Don’t get me wrong, I always loved the way they look and always wanted to try container gardening, but, well, I’m awful at manual, regular watering. I can turn on the sprinkler when things get dry and (maybe) remember to turn it off 1/2 hour later, but manually watering containers… often… well, I was sure I would fail.

But I decided to try my hand at growing container plants a few years ago, and I will never look back. Especially after I learned a secret to success with container gardening. I shared the details of my secret in this 30-second video on instagram. But you’ll find that secret, as well as all the best tips for success with container gardening, below as well.

Why I Want to Grow Some Plants in Containers

There are 3 main reasons I want to grow some plants in pots:

1. Container planting controls invasive plants.

First and foremost, planting invasive plants like mint in containers, well contains them. I love to avoid extra work in the garden whenever possible. And digging up and dividing invasive plants every year is not on my list of ways I want to spend my time. I love mint. In fact, I’m growing four types of mint this year:

• Sweet Mint (these plants make dried herbs that I add to iced tea)
• Peppermint (these are the seeds)
• Chocolate Mint (this plant is as pretty as the tea is delicious that I make with)
• Spearmint (like this)

As I expanded the varieties of mint and other herbs that I was growing, and as I perfected ways of drying my herbs, I knew containers were no longer an option. Not if I wanted to avoid having my entire garden bed becoming full of invasive herbs.

2. Container planting means your plants can be moved.

Every year there is always something failing in the garden, whether it’s death-by-squash-bugs, or torrential winds, or chipmunk invasion, there is bound to be something that dies and leaves an ugly bare spot in my garden. With thriving, moveable plants available to me, I can rearrange my plantings and still have a pretty garden, no matter what might ail it.

3. Container planting allows you to easily overwinter plants inside.

In a cold New England winter, being able to tuck dormant plants away in the basement of my barn means that most will come back to life in the spring, with a little sun and water.

Tips for Success with Container Planting

1. Make sure you have good drainage when you’re planting in containers.

The galvanized metal planters I wanted to use in my garden were intended as cold drink tubs, so they of course didn’t have drainage holes. That’s fine, with the right drill bit, that was super easy to correct.

2. Make sure your container plants are level and the drainage holes work well.

Our garden is on a slight slope, so I always have to prop up my planters with a brick or two underneath so that they sit level. This works out well to making sure it can drain well too.

3. Use the right kind of containers.

If you’re not using glazed pots, which help prevent evaporation of the important water you add, make sure you do other things to help your containers maintain moisture. (Keep reading.)

4. Mulch your container plants.

Adding a layer of mulch or rocks to the top of your containers. (Rocks are my preference by far, since I live in the Granite State and I’m overrun with rocks of all sizes) This will help the soil maintain more of the moisture that you add with each watering session.

5. Keep the roots cool in the containers.

If you want to use metal plant containers like mine you may find your roots just can’t take the heat. Solutions would be to place your plant where it gets a moderate mount of shade on hot days, surround it by other plants that will shade it, or line your metal container with newspaper to insulate the dirt and roots a little from the sun’s heat. Someday I am going to make some plant pots that will be nice and cool for the plants’ roots.

6. Water your container plants at the best time of day.

If you can, water in early morning or late evening when it’s cooler temperatures and the sun isn’t so hot that it’ll cook off the water you add before the roots get any benefit from it.

7. Automate the way you water your container plants.

While a drip irrigation system would be ideal (seriously, check out these awesome options) for watering outdoor potted plants, I’ve been doing something much cheaper (okay, free) for many years that works pretty well for me. It doesn’t replace my watering, but if definitely means I can water a lot less and my plants survive.

Keep reading…

How I Water My Container Plants on Auto Pilot for FREE

We live on a 200+ year old homestead. And we find a lot of treasures on the property, including some really neat old bottles with some great stories. Those bottles turn out to serve as perfect waterers for my container plants. You of course can use any old bottle you want. Saving up wine bottles would be ideal.

Here are the steps to using bottles to water your container plantings:

• Salvage bottles with long “necks” (pretty colors are ideal too) and remove the labels. (Or don’t.)
• Prepare a hole in the dirt of your container plants where you’d like the bottle to serve as an automatic waterer.
• Water your container plant well (if you insert the bottle into dry dirt, the water will seep out of your waterer pretty quickly)
• Fill your bottle with water by submerging it in a bucket of water (it’s full when the bubbling subsides) or using the spigot or a watering can.
• Quickly flip your filled bottle upside down (without any lid), right into the hole you prepared.
• Check your bottle a few times a week and refill as needed.

Check out this amazing bottle we found on our homestead (I’m NOT using this one as a bottle waterer) and the story behind it.

Now Talk to Me!

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig to show me your gardens & container plantings today (I love garden-spiration!) @souly.rested.

Other Gardening Articles You’ll Want to Check Out

What Every Gardener Needs to Know About Coffee Grounds

What Every Gardener Needs to Know About Egg Shells

8 Tips and Tricks Inspired by Professional Gardeners

A Few Tools that Every Gardener Needs

Find out why SoulyRested is considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs … year after year.

 

 

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The post 7 Tips for Container Planting first appeared on Souly Rested.

It’s all in the attitude, really. And the knowledge that Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy… but it’s worth it. For lots more on that topic, follow my podcast.

See my youtube video here on this same topic.

Enjoy a Simple Farmhouse Christmas

1. Keep it Fun

For us this year, our favorite way to enjoy all of our decorating and wrapping evenings is to put some old vinyl on our record player.

It was a gift from the girls last Christmas and I have thoroughly loved using it, but this Christmas season has been the best.

I pulled out my family’s records from my childhood and the girls love hearing a little bit of my childhood favorites, while they may not enjoy listening to me signing along (since I never could carry a tune).

A few simple ways to keep Christmas “chores” lighthearted and relaxing:

• Put on your favorite Christmas music.
• Light some candles.
• Start your decorating season early by bringing out the twinkle lights. Long winter evenings need more light, no?
• Make time for down time, maybe even treat yourself to a long quiet walk or a bubble bath before the part of the decorating that tends to stress you out.
• Take it to heart–and remind yourself often, if need be–it is totally okay that you are not martha stewart. No one expects you to be. In fact, I’d bet your home is much more inviting and cozy than Martha’s ever would be. It’s my theory that hers is too perfect to be comfortable.

