start of all the fall sports, back-to-school events, and launch into the holidays time. My 2-year planner ends in December, so the start of school was a good time to switch over to a new one. This time I went with a 5 year planner and I’m very happy with it. I spent $4 to add spiral binding at Office Max and … Continue Reading…

Packing Light for Scotland in Spring…a Plus Size Capsule in a Carry On

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We’ve been asked several times what we packed for Scotland and how wet we got–especially since we packed light and went carry-on only. Well, we didn’t get wet at all. {smile} They had an amazingly clear, dry, spring heat wave while we were there. We packed for chilly, soggy, weather and ended up needing more tee-shirts and zero rain coats! Packing light for Scotland in the spring can be extra daunting for plus size travelers. The unpredicable weather and bulkier clothes can seem impossible to fit in a backpack! But … Continue Reading…

15 Great Non-Fiction and Classic Literature Graphic Novel Series for Grades 4-8

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Do you have a kiddo that loves comic books? Or a kiddo that hates chapter books? A reluctant or struggling reader–easily overwhelmed by page after page of text? I do. I have 2 actually. And I am SO GLAD we discovered a variety of clean, appropriate, quality graphic novels on the market today. Fiction, non-fiction, and even adaptations of classic literature that use Shakespeare’s original text! They’ve been a huge help in keeping our dyslexic and reluctant readers engaged in independent reading–when standard chapter books were failing in a flood … Continue Reading…

50+ Recipes for Summer Squash to Use Up Your Garden Overflow!

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I have to admit, we did not eat summer squash very much growing up. Ok, can I be honest? Actually, never. I don’t remember my mother ever cooking yellow squash. I do remember having it with other people, but not at our house. Mr. Fix-It’s family grew it and they ate it all summer long, but he doesn’t remember much variety in the recipes. So I guess the good news is that we don’t have any old family recipes we have to throw out or overcome to try something new! … Continue Reading…

5 Easy Tips to Start Using Essential Oils When You Don’t Know Anything About Them!

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Consult a Doctor for health advice! For the love of green grass, use common sense and all the health care professionals available to you (meaning NOT ME) when making healthcare choices for your family! Do you find essential oils and natural health care interesting, but totally overwhelming? (I did!) Do you want to get started but feel paralyzed by all the choices, recipes, and jargon? (I did!) Are you worried about having to buy all. the. things. to get started and every recipe or idea you see seems to include … Continue Reading…

30+ Mulberry Recipes for Wild-Harvested Berries

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We’ve been harvesting mulberries lately in the evenings. We have 3 big mulberry trees on the edge of our top field that get loaded with berries every spring. It’s a bit of a fight to get them before the birds do! Over the years we’ve used different methods to collect berries–from the kids eating them all without telling me, to focused foraging efforts. The easiest way is for someone to climb the tree and shake them all out onto a tarp. I’ve seen folks also use a sheet, but then … Continue Reading…

Packing Light for Scotland in Spring…Lessons Learned for Carry-On Only Travel

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We decided to travel carry-on only when we went to Scotland for a week last month. We ‘re used to traveling pretty light, sharing a bag, and we weren’t trying to go extreme minimalist. We just didn’t want to check any bags. I’ve had my luggage lost. Not fun. With carry-on only travel, they can’t lose your luggage. Also with the flight delay fiasco we faced trying to get to Scotland, not having to worry about any checked baggaging was a H-U-G-E relief! But there were some real challenges too. … Continue Reading…

10 Ways to Break a Melancholy Mood…Grieving and Growing

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May can be a tough month for me. The farm is very busy, the kids are bursting with energy from the good weather and the end of the school year in sight, and I struggle not to be constantly reminded or linger on the loss of my parents. Mother’s Day is always a struggle for me–trying to focus on being a momma, and not the fact that I don’t have a momma. Trying to appreciate everyone else’s mother even though all I desperately want is my own momma. And the … Continue Reading…

Our Week of Scotland Adventures…Part 2: Stirling and Edinburgh

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Did you read Part 1 of our Scotland Adventures? It recaps our first couple of travel days in the western Highlands, where everything was about the landscape and fresh air and sharing single-track roads with sheep. Our last few days we were moving back south-east toward Edinburgh, back into the more populated central areas of the country. We took the A82 back through Glen Coe (because I loved it so much the first time) then the A85 across toward Perth. We passed through the northern section of Loch Lomond and … Continue Reading…

One Week of Scotland Adventures…Part 1: The Highlands

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If you follow us on social media (Facebook or Instagram), you might have already seen some of our semi-real-time posting about our recent trip to Scotland. But here’s a more organized recap, along with some of the impressions that are still soaking in from our travel adventures. But first and foremost, I would say that one week is NOT ENOUGH TIME. Especially when some of it is spent on travel time. We felt like we were just starting to understand the area (and the traffic circles!) and get in a … Continue Reading…

Controlled Burn…Managing the Family Tree Farm

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We recently did a small controlled-burn on the family tree farm. This was the first time all 3 kiddos had been out there to help at once. In this scenario I was just there to take pictures and supervise the munchkins. My Father-in-Law and Mr. Fix-It were managing the burn itself. The tree farm is a couple hundred acres of longleaf pine, mixed with some cultivated fields, a beaver pond, and hardwood edges. Longleaf pine is native to this area, but is now found in less than 5% of it’s … Continue Reading…

How to Make the Homestead Kid-Friendly…So Kids Can be Safe and Helpful on the Farm

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I’m on several homesteading forums were I repeatedly see questions about “can I homestead with small children?” These always puzzle me. People have always homesteaded with small children. Remember Laura Ingalls Wilder? She was 9 in Little House on the Prairie. And for us, we’ve always farmed/homesteaded with children. We laid our first fenceline when I was 8 months preggers with the Ladybug. So obviously I think you can homestead with children. And I write constantly about the benefits of farm life for our kiddos, so I’m also on the … Continue Reading…

Family Vehicle First Aid Kit…with Printable Checklist

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The first couple weeks of football practice, Speedracer got a nose bleed. He’s prone to them in hot weather. So the team opened up their brand new, 400+ piece, first-aid kit and got out…nothing. There were no tissues. No wet wipes without alcohol. No gauze pads, only a sterilized gauze roll (which they were about to open but I stopped them) and “non-stick wound pads.” Basically nothing we actually needed. So I got our family first aid kit out of our truck in the parking lot because I did have … Continue Reading…