When the kids were younger and I mentioned home schooling to Jess, she didn’t like the idea. She was glad to have the kids out of the house during the school year, and she didn’t want them hanging around. This is understandable since when Emma was in, say, 5th grade, we had Becca in 4th, …

I went down with Jess this morning to take some pictures with our camera which is just begging to be put out of its misery. Jess let out all 23 poultry, fed and watered them, and gathered eggs, while I wandered around taking pictures. Usually I’m upstairs studying scriptures at this time in the morning, …

It’s a bit like Satie. Or, in our case, Satie played by daughter Emma on our old piano. On a fresh Saturday morning, spring sunshine gleams in the dining room windows (which you can tell I’ve washed, not altogether effectually, with my homemade window cleaner) (It’s the squeegee’s fault!). These cold jars of cider have …

Last week I brought my chain saw out of hibernation and walked around downhill of the house, snipping off sundry little dead trees to tidy up the property. I worked my way down the trail to the garden, and then I found myself looking up at this tree. It’s a lodgepole pine, 70 feet tall …

Just like last year, Jess has started this year’s garden indoors, in the window-seat just off my studio, in a sunny south-facing window. Out of the window you can see down our steep driveway to the Forest Service road, and the long slopes of mountains beyond with their heavy cape of trees. But inside, we’ve …

Well, practice makes perfect. And this, my friends, is as perfect as I’m likely to get making bread. Not to brag or anything, but I FAR prefer our bread to the sliced mystery you get at the grocery store. I like this stuff so much I’ve asked Jess to pack two slices (with homemade butter, …

Here’s one thing we do to live more frugally: Make do with good rejects. Here Jess snips out a zipper from a rejected garment that we don’t really need. It’s useless as apparel, but by saving the zipper, Jess can use the zipper in another garment elsewhere and save herself $6 and a trip to …

Wait a minute …Doesn’t canning happen with harvest? Like fall time? Yup. But it also happens whenever a surplus of empty jars coincides with a big sale on frozen chicken breasts. Jess had me pick up some meat on Monday, and when I got home on Wednesday there were 25 quarts of canned chicken (and …

Well, it’s the 2nd week of March and I’ve burned less than four cords of wood since the season began last October. The cost to me? Oh, a lot of entertainment last summer with chain saw and maul. The thrill of assembling the most Dr. Seussian wood shed in the county. The delight of a …

I promised you Homemade Week last week, and I made good on that promise by staying home on Friday. So no post. Actually I wasn’t home much that day, having accepted an invitation to spend my day off first at the local high school career day, talking up my career (such as it is), and …