2. Forage For Decorations

Winter is dark, and nights are long here in New England. We try to get outside and get fresh air during the warmest part of the afternoon whenever possible. Whether it’s a walk with Bixby, doing farm chores, or even something as ridiculous as ice skating in the marsh (yep, we’ve done that), we need the vitamin D and exercise.

Roaming the woods and foraging for decorations is maybe the best way to follow my first tip as well, because gathering treasures together is always fun.

A few ideas of great things to forage for and how to use them

* grape vines for wreath bases.

If you use them right away after clipping them, there’s no need to soak them to make them pliable. Just meticulously wind the vines into a circle, tucking in the ends and wrapping new vines on as you go, until you have a wreath the size you’d like it to be. Then tuck in and hot-glue on other treasures from your foraging…

* dried leaves for wreaths or vases.

We have a low-growing plant that is prolific in our marsh that is perfect for this. Hayley made a gorgeous wreath from just grape vines and those leaves this year.

We also filled some pottery pieces, mason jars, and wooden barrels with the dried plant. (We have plenty of it. It’s almost like a ground cover for our marsh.)

* evergreen for wreaths and swags.

Tuck branches in a grapevine wreath to fill it with green, or cut off 1-foot-long pieces of evergreen that you tie together with twine to create a swag for hanging over doorways, windows, or mantles. You can even just lay evergreen branches wherever it works for you. We have an old horse bridle holder that was salvaged from an old barn. I love that today it holds my grandad’s horse bridle. I tossed a whole branch over it and called that corner of our TV room decorated.

* pine cones.

To dry up the sometimes-gooey sap in the pinecones, and avoid any egg cases hatching unwanted critters in your home (it’s seriously happened to me), take a few minutes to bake your pine cones. Yes. Bake.

1. Preheat oven to 200°
2. Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.
3. Lay pinecones on the foil, in a single layer.
4. Bake for 1/2 hour.

3. Keep the Tree Simple (Sometimes)

This year our tree is super simple. Okay, kinda short and scrawny. Okay, a full-blown Charlie Brown tree.

How we arranged our simple tree

To get the Charlie Brown tree to stay upright took a little finagling, but it just required a few things…

• vase (or I used a 1/2 gallon Mason jar)
• old towels
• masking tape
• a base container

I used Bill’s grandmom’s 6-gallon fermenting crock for my base, but an old wooden barrel or upright box would work great too.

1. I placed the Mason jar, filled with water, in the center of the crock.
2. I surrounded the water jar with 3-4 old towels, to keep it centered and cushion the blow if the tree took a tumble.
3. Then I laid down strips of masking tape in X’s around the base of the tree, attached to the rim of the crock.
4. Finally I arranged another old towel (but it could be a pretty piece of fabric too or even an odd piece of clothing) to cover the tape.

But I’m not saying you need to go full-blown Charlie Brown to keep it simple with the tree this year. Instead, consider doing a simple theme of all homemade ornaments or dried forage items, like dried oranges and berries and pinecones. If nothing else, consider not pulling out all the usual boxes of typical ornaments. Make this year’s tree different in some way, more simple.

Of course I realize, full well, that “simple” almost never means “easier.” I talk more about how my Charlie Brown tree was more complicated, in some ways, than my typical tree in my podcast episode on this same topic… I link to it below (or you can always find all the podcast info on the “podcast” tab from any page of this blog).

4. Keep it Real (but artificial is okay too)

While we foraged most of our decorations this year, I’m a big fan of combining some artificial pieces with the real items.

1. Over mantles

On our one mantle this year, the one that is over our wood stove (which is constantly hot, as our primary source of heat in this old farmhouse), I just placed a little artificial greenery, buffalo plaid ribbon and wooden beads. We started with real pine branches there, but they were dead and brown in days, which is a fire hazard there, since our wood stove that sits directly under that mantle runs hot 24/7. If a dry, brittle tree branch fell on it, well let’s just say we don’t want that to happen.

Another mantle was a perfect spot to just drape greenery and lay some dried oranges and pinecones on top. It’s so simple, but so pretty.

Then our kitchen mantle was the one we spent the most time on, with a long swag of evergreen pieces we tied together with twine then added dried orange slices and pinecones, each tied on with twine.

2. In baskets

In baskets, I added some artificial holly and berries among the real evergreen clippings. A few ornaments and pinecones were nice finishing touches.

3. On wreaths

Our advent wreath is primarily artificial. That makes it nice and easy to move on and off our kitchen table, but I wanted it to have the same look as the rest of our decorations, and look like I had foraged it from nature too, so I stuck pine branches, pinecones, and dehydrated oranges around the artificial base to make the artificial look more all-natural.

I also added some evergreen clippings to our artificial red berry wreath that we hung on the inside side of our front door, to decorate our carriage house area.

5. Make Things with the Kids

Kayla was telling me as we walked the woods to find grapevines how she remembered watching me twist and form wreaths from bendable twigs as a kid and found it magical. To see her then having a ball when we returned to the house, twisting her own wreaths, with our “loot” of evergreen and vines surrounding her, was pretty special. So what are some great items to make with the kids for simple farmhouse Christmas decorations?

• salt dough ornaments
• cinnamon salt dough ornaments
• salt dough and twine garlands
• dried fruit
• a garland of letters

The letter garland

We used adhesive light interfacing , covered in burlap, to cut out letters then strung them on twine, spelling out “Come Let Us Adore Him.”

Since I’m writing this in 2020, a year none of us who have lived through it will ever forget, a year of separation and fear and confusion caused by a worldwide pandemic, I feel like our little garland was perfectly hung over our simple, bare tree. You see, the meek tree and the simple words are a constant reminder of who we need to be truly focused on. Not fancy decorations or the fear around us, but Christ. Always Christ.

The dried citrus slices

We dry citrus slices in our dehydrator that happens to double as an air fryer (gosh I love this appliance!). Slice the fruit thin and cook on dehydrator trays at 140 degrees for 6-8 hours.

