How We Manage: Running A Farmhouse On One Solid Income

When we purchased our farmhouse, it was done so with two full time incomes. I was still a full time career mom, who had been in retail store management for over 11 years and had worked my way up to a nice cushy salary. During my pregnancy with Baby Farmer, there were some complications that made the long hours and constant standing of a retail job no longer an option. Within three months of closing and moving into our dream home, I was medically pulled from work. I was only 5 months pregnant at the time. 

Our home had been a foreclosure and had sat empty for almost two years. Getting it back into repair, replacing appliances, and getting the fences and pens into working order really drained our savings, especially with me no longer earning a paycheck. Running a 3,000 square foot home on 11 acres with 60 plus animals was no cheap feat, either. Between feed costs, farrier bills, and livestock supplies, we were already strapped. To make things even more complicated, this is Florida, and cooling a 3,000 square foot, two story home was costing us approximately $400 a month. And that was just the electric bill. 

By this time, we had decided that it was best that I no longer work the crazy hours of retail management and focus on raising the children, even after the pregnancy was over. We knew losing my salary would be a massive hit, but we felt it was the best thing to do for the kids, as I had missed a lot of events in their lives already due to work and now adding a third child was going to make life even more complicated. I did start working, but no longer in retail or outside of the home. I have been working for the past year as a freelance transcriptionist and writer - which compared to my previous salary is for mere pennies. Of course, being that it is freelance, the work load varies as well. 

So, how do we do it? Well, if you ask my husband he will say, "It's because you married a German." All kidding aside, the drive and work ethic contained in that man far outshine that in any other man I have previously dated. He is fantastic! Daddy Farmer is an insurance inspector. He leaves at 7:30-8:00 in the morning and comes home between 6:00-7:00 at night. He then proceeds to spend his evening inputting all of the work he has done over the day into his computer. He does this 5-6 days a week, depending on his work load. 

We are very careful with our spending on unnecessary items. This includes bills - mainly the electric bill. We have explained to our children that our electric bill runs as much as some people's rent payments and they are starting to be a bit more cautious with leaving lights on. Whenever we see a light left on, we yell, "Electric Bill" and they immediately run to that room and shut it off. They're getting good at reminding each other, as well. 

Daddy Farmer installed a timer on our water heater, so it only turns on for two hours a day. He has also changed all of our light bulbs to energy savers. I have quit using the dishwasher. The dishwasher would run for 70 minutes, using half of our hot water, and I can wash the dishes by hand and spare the electricity and the excessive amount of hot water. I also hang the majority of our clothes to dry and "zap" them in the dryer for a few minutes to soften them up, instead of using the full drying cycle. 

We are lucky enough to have a great amount of windows, allowing us to shut off the AC during the fall and rely solely on the breeze for cooling. And this winter will be nice, as we have a large fireplace and will not need to use the heating system, which will also help with our electric bill. Daddy Farmer is also very careful about our grocery spending - everything is preplanned out and we use sales flyers and deals when shopping. Work done around the farm - new animal pens and such - is done with materials found on-farm - using left overs from a broken down pole barn that is no longer of any use. This year, in order to create more sustainability, we will be starting to homestead, so keep an eye out for posts pertaining to that transformation of the property. 

It's definitely been an adjustment, going from having two salaries and a small rental house to dropping down to one salary and doubling the size of the home and expenses. But, we've made it work. We have made sure that the kids have the best possible life, while still managing our expenses in the best way possible. Sometimes it's hard - I'm extremely used to being able to shop to my little heart's content... but it's just not in the cards right now. And you know what? I would rather live on my little farm and spend more time with my kids than buy that new pair of shoes, anyway. 

Apples, Cinnamon, and Brown Sugar... It's Fall in the Kitchen

I don't know about you, but October is my favorite month of the year. And not just because of Halloween, although that is my favorite holiday of the year- what's not to love about Halloween?

October symbolizes the change in season, the beginning of Fall.  Even though I live in Florida now, which only has two seasons (Hot as Hell and Satan's Steam Room), I still enjoy the feeling of Fall that comes along with October.

Since it's around the time of year that Dunkin Donuts starts over-advertising pumpkin EVERYTHING, we've been trying to bring the taste of Fall into our kitchen. Here are a few of our favorite Fall flavored recipes here on the farm.

