Planning the Garden

    I don't know about you, but I have already started planning out my garden. This is the time to start planting all those indoor plant seeds again. Tomatoes , eggplant, broccoli, cabbage, kale, carrots, celery, cauliflower, peppers some of the cool weather plants and squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, and such for the warmer weather if you plant by seed instead of plants. This year  I hope I can stay on top of the watering since last year it was so dry.

     I pulled up all the old dead plants to prepare my raised beds. I need to add some mulched leaves and such too, and more soil. Have lots of chicken manure to turn in too. My green house is filled with all my  house plants and trees that I have collected and grown over the years. 

    I started my tomato seeds, eggplants, cayenne peppers and my sons favorite, Brussel sprouts in single starter pots so far, and put them in the house for a few weeks. I have already looked at everyone's seeds (non-gmo of course). I am only going to do a garden for the basics, so no full blown growing since the space is so limited here. My herbs take up a lot of space too.

    I want to build a few up right garden planters that will have rows will all the left over wood we had from the renovation just to get rid of some of the mess. Recycle when I can is the best thing for everything.   That will give me a spot to plant more of my herbs, not to mention be easier on the back.   I want to put a few buckets of veggies out too, transplanting some tomatoes and peppers and getting potatoes started in a few too.  

    Sustainability is the thing I really am trying to get better at. Now that we have chickens and ducks we will have the eggs and meat. What more do I need ... a few goats would be nice but that is for a different time and space for now. 

closing out 2025

Closing Out 2025 

    I know it has been a long time since I have posted, but I hope to get back into the swing of things at the beginning of the new year and  here we are at the end of another year. Never in my life time did I think I would make it to 65 but here I am! I only have one person the thank for this too, Jehovah God. He has moved me through some pretty crazy chaotic things in my life so far and I will be sticking very close to him for it too! 

        I have thought a lot about how to supplement our income with a side hustle and I have decided that my soap business that I have neglected will be my thing, now that all my doll houses are pretty much finished up. Over the summer I stock piled my supplies and managed to have a good bit to get started.  I have goats milk, aloe vera, shea butter, jojoba, coconut  oil, olive oil and many more bases, and over 120 scents and essential oils and many different molds to accommodate everyone.  I really should have started before all the holiday stuff started  to make some money, but  there has been so many house projects to get done and poultry pens to get finished up. I have put it all on the back burner.

        I have made shampoo bars and conditioner bars for a trial run to see how well it turns out for us. I have made several kinds of soap and lotion bars also. It is so much fun mixing and matching scents to the molds. I have even used herbs and flowers. I would like to add bath bombs and lip care salves to the mix also.  I also have stuff to make soy candles. I have had great success with the salves for many of my friends for pain, bruises already, especially since we are all getting older and need that TLC. And everyone loves the nature remedies to keep us all going especially when we have big pharma pushing every which thing pill wise down us. If you know me I try my hardest to stay out of all that stuff. I love a spa setting that takes me away from all the daily chaos, don't you? Much of my soap, salves and lotion bars has already flown out the door to friends.

    I still continue to do studies to keep myself up to date on remedies. I will be glad when the day comes when we don't need to worry about being sick or broken anymore. Working on being more sustainable is what I really want to do in the mean time. 

    Here are just a few Bars I have made. Some are shampoo and conditioner bars and some are soap and some of my stock pile of goodies!

    Well I hope we all make it through to the end of this year and we all have a great start to the new year approaching rapidly. May we all be blessed with better things!

Renovation And New Grand Daughter

From this

Joist and foundation removed

Old Kitchen space

Many of our friends Know we have been renovating our cabin for the last several months. It has been very slow going as our son works on his time schedule and not our. I can say that the new floor has been put in and that included new joists, new electrical wiring, new plumbing and a new washroom as all of it had to be replaced including much of the foundation. 

Laundry room add on

Walk in laundry!

Kitchen plans changed as well because there was no space for two chefs to work at the same time. We now have a bigger space more cabinets and a six foot island doing in and added a full size freezer. I even have a dish washer! Painting the cabinets a beautiful blue color to off set the dark cedar walls and have a beautiful butcher block counter top for both counters and island. Still looking for some type of back splash. Once the cabinets are painted we can put the flooring down. Then the cabinet under the island can be put into place and painted.

Kitchen revamped

We planned out the electrical for the living room. We put in two floor plugs to accompany lamps beside the sofa end table. I am looking forward to bringing in my new furniture as it has been in storage all this time. I don't even remember what it looks like. 

My garden is doing its thing in one garden box but today the second one is getting replanted as the seed starter kit didn't sprout a single seed!  So in the ground the seeds go. All of my flower bulbs I planted came up and some have even started to bloom! 

Now comes to fun part...Clean up from the final reno is needing to be cleaned up. We had a monkey wrench thrown in there too! Instead of our neighbors with the vicious dogs putting their dogs in a fence across the creek, they decided to put the  feeder fence up right beside our property since their drive is along our property to get to their house. Now all that rotted wood has got to be walked away up front to the trailer to be hulled away. They torn up my side walk and threw boards on all my citrus trees. It will be okay because we were putting up a six foot privacy fence all the way around the property anyway. Not only will they not have their dogs attacking us but we will not have to deal with them ever again. So glad they thought they would be so smart! They spent a lot of money too and she was going to have trees cut down to make fence on her property to replace feeder fence after. Let her have her day if it makes her feel better but all she had to do is keep her dogs in their yard across the creek and not attacking us! Just think how much easier and less expensive it would be if she just obeyed the dog laws.

Soon my office will be usable again and I can get to work on classes I started, and zooming without being in the bedroom. 

We have started to put up our swing sets around our fire pit too. 

One of four swings

We are putting in our bathroom in the bedroom. It is a slow go too.

waiting on walls

I bought my chicken coop and it is on the list to get built. At the price of eggs these days we should could use to have our own.

Oh on a surprising note, my son in Ohio has told us we have a new grand daughter! She is 10 years old and her name is Isabella. Her mom had my son do a DNA test finally after all this time. We welcome her with open arms!

Things are moving along one day I can say the job is finished.