Other directions

You can find directions for the other ideas listed here in this article.

6. Find Unexpected Decorations

I had two empty coffee table that it took me a week to decide something to put there. I finally spent a few minutes scouring the barn attic, and immediately knew I wanted to use two of my grandmom’s old enamelware.

First there was my grandmom’s serving tray. It has this eye-popping red rim that I knew I wanted to use to decorate. It of course had a non-Christmas design on it… a flower cart… so I brought down an armload of possibilities of pottery pieces, wooden bowls and candle holders to decide what I wanted to display on the tray to mask the flower cart. A few pails filled with greenery and some scattered pine cones did the trick.

Then I have this enamel baking dish of my grandmom’s. The green trim is perfect for Christmas. I just laid greenery, pinecones and ornaments inside. If you’re putting it near a electrical outlet a strand of lights would be nice too. Then I remembered a sweet pottery poinsettia a daughter made me one year, added a candle, and I can’t tell you how much I love this centerpiece. I smile every time I look at it.

But my point is, you may have the perfect items for decorating in a box in the corner of your basement and not even know it because it’s not what you typically think of as “Christmas.”

But I bet you’ll have more joy looking at those items for the 6 weeks of Christmas than you’d ever have from the same-old-same-old decorations you put out every year or the new thing you grab at Hobby Lobby that doesn’t have any sentimental meaning to you.

Whether you take one or all of these tips to heart, I hope you find a few ways to truly have a simple farmhouse Christmas, even if you live in a condo in the city and even though we all know that Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy.

—- If you are inspired by any suggestions here, please share on social media with the hashtags #SimpleChristmas and #SimpleDoesntMeanEasy and tag me so I can share your gorgeous decorations too! —-

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Other Christmas articles you’ll like:

More Simple Christmas Decorating

Surviving the holidays when you’re burdened with grief or depression

Your Nativity Scene is Missing a Few Things

How to Make a Gingerbread Farmhouse

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Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

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The post 6 Tips for a Simple Farmhouse Christmas first appeared on Souly Rested.

“Modern” tends to be what folks desire, and “old-fashioned” has a bad rap.

But I see it the opposite way many times… which isn’t too surprising I guess since I tend to always go against the flow.

So, yeah, call me a rebel.

Don’t get me wrong. I like “new.” I love my new phone that allows me to always have a great camera in my back pocket. And I’d much rather churn my butter with my high-powered KitchenAid that has it done in 10 minutes flat, with zero effort on my part, than sit and turn a handle for four times as long.

But I love all my connections to the past as well. The really old, antiquated things I tend to surround myself with in my really old, antiquated New England farmhouse. From Bill’s grandmother’s hand-braided wool rug that still cushions our feet, more than 8 decades after she cut the amber, brown, and green strips of wool and twisted them together, to mom’s old blue mason jars filled with wooden spools, to my grandmom’s old wooden butter mold that I would love to use every week if only I had all the pieces and it wasn’t so weathered.

Wanna know the bitter truths (and joys) of owning an old farmhouse? I wrote about those here.

Wanna know where you can unearth some rustic farmhouse treasures of your own? You will LOVE this site I just discovered–Antique Farmhouse.

Simple doesn’t mean easy, folks.

While these things have no intrinsic value–I probably couldn’t get 50 bucks for both items combined–they remind me daily that simple joys don’t come easy.

They require hard work. And that’s okay.

Because no matter how many apps my phone has or how large and powerful my food processor is, I can’t avoid life’s hard work. And I shouldn’t want to.

Troubles, aches, grief, loss, and so many deep-cutting pains abound in our days, effects that no app can cure and no gadget can erase, but “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.” And the hard work makes us appreciate the sunrise and other glimpses of His love and mercy even more.

That brings me back to where this all started…

“Upgraded” and “fancier” isn’t always better.

Steadfast. Unchanging, no matter what. Not too many things are that way today. And that’s the way we like it, apparently. We WANT things to always be changing. We want better, fancier, higher pixels and lower carbs. Upgraded, boosted, and improved.

But some things can’t be improved…

I woke to a snow-covered sunrise this morning that reminded me. While every day is indeed new… a clean slate… a glorious opportunity to start again… I serve an awesome God who has been making sure every day is filled with His glory from the dawn of time.

And there is no improving on Him.

I choose old rugs and broken butter molds.

So if I had to choose, I’d take old rugs and broken butter molds over the latest technology. I’d choose reminders in my everyday moments of who I am, where I come from, and what generations before me accomplished. Yes, there has been hard work, troubles, aches, grief, and loss, but oh there have been simple joys as well. I can’t truly have one without the other, as far as I see it. So, yes, today I am thankful for the antiquated.

The view I have tonight, in my backyard, only solidifies my thoughts. The floodlights that help us do our evening chores illuminate the snow-powdered maples on the other side of the barn. Promises of his goodness that will soon run through those tree trunks and fill our sap buckets with delight and our table with maple syrup joy.

Read here if you’d like to see some of the maple-syrup-making joy around our homestead. Or go here to find out how YOU can make maple sugar even without ever tapping one tree.

I am thankful for simple joys in the very midst of the “hard.”

But for now, we’ll toss some hay to the cows, close up the chicken coop, and I will recount a few simple joys I am thankful for in the very midst of the sometimes cold, long, hard night.

Of course, a fancy phone and a new nighttime app helped me share my backyard with you tonight. So I’m keeping my phone. And my KitchenAid.

But I’m looking at getting a pretty old-fashioned butter mold that I can actually use, when I’m making butter, like this one.

Do you like to repurpose old treasures? Then you’ll wanna snag a free copy of my instructional booklet, Give An Old Door New Life, for free, like right now… in my Resource Library.

Go here if you’d like to see an instructional video, and printable, of how I clean my heirloom rug.

And you won’t believe the fun stories behind these old jars and what I use them for today.

Go here if you’d like to know how to make your own butter (with or without an old butter mold).

Click below to join me in my winter wonderland today.

Wishing some simple joys for you today, friend.