Ice Cream Apples 

What you need: 

1 Whole Apple, Hollowed Out
Cinnamon
Sugar (I used brown sugar)
1 Scoop Vanilla Ice Cream
Caramel (I sometimes substitute this with Chocolate Syrup for the kids)

What you do:

Cut the bottom off the apple, only enough to allow you to hollow out the apple. Lightly coat the inside of the apple with the sugar and cinnamon. Bake the apple in the over at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. Once the apple is done, put a scoop of vanilla ice cream inside and drizzle with the caramel or chocolate sauce. I tend to put a bit of  whipped cream on top and then drizzle it, but that's personal choice. :) Enjoy!

Caramel Apple Pork Chops

What you need: 

4 boneless Pork Chops
2 tablespoons Brown Sugar
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
2 tablespoons Butter
2 medium tart Red Apples, cored and sliced

What you do: 

Heat a skillet over medium high heat. Saute pork chops for about 5-6 minutes, turning occasionally. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, salt, pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add butter to skillet, stir in brown sugar mixture and apples. Cover and cook for 3-4 minutes. Remove apples with a slotted spoon and arrange on top of pork chops. Continue cooking mixture in skillet uncovered until sauce thickens slightly. Spoon sauce over apples and pork chops.



Grilled Apple Chicken 

What you need: 

8 boneless chicken breasts
12 oz frozen apple juice concentrate (I used fresh apple juice for mine)
1/3 cup honey
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 apples cored and cut into rings (similar to pineapple rings)

What you do: 

Preheat grill (I used an over skillet pan that had a griddle side). In a small saucepan, combine the apple juice, honey, lemon, juice, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Mix well. Heat over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Set aside 1 cup of mixture for sauce. Use remaining mixture to baste the chicken and apple rings. Grill apple rings for 8 minutes, then turn, baste again and cook for another 8 minutes. Grill chicken for 5 minutes, turn over, baste again, and grill for another 5 to 7 minutes. (I personally, basted consistently while cooking) Serve with set aside mixture poured over the top of the chicken and apples.


Hope you enjoy these Fall themed recipes. We've got some new ones on the list to try this year, so keep an eye out for some more recipe posts! 

Here chicky, chicky

On our farm, we try to only breed Silkie chickens. We do have quite a collection of other birds, however we try not to let them sit. There have been a few that have either hidden nests on us or slipped one in under a Silkie when their coop was open for cleaning. Winter Soldier was one of those 'oops' birds. She is beautiful, a Cochin/Silkie mix - but boy is she stupid. If you can't tell by her name, she hatched close to my son's birthday and he has taken her in. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time searching for this less-than-clever chicken.

Chicken in a Hay Stack 

The first time Winter Soldier was let out to free range with the big hens, she wondered off alone. I wasn't too worried, as it's generally in a children's nature to come home to roost at dusk. In the evening, when everyone else had returned home for dinner, she was no where to be found. I decided to talk a walk around the duck pond to see if perhaps she was lost.

I was carrying Baby Farmer while walking around the pond, so I was trying to be careful and not climb up on any of the dirt mounds or tree limbs around the pond while searching for this bird-brained chicken. Finally, I spotted her. She was pecking through a pile of hay that Daddy Farmer had tossed next to the pond (our holding area until our compost area is complete) during coop cleaning earlier that day. I had almost missed her, as her rust coloring blended in with the hay. Unfortunately, she was not the only thing that blended in with the hay.

With Baby Farmer on one hip, I reached down to scoop up the ditsy chicken with my free hand. It was only as I got close enough to pick her up that I realized she was standing within mere inches of a rather large cottonmouth snake. It was camouflaged with the hay so well that the only reason I saw it, was because it opened its jaw - allowing the pinkness of its inner mouth to show. I snatched my hand back as quickly as I could and started screaming for Daddy Farmer, who was still indoors.

While waiting on Daddy Farmer to fetch the shot gun, I tried desperately to shoo the stupid chicken away from the snake. She seemed completely oblivious to the fact that it was even there and almost ran towards it on multiple occasions. Eventually, I managed to get her safely away from the snake and up towards the barn. With the help of Little Missy Farmer, I managed to corner her in a patch of trees and pick her up off the ground. Daddy Farmer arrived, shot gun in hand, and unloaded into the hay - finding not one, but two, cottonmouth snakes inside. Luckily, all involved - but the snakes - made it out of the event in one piece. 

