Vintage Home and Farm

Last summer, we were overwhelmed with the harvest (as usual!), and so rather than canning our sour cherries at that time, we just put the pitted and washed cherries into the freezer, with thoughts of making sour cherry jam sometime during the winter months.  Well, that time has come.  Today I pulled out one of the bags of frozen sour cherries and made jam. In addition to the two bags of sour cherries still in our big freezer (above), there is another big bag in our kitchen freezer.  Plus the bag that I just made into jam!  So many cherries.... Usually I make jam using Pomona's Pectin since it requires a lot less sugar, but today I discovered I didn't have enough of it in the cupboard.  But I did have some Ball pectin that says it's "Low or No-Sugar Needed Pectin".  I hadn't tried this before and don't even remember buying it, but I must have because there it was in the cupboard.  It hadn't even been opened.  Most excellent , I thought, and proceed...

Homemade cloth napkins are easy to make; in fact, sewing cloth napkins are the easiest sewing projects I've ever attempted. For me, sewing is really, really hard. I'm terrible at it.  If the project is at all complicated, I usually make a mess of it, get frustrated, and finally hide my failed attempt somewhere.  Usually tears are involved. And humiliation.  One time, I tried to make a sock monkey, and his legs came out different lengths, and then when I tried to stuff him with fluff, his side seams busted out.  I was distraught and felt like I'd failed as a mother.  The forlorn-looking monkey was placed in a box and hidden in the back of my closet for years, until I came across him again and put him in the trash.  The sad monkey’s face still haunts me, as it felt like that monkey knew . It was one of my greatest sewing failures. But then there are cloth napkins, which console me with their simplicity.  What a useful item to have around, too - these nap...

It’s been a few years since this article was published, but we thought we’d bring it back out of the archives and share it again, for our followers who asked to see photos of knotty pine in some of our rooms!  ~~~~~ Our master bedroom features vintage knotty pine walls, which is a bit uncommon and can be a challenge when trying to figure out how to decorate the space. If you also have knotty pine walls in your master bedroom, you know all about this challenge first-hand.  It can help to see examples of how others have decorated their knotty pine master bedroom.  So, I thought I would share a few photos of our bedroom with you. In going about decorating the room, one of the most important issues I learned was that there needs to be a balance of light to offset the darkness of the wood walls.  This can be accomplished easily with a light-colored bedspread and white sheets. You may be tempted to buy new furnishings and bedding, but I found that I didn't need to....

About a year ago I came across a Master Gardener's "what to do" month-by-month garden calendar for our local area. It's been so helpful because it suggests what month to plant each crop, when to prune, ideal times to add soil amendments, what pests to watch out for at certain times of the year (and how to control them organically), and so on.  I printed off a complete set of their instructions for the year and kept them on my kitchen counter, and then as the year went on I checked off each garden-related task that I had completed.  Then I put that month's page to the back of the stack and continued on.  Now, the year is starting over, and I still have the handy pages for using again this year.  Maybe your area has a Master Gardener calendar as well? Here are links to the calendars for our local area and also what I was able to find for some of our family and friends who live outside our area: Clallam County, WA Clark County, WA Washington County, OR   Thurston C...

The first green egg of the New Year was laid today by our rogue hen, Little White Bird.  She is an Ameraucana hen and the green eggs are also called Easter Eggs.   As you may recall from an earlier blog article, Little White Bird prefers to escape the chicken pen to lay her eggs.  She then finds somewhere secret and goes there every time that she lays eggs until her nest is full of her prized Easter Eggs.   Today, I was mucking out the chicken coop when Little White Bird flew out of the pen and landed on the roof of the coop.  I didn't have my phone with me, unfortunately, or I would have taken a photo of her.  "What are you doing way up there, Little White Bird?" I called to her.  She seemed perplexed as she paced back and forth across the roof of the coop.  Then she flew back down into the pen. Next, she managed to squeeze out at the gate where the fence wire had come loose.  I put her back inside the pen and fixed the fence. Her ...

 Several more inches of snow fell since our first 11 inches the other day, covering up our vehicles again.  Wicked-looking icicles, some more than four feet long, formed all along our roofline.  With temperatures remaining in the 20s F for a week and more snow expected, we are stuck in this winter storm for a while.   Yesterday, our weather station in front of the house recorded a low of 14 degrees F.  Our three biggest concerns during this winter storm are keeping our chickens and ducks warm enough, preventing our water pipes from freezing, and keeping the heat going in the house. Ducks love water and their instinct is to submerge themselves in it.  But there are times when swimming in the water just isn't appropriate.  Here it is well below freezing, so cold that the ducks can't walk on the snow for very long. Their feet get so cold that they stop walking and sit down to try to warm their feet. They literally sit in the snow rather than walk on ...

It snowed on Christmas! How rare and beautiful to see so much snow over the long holiday weekend.  Below are a few photos from around the farm on Christmas Day, as well as the day after Christmas when even more snow fell. Late on Christmas Day, Reggie the miniature horse made a trip out to the end of the field wearing his holiday best. We were delighted to greet him and visit with Andrea that evening.  We also walked around the farm. My favorite Christmas tree is behind our house by the creek, as you can see above.  We also walked out to the community barn to see the animals there. Only a few inches had fallen by the end of the day, just enough to create some excitement in the neighborhood.  We could hear kids nearby, screaming with excitement, likely immersed in a snowball fight.  We left holiday treats for the barn animals: peanuts for Patch, apples and a carrot for Reggie, and kitty treats for Barney the barn cat. Otherwise, w e spent most of Christmas Day in...