I pray that you too have a reminder of His unfailing love in your day today and find you have much to be thankful for every day, in the simple things.

Follow along on my podcast, Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy, on your favorite podcast player. Find all the links right here.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22

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Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

Many readers often ask what camera I use to take the images you find here on SoulyRested. I love my Nikon; you can read more about my camera and even purchase your own here. And for the first time in a post, ever, I included a picture from my new phone.

And hop over here to find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018.

I’d love to connect!

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You might like these posts that recall some simple joys:

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

And, ummmm, have you printed the a-MAAHZ-ingly delicious Maple Chocolate Chip cookie recipe I just downloaded there recently?

The post Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy first appeared on Souly Rested.

“Mom, we have to have a party, invite everyone we know, and celebrate.”

When my 19-year-old brave fighter of a daughter told me this about the upcoming 1-year anniversary of her spinal fusion surgery, I didn’t hesitate. In fact, I’ve never been so quick to acquiesce to a big shindig.

I’m not big on crowded gatherings when I don’t get to really sit and talk to anyone. I’d much rather have one family over for lunch on Sunday afternoon than a loud, house-bulging crowd that has to spill out onto the front porch of our small, old farmhouse on Friday night.

Of course this Friday-night party was an exception.

You see, my daughter had endured excruciating pain for years. I shared a little here, years ago, about verses that helped me as a mom watching my daughter endure so much chronic pain and heartache and how to see beauty in sorrow. Then, a year ago, she went into an 8-hour surgery that replaced her damaged disc with an artificial plastic one and a few titanium screws. She faced a difficult recovery and physical therapy, which she worked through eagerly. Then came the burning, debilitating, seemingly never ending pain she endured when we realized she was suffering from a rare neurological syndrome as a result of nerve damage from her surgery. If she saw blessings to celebrate after her last year, we were absolutely going to celebrate.

She loves succulents. So when I started to brainstorm what kind of little party favors we could give all the guests, the first thought was succulents.

This post contains affiliate links.

But we live rurally. Ten miles to the nearest traffic light. Twenty-five minutes to town. And we live in New England. Nurseries don’t even open for the short summer season until close to Memorial Day. It was March.

I was shocked when we googled it and found a company that ships succulents across the country—from California—in 2 days FOR FREE. (And the packaging is totally top-notch wonderful. Watch this little fb live video to see the amazing packaging peanuts… you won’t believe this!)

And these little plants were drop dead gorgeous!

Click the picture above or go here to see my youtube video unboxing and planting a few of these beauties, where I explain how to plant succulents and care for them.

It was ultra easy to put them all together; we literally plopped them out of the plastic pot and into the adorable terra cotta ones I ordered (also from Mountain Crest Gardens).

We wanted the plants to promote the theme of our party, so we started thinking of some verses. We needed one that summed up our joy in our assurance that no matter how dark, painful, and seemingly never-ending Jordyn’s horrible battle with pain had been, we knew we could trust in God’s goodness and sovereignty.

In the end, in the midst of months of agony, we had assurance that the pain–which was, on its worst days, an 11 on a scale of 1-10–was “light” compared to the eternal glory we will someday experience as children of God.

It didn’t take us long to settle on II Corinthians 4:17… “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” But we needed to sum up that sentiment on a teeny tiny flag. We settled on “Today’s Problems = Tomorrow’s Growth.”

We printed out the papers, covered the back of the pages in washi tape (like this), used a straight edge cutter (like this one) to divide them and finished off the flags by cutting a small “v” in the end of each and using a mini, 1/16″ round hand punch (like this one) to make two holes that we could feed tooth picks through.

We also gathered lots of pictures of Jordyn’s last year and pulled together a few nice displays.

Once we ordered the succulents, my thoughts turned to a gift. I wanted to do something to commemorate her joy after so much sorrow. And I wanted it to be something she’d have for a life time. I had no trouble knowing an exact moment that I wanted to memorialize.

The moment I wanted to commemorate was a few minutes her and I shared alone in her room in the ICU. A few minutes that will give me a lifetime of peace and joy when I recall the warm tears that soaked my cheeks as her and I sang a few choruses together of a song she had asked me to play on my laptop just as the sun was starting to turn the sky beautiful shades of crimson and purple. That song has since become my favorite song of all time and that moment will forever be etched on my heart. (The song was Sovereign Over Us. You can hear it here, if you would like. Another day I’ll share a separate post, just about that moment. But today’s post is about our celebration.)

I knew I wanted to memorialize a line from that song.

So we made a base for the plaque with pallet pieces, and I started laying out how I wanted to paint the lettering. I think it turned out pretty well, and it was nice to have on display for her celebration.

When I stood back and looked at these beautiful plants I realized what amazing favors they’d make for so many occasions…

Anniversary

Teen or adult Birthday

Graduation party

Community party

4th of July or Memorial Day party

And the wonderful little flags you could make for each occasion!

Wedding: Let love grow; Grow old with me, the best is yet to be; Alone we were static, together we grow beautifully.

Anniversary: Growth, Laughter & 40 years of “Happily Ever After.”; Together 50 beautiful years, and still growing; 35 years & still growing strong.

Birthday: Thank you for helping me grow.

Graduation: “Oh the places you’ll GROW;” A sweet ending to a new beginning of growth; Commit. Plan. Grow. Proverbs 16:3; Still growing in knowledge… Colossians 1:10; The growth (& the tassel) was worth the hassle;

Oh, and if you have a wedding in your near future, I also just stumbled upon this fun fact I have to share… Amazon offers a wedding registry. How perfect is that?

So, yeah, our old farmhouse held a wonderful celebration this spring, but if you wanna know some of  the bitter truths (and joys) of owning an old farmhouse? I wrote about those here.

Wanna know the 6 reasons I think succulents are the the best plants EVER? I wrote about that here.

Wanna know where you can unearth some rustic farmhouse treasures of your own? You will LOVE this site I just discovered–Antique Farmhouse.I’m already addicted.

After getting the plants, plaque, and picture display ready, we made a cake and yummy apple cider over the fire in our big old Rumford fireplace, strung lots of sparkly lights on the front porch of our farmhouse, and sat back with lots of friends and family to celebrate.