The Case of The Missing Chickens

The second time Winter Soldier turned up missing was a total accident. It was just this past Sunday. We had been cleaning the coops and the door between the large barn room where we keep the hay and the goat room (where Winter Soldier and Emily Shakespeare, another of my son's dimwitted Silkies currently live) had disintegrated from water damage. We had managed to push an old refrigerator against the door frame to keep any unwanted critters from getting into the goat room until we could purchase a new door this week. Now, we had cleaned the coops in the early afternoon and headed off to Rural King afterwards. We got sidetracked while out shopping and did not return until dark. We had picked up pizza for dinner as it was well past Baby Farmer's bedtime. I took the kids inside to eat and Daddy Farmer went out to put the animals up. Little Man Farmer decided to follow him to help. 

Shortly after, Little Man Farmer returned from the barn alone saying that Daddy Farmer had insisted he come in and eat. As I was getting the kids settled in to eat (in front of the TV as it was too late for a formal family dinner, like we normally do), Daddy Farmer returned to the house - soaking wet - to get a flashlight. It was then that he explained that both Emily Shakespeare and Winter Soldier were missing. Now, it's bad enough that Winter Soldier was gone again, but my son is highly attached to Emily Shakespeare. She's had several near-death experiences, including a stint of Wry Neck that caused her to live in the house for five months and be syringe fed meds and water until she was finally able to hold up her own neck. He would have been devastated if she was not found.

Knowing that these two chickens were so instinctively-challenged, we could not simply look for them in the morning. Leaving these chickens out at night would be just the same as signing their death warrants. Daddy Farmer had already been searching for them for some time with no luck, so I threw on my rubber boots and headed out into the rain to look for them as well. We walked all around the areas that they liked to hide. Emily Shakespeare had been out at dusk once before and had just stopped in the nearest tree on her way back to the barn and perched on a surfaced root. I checked all the trees I could and yet, no Emily or Winter. 

Soaked to the bone, Daddy Farmer and I decided to give one more look in the goat room and the larger barn room just to make sure. We searched behind the refrigerator in the goat room that stores the feed and behind the coop cleaning tools. Still, no Emily Shakespeare or Winter Soldier. Daddy Farmer moved the refrigerator blocking the door frame and we walked into the larger barn room. On the floor under a table was a replacement farm sink we had picked up from a family member but had not yet gotten around to installing. Something made me look inside of the sink and thank the stars I did! There was Emily Shakespeare, fast asleep. Daddy Farmer informed me that he had already looked in the barn, but must have walked right past her. 

I told him to keep looking because if Emily was in here, so was Winter Soldier. As we were having this discussion, Daddy Farmer walked underneath the metal track for the roll-up barn door. It was then that I busted out laughing, "Honey, I found Winter Soldier and you're never going to believe this!" He started looking around, while I was still laughing, not seeing her. Eventually, I stopped laughing long enough to point above his head. He must have walked directly underneath her several times while searching for her. She was perched on the metal track, also asleep. Daddy Farmer cussed up a bit of a storm, saying that he wished he knew they were in here the entire time we were running around in the rainstorm. He got her down from her perch and we returned them both safely to the goat room. 

As dumb as these chickens tend to behave, they are my son's favorites and his personal pets. I also have grown attached to them, as the experiences I have had with them - no matter how much of a pain they are - have caused a bonding. I can stand back and laugh at these situations now, but I can assure you that they were quite dreadful at the time. I am terrified to lose these hens, because I would hate to have to break my son's heart with the news of any misfortune that may come their way. I'm sure that these events are only a small chapter in the tale of Emily Shakespeare and Winter Soldier.  Keep an eye out for more stories to come from these two crazy girls.

Women In The Agriculture World

As I've been trying to get this blog off the ground and going, I've had the chance to meet a lot of women in the farming world that I wouldn't have been able to meet in any other way. All I can say is that I feel more fortunate for having the chance to speak to these incredible women. Women in the agriculture world are an entire different breed of the female species. They're strong, independent, resilient, and compassionate. Most of all, they're women on a mission. Women that are out to change the world's opinion of the World Of Agriculture.

Some of these wonderful women are working farmers. Some are hobby farmers or homesteaders. Some, like me, are just getting started and trying to find their way in the realm of farming. But there's one thing that every one of these women have in common and that's heart. These women are the most compassionate and caring women I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Every one of them loves the life they live and want nothing more in the world than to share it with others. The drive that these women have to share their knowledge and resources far surpasses that of anyone else I've come in contact with.

These women volunteer their time, efforts, and knowledge to try to educate the world on the discrepancies of agriculture information that seems to keep making it's way into the public eye. They put their free time on hold to ensure that your family has food on the table, milk in the fridge, and an understanding of the truth of how your food is grown.

