Kristen in the Country

The last two weeks in our area have been frigid, with sub-zero temperatures and our house has been pretty drafty. According to my in-depth and highly scientific research (might be Google), homes built in the late 1800s were often insulated with paper, wood, or sawdust, if at all.   Rob tells stories of winter days of yore when he would see his breath in the air of his bedroom and find not frost but actual snow inside the window sill of his room. The house was remodeled twenty or so years ago and that problem was taken care of, but the insulation situation is still what the teeny-boppers like to call "cray." We waited until it got cold to play around with Rob's infrared camera to confirm our suspicions about how well-insulated a late-1800s farmhouse is.   SPOILER ALERT: It ain't. Orange: Warm; Purple: Cold   Living room wall directly behind our television   Wall directly behind the couch   Second floor landing I can't wai...

When we decided to homeschool and our school year just kind of organically fell so that we beg a n a new grade in January and end ed that same grade at the end of the calen d ar year , I decided that rather than spend all of December laying around being slugs (tempting as that sounds, am I right?), we should do something t o focus on WHY we even celebrate Christmas in the first place.   (Obviously, the presents.) All joking aside, I already knew about the Confessions of a Homeschooler web site and its creator, Erica. ( I f you aren't familiar and homeschooling has even remotely crossed your mind, stop reading right now and go browse her stuff but don't forget to come back and finish what you started here, k?). She has so many fantastic FREE teaching ideas and activities as well as links to holiday activities and advent plans and the one that caught my attention was the idea of doing a Jesse tree with my girls.   The idea is simple and springs from the scripture in Isa...

The first year we had a garden, we over planted cucumbers and ended up carrying literally fifty into the house every two or three days. Even after handing cucumbers to every person within a five mile radius, we were left with an overabundance, at which point Rob suggested making pickles .   So, I spent several hours in his mom's kitchen learning how to make and preserve bread and butter pickles using a family recipe.   That was my first experience with canning and it was so satisfying to end up with lots of quarts of homemade preserved food for us to enjoy.  Although that's what sparked my interest in canning, my grandparents and great-grandparents on my dad's side of the family are from Wayne County, Kentucky so I suppose the tradition of food preservation is in my blood.  Since that first day canning pickles, I've grown more confident and experienced in my efforts and two years ago decided to make and preserv e homemade turkey stock with a leftover tu...