We celebrated that blessings indeed abound even amidst sorrow.

We celebrated that He is always with us–even in the fire and the flood.

We celebrated that “Today’s problems = tomorrow’s growth.”

And I totally loved everything about this big shindig.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. II Corinthians 4:17

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Many readers often ask what camera I use to take the images you find here on SoulyRested. I love my Nikon; you can read more about my camera on my Resources page and even purchase your own here.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

 

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

The post The perfect party favor for our farmhouse celebration first appeared on Souly Rested.

Pretty-good-week fact #1? After unearthing an amazing light fixture last fall on our property’s centuries-old midden, I convinced my husband it should become our kitchen table light… and I LOVE it.

Pretty-good-week fact #2? After years of enjoying my dovetailed wooden box “magazine holder,” I inspected it closely the other day. I researched its markings, and I discovered that I was the proud owner of a box that housed nothing finer than . . . wait for it . . .

Original American Chocolate. With a capital “c,” because this company–the Walter Baker & Company–was established in 1780 as the premier producer of American chocolate.

I’m not sure if I’m more astounded that our founding fathers had the stamina to declare national independence without the fortitude that only chocolate can provide, or that I actually own a piece of this history.

Then, well, there’s the fact that I made the most beautifully delicious giant chocolate chip cookie EVER… keep reading for that one…

UPDATE: I’ve perfected a Maple Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe for Sweet Maple, which will be available in book stores across the country fall 2019. But some things are just too delicious to wait until Fall 2019, am I right? So I just added the maple-infused recipe to my subscriber library. Just subscribe right here and then you can hop over there to print it out for yourself.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Pretty-good-week fact #3? I stumbled upon this amazing online store that’s bursting at the seems with beautiful rustic pieces like my old light fixture and dovetailed wooden box. I spent a while under its spell, mesmerized by so much of what I saw. When I reached out to them with some questions, I was truly in love. They asked if I’d like to share their site with my readers. Ummmm, yeah! That was a no-brainer. I think you guys will love this stuff. Here’s where I am totally transparent, btw… the folks at Antique Farm House did offer me a tiny commission. So if you decide, like me, that you gotta have a few of their beautiful treasures, I will get a few pennies when you purchase, but of course it won’t cost you a penny more. And, needless to say, I wouldn’t even be telling you about their amazingness if I didn’t think they were, well, amazing.

Beautifully rustic and totally useful and practical products? They got ’em.

Top notch customer service? Check.

Great prices, and even unbeatable deals, on totally unique finds? Check.

Of course because these treasures are so unique, the inventory is continually changing. If you see something you like, trust me, if you don’t snag it, it’ll be gone tomorrow.

But here’s the reason I was so excited to find Antique Farm House this week: So often things I’ve shared on SoulyRested about unique pieces in our home (like my dove-tailed box, or my enamel pans/succulent planter–you can see them in the picture above or up close on this post) and rustic finds around our homestead (like my light, above, and these amazing old bottles). And whenever I share these finds with you, you guys are often reaching out to me asking where you can get something similar.

I hated never having an answer to that, since I dug my treasures out of my backyard midden or rescued them from my town’s give-and-take room. (Gosh I LOVE that room!) I can’t tell you how happy I am that I’ve found an online source for you all to unearth similar treasures for yourself! I mean, just look at these treasures pictured here! Then click the images below and peruse for yourself!

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Pretty-good-week fact #4? After the longest, coldest April I can remember, with the first day of May arrived our first it-really-feels-like-spring kinda day.

Pretty-good-week fact #5? A handful of furry, purring sweetness was born in the barn a few nights ago. I introduced those of you who follow my facebook page to the 6 adorable new barn cats in training on a live video this week. (I’ll stick the video down below too.)

You may not be surprised to know that cold weather makes homesteading extra hard, but you may be surprised at a few of our solutions that help us face the difficulties of winter here on the farm.

And glance at this post if you’d like to know about a huge mistake we made with our first barn cat. One we won’t be making with the new kitties, for sure.

Pretty-good-week fact #6? I baked a delicious cookie. Yep. One cookie.

But it’s quite possibly the best thing I ever bake in my cast iron pans. Yes, a giant chocolate chip cookie in cast iron is the most delicious part of this pretty good week. Keep scrolling for the gotta-have-this-one recipe.

Do you like to repurpose old treasures? Then you’llwanna snag a free copy of my instructional booklet, Give An Old Door New Life, for free, like right now… in my Resource Library.

And you won’t believe the fun stories behind these old jars and what I use them for today.

I usually use my 10 1/2″ griddle for this cookie, but I’ve also used my 14″ cast iron pizza pan to make one extra-large cookie, when I’m feeding a crowd.

I should say that my favorite cast iron cookies are the ones I bake in my 5″ individual-sized pans. But you don’t need a recipe for those. I simply use the Nestle Toll House recipe (on the bag) and place a giant ball (about 3 cookies worth of dough) on each pan. When I take them out of the oven, I place them on oven-safe pottery plates (so we don’t have to touch the hot pans while we devour the warm cookies), top them with ice cream, and of course always serve them with tall glasses of chilled milk.

If you like this recipe, be sure to try out another cast iron baking favorite of mine: Grandmom’s Blueberry Cake in Cast Iron.

So, to sum up . . .

Turning found treasures into a light source? A chore I allocated to my amazing husband.

Telling the story of my newly-found, long-ago-aquired chocolate box? A job I have taken on wholeheartedly.

Farmhouse Antiques for everyone, at 80% off wholesale? Something I just have to repeat again.

Barn kitties? A video you don’t wanna miss.

Baking cookies in cast iron pans? An effort I’m happy to devour. And don’t forget to subscribe here if you’d like to snag my Maple Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe in my subscriber library.

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These are the three sizes/styles of cast iron pans that I’ve found work best for baking cookies. And I’ve tried a LOT of cast iron pans, from heirloom to new, from tiny to huge, from griddles to skillets. I mean someone had to do the difficultly delicious research. You can trust me when I say these three styles/sizes of cast iron pans make the world’s best cookies:

Other cast iron products I love:

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I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) box below:

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

The post The BEST chocolate chip cookie ever (baked in cast iron) & finding rustic treasures first appeared on Souly Rested.