Every woman has a mothering gene, but farming women have it on a level that goes above and beyond that of the average woman. These are women that not only raise children, but raise calves, colts, lambs, and piglets. These are women that are up all night helping a down cow to feed, or stop several times a day to hold a sick chicken's head up so that it can drink, all while nurturing their own children.

If you ever have any questions about where your food comes from, how it's grown or harvested, or how dairy farming really is behind the scenes, ask one of these women - not one of these TV doctors that has never even set foot on a farm or out in a field. These women would be eager to stop what they are doing and give you all the information you want to know. They have been nothing but eager to help me get going and answer any questions I have as I learn my way around this lifestyle.

The next time you're cooking up a steak, peeling a potato, or pouring a glass of milk, take a moment to think about the family behind that product. Don't be scared to reach out to these women - say hello, ask a question, or just show them some love and appreciation for living the life that they do so that the rest of us can have food on the table.

Baby's First Farm Store

We live in the boonies. I mean, THE BOONIES. As in, Deliverance-style, banjos-playing boonies. A trip to the feed store was almost an all day event. And when you have over 55 animals on the property - well, that was quite a hassle. About 15 minutes away from our house is a 20-year-old mall that has not much left standing in it and had recently been in foreclosure. So, imagine my surprise when I drove by and noticed a sign being hung on the outside of the building: 

COMING SOON: Rural King

I immediately whipped out my cell phone and called my husband, "Honey, did you see it?? They're putting a Rural King in the mall!!" I don't think I've ever been so excited over a store coming into our area before. It was 15 minutes from our house. A Rural King! Feed, supplies, clothes, boots, tack... everything I could want! I just couldn't believe it. I watched the building transform every day when I drove the kids to and from school (which is a 40 minute drive, one way!) and reveled as they changed the shape of the roof, the doors, the paint went up and the sign was hung. 

No word of an opening date had leaked yet and I was getting anxious. It looked ready, it had LOOKED ready for some time now. I couldn't understand. They'd already done their hiring event and still no word of a date yet. On my farrier visit that month, I spoke to him about it. He always seems to know the ins and outs of the farm world in our area. He told me that they were having issues getting product in and that it would be a while longer. I was getting impatient, but what was there to do? I just had to wait it out. 

Finally, the day came. They had hung a sign for the grand opening and the doors were open for the soft opening two weeks prior to that date. I could hardly contain my excitement. We needed horse feed anyway, so I picked the kids up from school and we made our way to the store before going home. 

It seems silly, but I felt like it was a thing of beauty as we walked towards it. All I could think of was how much easier this was going to make our life. How much cheaper their prices were and how much gas we were going to save instead of driving 30-40 minutes to get all the feed that we used. The farmer in me was so excited that the Mommy in me wasn't thinking... 

I had three kids with me. Two of which had been in school all day and were as hyper as chickens at feed time. One was 6 months old and hated the car, shopping, and anything that didn't involve being with her farm animal buddies. What the hell was I thinking? As we entered the store, directly to the right of us I saw the toys section. I selected a shopping cart, strapped Baby Farmer in, and veered off to look at the toys. We found all sorts of fantastic wooden baby toys and farm play-sets. The children started a mental Christmas list. After about five minutes, Little Man Farmer announced that he needed to use the bathroom. 

Now, this is where the trip to the farm store took a turn for the worse. The second those words came out of my son's mouth, I knew we were headed for the danger zone. We only had a limited amount of time that Baby Farmer was going to be distracted by the new surroundings and remain content. We searched for the bathroom as quickly as possible and located it in the back of the store, buried in between the garage tools and the dog beds and kennels. None of which we needed. 

I warned Little Man Farmer not to pull his usual bathroom stunts and to be quick, that Baby Farmer wouldn't last long. I reminded him that we still had to strap her into a car seat and drive home - neither of which she enjoys and tends to protest heavily - and that we needed her as calm and happy as possible before doing so. He huffed and puffed and responded with, "I know, Mom." In he went... 

 

Now, just a quick explanation to my son's bathroom habits. He is a 30 minute pooper. He always ends up having to use a bathroom in EVERY public place we go into. And he can't just drop 'em and go - he has to take off every single item of clothing to do so. He's a quirky little fella. However, this becomes quite an ordeal sometimes. 

So, ten minutes goes by. Little Missy Farmer (My 6-year-old daughter) starts getting antsy. She wants to go find the baby chicks in the big metal troughs. She can hear them, but can't see them. Baby Farmer starts fussing. Fifteen minutes goes by. Little Missy Farmer has disappeared. I start yelling out her name. I hear a response and follow it down the dog kennel aisle. There she is - in one of the big dog houses. I sternly tell her to get out and come back and wait for her brother. Baby Farmer has already attempted to climb out of the shopping cart restraints and I have had to take her out and hold her. I am now attempting to push a cart and hold a fussy baby on one hip, all at the same time. As she's squirming around in my arms, all I can think of is, "We still need to get the feed. Oh, dear." 

Twenty minutes goes by and both of my daughters have had it. Baby Farmer is growling and squirming and fussing her head off. Little Missy Farmer is pacing in circles and talking to a cardboard cut out that has been put up in the garage tools department. I've already had to reel her back in from the dog beds and kennels several times at this point. She's whining about going to see the baby chicks. I already know this isn't happening. 

Finally, at twenty-eight minutes, Little Man Farmer emerges. Immediately I ask him, "What part of quick did you not understand?" He says to me, "But Mom. I was quick. It's not MY fault the toilet clogged." Oh, hell. What did he mean the toilet clogged? I pry for details... apparently, Little Man Farmer stripped off, did his business, used half a roll of toilet paper and clogged the toilet. After looking under the stall door, he spots a plunger. Now, Little Man Farmer is a big fan of The Mario Super Brothers and decided that he knew how plungers worked. So, as makes sense in a 9-year-old's head, he redressed and attempted to take care of the toilet issue himself. 

He claims he did a good job and it was all taken care of, but I flagged down a male employee anyway, explained that my son said there was clogged toilet in the bathroom, and then quickly ushered all the children off to the Equine section at the other end of the store. Little Missy Farmer starts giving Little Man Farmer a lecture about how she's not going to get to see the chicks because he pooped "Forever" and they start bickering as siblings tend to do. Baby Farmer is beyond fed up and wriggling as ferociously as the pigs, when I carry them off from something they're not supposed to get into. 

Now comes the tricky part - Getting the feed. Have you ever tried picking up a 50-pound bag of horse feed and putting it into a shopping cart with a super-strong, determined, wriggly 6-month-old on one hip? I'm not exactly a beast, either. I'm pretty teeny and a 50-pound bag of feed is a lot for me on a normal day! Somehow, the Super Mom in me pops up and I manage to load several bags of feed into the shopping cart and wrangle the kids to the check-out counter, all the while muttering reminders to myself as to why I don't leave the farm very often. Oh, did I mention Baby Farmer is an excessive spitter-upper? Yes, I am covered in baby puke by this point. 

After all that, and a 15 minute drive home with Baby Farmer wailing her little head off in the backseat, we pull into the farm. My husband comes outside as we climb out of the car - all slightly worse for wear - and immediately asks how it was. Where do I even start? 

Moral of the story? Never let the Farm in me overrule the Mom in me. And NEVER take the flock along when you really want to poke around and explore a new store. Get in, get out and move on. 

The shocking reality of "Farm Clean" versus "Clean Clean."

Here I am, finishing up my coffee on a beautiful Saturday morning, just about to dive into my ever-growing list of chores when it occurs to me that I have established a different meaning of "clean" since moving to the farm. I am the product of a former military drill sergeant father (with OCD) and a licensed nurse mother.  Between the military rules and hospital standards of cleanliness, I have grown up in impeccable households. My father (remember - OCD) would wash our Italian tile floors with a tooth brush, hang clothing hangers two fingertips apart from each other, and comb the fringe on the area rugs daily. Whenever I wanted to be a rebellious teen, I only had to merely drizzle a few drops of soda in the hallway or rotate the alphabetized soup cans around. Heavens forbid if I moved the towels out of the correct spacing! My mother has an affinity of ripping apart fridges, dishwashers, and bathrooms to bleach everything out - generally as we were getting ready to walk out the door for something. She is the only woman I know that follows the family puppy around the living room with a spray bottle of enzymes so that the carpet stays clean and deodorized.  Of course, we were always healthy, clean, and extremely presentable children growing up and I'm so thankful for that.

This, however, has proved to make life a bit stressful now that I am living on a farm. We have been in this home for exactly a year now and it has been a series of learning experiences on the meaning of the word "Clean." With my transcription job, helping with homework, breeding Flemish Giant Rabbits and Silkies, running a website, several Facebook pages and a blog, and caring for a 7-month-old baby, my hands are FULL. I barely have time to do the laundry, let alone keep up on our large home. We went from a 1400 square foot home to a 2900 square foot home with hardwood floors on a muddy farm. We have between 45-65 animals at any given time - in which coop cleaning, bathing, feeding, penning up at night, and socializing takes a lot of our time. I have seriously begun to feel as if I have LESS free time than when I was working 50-60 hours a week in retail!