My readers often tell me they enjoy the details I share about our old cape cod farmhouse that sits on sloped, rocky, wooded 14 acres, so you may not understand Bill’s lack of love.

Yet, truth be told, we tend to romanticize the joys of owning old homes, we call their quirks “character” and their money-draining problems “projects.” If you think you may someday fall in love with an old farmhouse yourself, stop right now, make sure you get the inside scoop on these secrets, and then proceed with caution.

Wanna know where you can unearth some rustic farmhouse treasures of your own? You will LOVE this site I just discovered–Antique Farmhouse.

Secret #1: The projects are like that Lamb Chop song.

First, there are the bitter truths (and joys) of owning an old farmhouse. But even more, there are the endless projects. Not only endless in the fact that there’s always something to do (that’s true for all homeowners), but endless like that never-ending Lamb Chop song that my daughters used to love…

“This is the project that never ends. It just goes on and on my friend. Somebody started doing it, not knowing how bad it was. And they’ll continue doing it forever just because this is the project that never ends. It just goes on and on my friend…”

So, to be fair to Bill, maybe I’ll start sharing some of the ugly truths here on the blog once in a while behind owing an old farmhouse. Plus, I’m guessing you’ll find some of the projects rather interesting, like the time he went to install a new storm door and discovered a 217-year-old support beam had rotted so badly we could see into our basement from our front step. Or the time he was merely replacing a door and wound up realizing he needed to replace two windows as well and had to take off 80% of the clapboard on the back side of our house. Oh, wait, I can’t talk about that project in past tense. That project was the reason behind his epitaph-like angry utterances just yesterday about his hatred toward these old, slanted, rotted posts and beams.

Secret #2: The stories are only fragmented sentences.

Since I’m not the one involved in these frustrating projects, beyond lending encouraging words and documenting them with photographs, I have remained faithful to my romantic notions about our wonderful old farmhouse.

Last month I was elated to frame an old photo I had enlarged. We had inherited the picture with the house when we moved here a few years ago. It shows a distant view of our cape, taken from the dirt road that is riddled with wagon tracks.

I hung the photo beside two prized pieces of artwork that I am very thankful to still have. Two pictures, one in oil pastels, one in watercolors, of barns, created by my youngest two daughters in days long ago. Days when it was not even a thought in any of our minds that our family would someday own a barn of our own.

Needless to say, I was beyond excited this month when a rock-star friend offered to memorialize another photograph of our home in a very special way. Now when you drive over the dam that curves around the cool river that hugs our property, pull up our tree-lined, curved drive, and step onto our front poor, you’re greeted by a beautiful photo of Asa (read on for more info about Asa), standing in front of his home circa 1890.

Gina memorialized this photo on slate and shipped it to me, and I did a jig as I was unwrapping it. Then I waltzed it right to the perfect hanging spot.

Gina knew I had named our homestead the first week we lived here. I mean, all self-respecting homesteads need a name.

Our homestead’s name

I dubbed our new homestead “Restful Falls Farm.” The “Falls” part is because of the mountain lake that our property borders that flows over a dam into the river that winds around our farm. The adjective in our farm’s name reminds me that I need to continually rest. Not rest in the typical sense. Heck no. There’s always so very much to do around here, because as I often say, “simple joys require hard work.” But I need to rest amidst the hard work, in the middle of grief, and even under sagging roofs. I need to rest in my soul.

So the sign announces our farm name, our address (which I blurred out in the photo), and est. circa 1800. I haven’t been able to document history of our home past 1860, but previous owners told us they were told the home was built in 1800, so for now that’s what we’re going by.

The photograph

The actual photo was delivered to our door one sunny Saturday afternoon last summer, by the woman who had married Asa’s great grandson. It’s a photo of Asa, who was I imagine named after the good king of Judah, around the age of 60 I’d guess. Asa is standing in his front yard, wearing his work pants and suspenders and looking intently at the photographer. The bearer of this gift to me that Saturday in June explained that her husband, who had passed away the year before, had fond childhood memories of our house, and his own father, Asa’s grandson, had been born in our house in 1899, some years after this picture was taken.

My pieced-together story

The rest of the story I have to piece together myself.

No matter how many photographs I had of our house, at best I’d only have fragments of stories.

I can imagine Asa’s daughter had married another hard-working farmer like her daddy and they lived here, on her family farm, in this charming cape that sits by the dam. Here her children were born. Here her momma taught her daughters how to gather eggs, butcher a chicken, and make a pie that was out-of-this-world delicious (here I’m imagining my own grandmom’s pie). Her daddy taught her sons how to milk a cow, gather eggs, turn over rocky fields, plant crops, hoe the rows, and reap the harvest late into the chilly autumn nights under a harvest moon

But at best, I can only piece together fragments of stories.

Secret #3: A house divided cannot stand.

I’ve seen the stones that make up the foundation of our old cape cod farmhouse. I’ve seen the waters that pour into our dirt-floor cellar around those boulders in the spring when the snow melts. I’ve seen the rotted sills and leaning corner walls.

I know it may only be the grace of God that keeps this old house standing. But a house divided surely cannot stand, and it’s oh-so-important to keep this final warning in mind if indeed you ever find yourself living in an old home.

Remember that you and your spouse can’t let your love for–or hatred towards–the house divide you.

Whenever Bill expresses his aversion to our home and the problem projects contained within its walls I almost take it personally. Maybe it’s similar to how one feels when there is a step-child in a family and one parent feels the other doesn’t love that child in the same deep way they always have. I think of the hard work I put into refinishing our old wide-planked floors.

I look at the treasures we’ve collected around the property and the fun things we’ve repurposed in our home, like an amazing old door and old jars with a story.

I remember how confidently we knew God led our family to this very farm a few short years ago.

And I hear Bill’s anger and frustration toward this old house that sometimes feels like my baby, and I am saddened.

I remind myself that a house divided cannot stand. I remember that the vows I made to my high school sweetheart are inherently more significant than old bark-covered beams or wavy window glass that sheds unfiltered sunlight through these tired walls.

So the day that he feels he can’t go one more month of incessant, unforgiving home problems is the day I will guarantee him that he is my love.

That will be the day we exit our old farmhouse threshold together, resolutely and hand-in-hand, moving on to another life. That is the day we will acknowledge we are richer for the stories we learned from this house and thankful for the time we got to be the stewards of its never-ending projects and fragmented sentences worth of stories.

If that day comes, I am sure I will be able to say goodbye to our old cape cod farmhouse by the lake with no regrets.

But truth be told, even if in a humbug sort of way, Bill loves these old walls and windows as much as I do.

We feel grateful to be the stewards of this old home’s wonderful, simple joys that require hard work.

So for now I will go on clinging to my romantic notions and enjoy every day I get to be a part of the fragmented sentences and difficult projects here in our old cape cod farmhouse that I call “home.”

On days like today, when our school room is chairs pulled up in front of the kitchen cooking fire…

When my office is old chairs in the shade of a sugar maple overlooking our barn…

When my “therapy” is winterizing the garden, wondering if previous tenants grew crops in the same fields were we have placed ours…

When my companion is a calf named Selah, who makes me curious how many calves have been born on these 14 acres over the past few centuries….

When my exercise is a walk with Bixby that ends up in the marsh or neighboring tree farm, both ablaze with color…

Yes, on days like today, no check that, on every day in every season, I will indeed be grateful. I will be grateful that, for all her sags, dips, creaks, and moans, I had the opportunity to call this old cape cod farmhouse “home.”

More articles about farmhouse living:

Why old farmhouse floors are always worth saving.

The bitter truths (and joys) of owning an old farmhouse

Why we moved from suburbia to this old farmhouse.

You won’t believe the fun stories behind these old jars and what I use them for today.

Do you like to repurpose old treasures? Then you’ll wanna snag a free copy of my instructional booklet, Give An Old Door New Life, for free, like right now… in my Resource Library.

Join me for a minute in one of my weekly facebook lives, where I take you into our carriage house to show you a family heirloom.–>

And join me here as I show you a project going on around here.–>

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to maple syrup making.

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

Pin this for later!

Just click this image to pin this article.–>

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

The post 3 secrets old farmhouse owners might never tell you first appeared on Souly Rested.

A lover of history, I adore giving something old a new purpose.

Giving an Old Door New Life

So when Bill started talking about replacing a broken pocket door, I went scouring our barn attic, where I knew a slew of old doors were piled up in one corner. He asked if I’d like him to hang it with barn door hardware, I did an affirmative jig of joy, and the rest was history. If you follow along on facebook, you already know a little about this project that offered my dirty laundry some much-needed privacy.

Our Old Carriage House

You see, even though the door above is my side porch door, it’s the one everyone comes to when they visit. And it opens right into what used to be the old carriage house on our old farmhouse. The carriage house attached the house to the barn, providing a storage area–centuries ago–for carts and buggies. Today, not burdened with the storage need for a horse buggy, I plop my dirty clothes in the carriage house, which now serves as our laundry room.

Giving Something Old New Purpose

Needless to say, I was tickled pink when my hubby helped me come up with a plan to use this beautiful old door I unearthed in my barn attic AND hide my dirty laundry when company stops in.

Wanna know the bitter truths (and joys) of owning an old farmhouse? I wrote about those here.

Wanna know where you can unearth some rustic farmhouse treasures of your own? You will LOVE this site I just discovered–Antique Farmhouse.

The original door glass had long ago been replaced by plexiglass. Needing to, of course, hide my piles of laundry, I decided to paint the plexiglass with chalkboard paint.

DISCLOSURE: This post contains affiliate links. 

The Three Steps to Turning Plexiglass into a Chalkboard

The process was surprisingly easy. Kayla–my baker of all things amazing, from scratch (including 4-layer chocolate cakes and grandma’s strawberry pie–go here for the amazing pie recipe), my hard-working entrepreneur, and my bovine-loving cow owner–decided to help me out and add “chalkboard paint extraordinaire” to her long list of accomplishments.

The three simple steps:

1. Sand the plexiglass lightly.
2. Coat the plexiglass with 2 layers of primer, waiting for each to dry well. We used a foam roller brush to do this.
3. Paint on chalkboard paint in thin layers. We did 2 layers, using paint we bought, but you can certainly make your own as well. Two crafty sisters, Elise and Emma, show you how in this post on A Beautiful Mess.

If you would like more detailed, printable directions, I share a full-color printout instructional booklet in my subscriber library. (Just type in your email at the bottom of this post, and you’ll have immediate access. It’s super easy peasy.)

I decided to keep all the original patina on my old door, leaving the front a red, not unlike the color of our house, and the back side an awesome, worn, gray that I love. I just scrubbed the door clean and let my husband hang it for me. The rest is history. Including my fear of drop-in guests perusing my piles of wet towels and dirty socks.

Now when I step from my laundry room into my front hall, I love wondering what hands fumbled with an old difficult key in that lock and what stories the door could tell me. But I also enjoy seeing how my own family history–displayed in heirloom photographs hanging in the same hall–is now part of the century’s worth of stories held within these old clapboarded walls.

If you’d like to hang an old door like a sliding barn door, this kit right here is really all you need. (affiliate link)

My Resource Library includes a full-color instructional booklet showing the steps for how we painted a chalkboard over the old plexiglass that someone once put in my farmhouse door. 

And how about that–Look who’s craftiness made #9 in this list of upscale DIY projects. Before you know it, everyone is gonna need an old door and some barn door hardware!

Other Excitement Around the Farm

Meanwhile, along with my old/new door excitement and Kayla’s continual baking, I love gardening with my teens, and I’ve been eagerly counting down the weeks until Scout’s calf arrives (my daughter’s Holstein is due to give birth soon). One daughter is running an Artist Trading Card online trade. Oh, and we can’t wait to go wild blueberry picking!