As if those weren't enough reasons why I couldn't keep up with my housework, let's discuss the floor. I have two large breed dogs who love to have a good romp in the muddy duck pond or roll in the field where the horses and donkey are. They are constantly bringing in mud, poop, hay, sand, and God only knows what else. Half the time, the kids let them back inside and they're across the living room, laying down before anyone notices they had been swimming and are literally sopping wet. My older children (Little Missy Farmer: 7 and Little Man Farmer: 9) seem to abhor shoes and spend a majority of their time in the barn area, barefoot. If this alone wasn't enough to drive a neat freak insane, there is an adorable little pathway through the muddy Duck Pond Island that allows them to get next door to the neighbor children's house without going out the gate and following the dirt road. Obviously, this involves wading through the pond, crossing over Duck Island and wading again - both ways. Then we have Daddy Farmer. After several months of lectures about why he must wear shoes when outside because Baby Farmer plays on the floor now, he has finally learned to put on shoes. Unfortunately, his shoe of choice is a nasty pair of rubber Crocs. You know, the kind with the holes in them. I'm so pleased that he has decided to wear shoes, however the result is the same. He still comes in with muddy, dirty feet. Needless to say, my battle with the floor is an ongoing ordeal. Every few hours I have to sweep, spot mop, and disinfect and wipe down the baby's play mat.

After months and months of stress, breakdowns, and lack of sleep I have come to realize that there is a big difference between "Clean Clean" and "Farm Clean." It took a near breakdown to finally understand that a Farm house can only truly be a certain level of clean. My laundry is always done, but seems to stay in the laundry room on the rolling rack or folded on the ironing board. There's always some sort of dishes in the sink. The baby- well, she's always dirty. I have given up. She's usually just in a diaper that has gone gray on the outside from sitting on the dirty wood floor, sitting on the dogs, or riding on the back of the horse. Her hands, feet, and sweet little face are constantly having to be wiped down because she is always hugging the horse, the donkey, the dogs, or cuddling with the rabbits. That level of cuteness is worth a little dirt, I've learned. 

My older children are mud covered and have to be scrubbed nightly before they are school-appropriate. My husband does not own a single shirt that does not have some sort of oil, poop, or chewed horse feed drool on it. The cobwebs on the chandeliers that would have been immediately swept up at my other house? Here, they get to stay. In fact, my children have named the spider and enjoy counting the amount of flies in the web in the evening. We welcome the friendly house spider in this farm home because between the doors being left open and the horse or goats knocking out the window screens to say hello, we always have a constant stream of flies, horseflies, gnats, and Mosquitos in the house. After all, this is Florida - the state where just about everything with wings will sting or bite you.

Given that it was my first time not working out of the home, I originally felt like a terrible mother and housewife. I couldn't find time to do all I had to do and have fun with the kids, enjoy the farm... or hell, get any sleep. I had several teary eyed moments where I had just spent several hours sweeping and mopping the floor, only to have the children and the dogs run back inside covered up to their knees in mud. 

I became a work-at-home mother and rural housewife back in October of last year. Now, almost a year later, I have come to realize that watching my children blossom and bond with our animals is worth a little mud. I'll take happy, healthy farm kids and a "Farm Clean" home over video game addicted, indoor kids and a "Clean Clean" house any day!! Bring on the dirt!

Swedish Egg Coffee

After seeing a post about Swedish egg coffee on a few of my fellow Facebook friend's blogs, I decided to give it a shot. It was quite interesting to make and tastes pretty good! Not a bad use for all those eggs laying around! Give it a shot. Here's the recipe: 

Swedish Egg Coffee

(makes 4-6 servings)

6 Cups water

3/4 Cup ground coffee

1 Fresh egg

1/4 Cup ice water (or 3 ice cubes)

Bring the water to a rolling boil in a stove top coffee pot or saucepan.  Meanwhile, with a fork stir the egg into the coffee grounds, crushing the shell in as well. The mixture should look like moist potting soil.  Add the egg mixture to the water and boil for a minute or two and then cover and remove from the heat. Let stand five minutes, then pour in the ice water (or add the ice cubes) and let stand for another minute or so to allow the grounds to sink to the bottom. Strain through a strainer or just ladle the coffee off the top into coffee cups. Makes 6 servings.