Just in case any friends or family happen to peruse this post and wanna, ya know, snag a gift for me sometime, (Ahem. cough. cough.) I’ll plop this amazing website link here…

Btw, Bill, honey, don’t stress too much over which item to get me for my next birthday over on Antique Farmhouse. Pretty much anything on there would make me happy…

The Escapades of A Barn Kitten

And now for the latest installment of The Life and Times of the Spoiled Barn Cat… (Play dramatic music.) I shared  last week that I wasn’t sure if Teddy understood the job description of a barn cat, since he seemed to have no idea what to do with a field mouse who crossed his path. While he still wasn’t sure what the second step entailed, he did indeed catch a mouse this week. Didn’t keep it for long, but he did catch it. So we’re making on-the-job progress.

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Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschool, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

 I will restore… my people, and they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them; They will also plant vineyards and drink their wine, And make gardens and eat their fruit. “I will also plant them on their land, And they will not again be rooted out from their land which I have given them,” Says the Lord your God. Amos 9: 13-15

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If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (Psssst, we always include a personalized password reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

The post I love my new (old) door hung as a barn door first appeared on Souly Rested.

The Joys of Owning an Old Farmhouse

Walls, ceilings, and floors will never line up correctly. Anywhere. But the exposed beams make up for a plethora of crooked corners. 

Sagging floor boards will never be muted. But wide planks, boasting marks of hand planing, justify the loud crankiness of the wood.

Original windows, if we’re lucky enough to have a few that have survived, will never open easily. But sunlight bending romantically through handblown panes makes up for the window’s aged stubbornness.

Every job will be harder than you think. But treasures abound.

I am blessed to live in a 215-year-old cape with exposed beams; old, wide pine floors; and a few original windows in the hall that connects the house to the barn. It used to be the carriage house. I’ll confess I had no idea what that was when I was informed our home used to have one. But it’s exactly what the name implies. It’s the area that housed the carriages. The owner would drive in his horse-drawn carriage, unharness the horses, and walk them into the adjacent barn.

This is where our hand-blown panes have survived, because they were long ago enclosed from the weather by a front porch that stretches across the front of the used-to-be carriage house. In this picture, dated 1900, it looks like there is just a simple roof across the front of the carriage house, but that alone provided some protection for the windows, which were old even then.

The Old Windows

I showed off one fun relic that our pigs rooted up in the field right here, in this live video. And I show you the alternative that the homeowners installed on our old windows (in place of what they tossed in their dump area). Pretty neat stuff:

Wanna know the 3 Secrets An Old-Home Owner Might Never Tell You?

Wanna know where you can unearth some rustic treasures of your own? Keep reading! (Or go here if the suspense is killing you.)

The Uncovered Relics

But our current project of clearing fields, to prepare for a dairy cow, has been much harder than we anticipated. It has also unearthed treasures that would seem like landfill material to some but mean the world to us, knowing they are integral to the story of the last two centuries of life on our little corner of New England.

I love to repurpose my relics… help old things become new again. Antique bottles become perfect waterers.

And beautiful light catchers.

Old barrels and cast iron pans? Wonderful herb gardens.

Old doors? Wonderful “new” room dividers.

But some relics will remain where we found them for a little while longer, at least until we are ready to cut down some trees…

Although I feel very blessed, I’m also feeling just a little, well, older. Today happens to be the first day of my 47th trip around the sun. Maybe that’s why I love making old things new again. As my curls get a little grayer and my body gets a little crankier, I’m looking forward to the day that God makes all things new. Until then, I’ll just keep digging around our homestead and repurposing the old treasures I uncover.

Just in case any friends or family happen to peruse this post and wanna, ya know, snag a birthday gift for me (Ahem. cough. cough.) I’ll plop this amazing new-found website link here…

Btw, Bill, honey, don’t stress too much over which item to get me over on Antique Farmhouse. Pretty much anything on there would make me happy…

Although I enjoy altering trash, I’m so thankful for one valuable treasure I know will never change: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:22-24) As I open my eyes tomorrow morning and look forward to another year… my 47th year… and a day of celebrating my beloved country, I will rejoice in His steadfast love.

Happy Independence Day!

Articles about our old farmhouse:

Refinishing our old wide-plank pine floors

An old farmhouse at harvest time

Making pie in an old farmhouse kitchen

3 Secrets Old Home Owners Won’t Tell You

Take a tour of our vintage chicken coop:

Join me live as I show you the treasure our pigs uncovered in a field this week:

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Revelation 21:5

Pin this for later!

Click on the image below to pin this post.

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

And please join in on my resource library. I’m often adding sweet bonuses.

Please take a second to follow along here on SoulyRested to catch up on a few of my memorable mishaps, discover fascinating things about my centuries-old farmhouse, glean a little parenting/homeschooling insight from this momma who’s been failing at the effort for almost 2 decades, or enjoy the inside scoop on the secrets other legit homesteaders might not tell you.

I hope my focus always encourages you, because simple joys require hard work. Let’s face it, we all need all the encouragement we can get! As soon as you subscribe (in the box at the end of this post), you’ll have immediate access to my Resource Library, which includes many useful printables, my FREE EBOOKs, and amazing recipes for things like whoopie pie cookies, maple sap switchel, and my grandmom’s perfect pie crust.

The post The Bitter Truths (and joys) of Owning an Old Farmhouse first appeared on Souly Rested.

DISCLOSURE: This post contains affiliate links.

I’m a person of stories. I take them in. I chew on them. And I retell them. All the time.

Sometimes one daughter enlightens me about the latest livestock fact she learned on a homesteading website while we turn over a new garden bed. Sometimes another daughter describes detailed plays from last night’s softball game while we rake, side-by-side. Grandparents, painted rocks, country songs, varieties of tomatoes, and life cycles of snapping turtles–they’re all topics of different discussions that we amble through, or synopses of different stories that we weave together, while we work side by side. They’re moments of investment into a lifelong relationship with my children.

There’s always plenty of work to do, and the stories my daughters tell while we work makes the effort a little effortless. But something else also makes our work worthwhile: Our labor around our 217-year old homestead often uncovers intriguing signs of others who have worked this land long before us. They are indeed the number one reason I an thankful to live in a 217-year-old farmhouse: Rusted, bent, and broken treasures, ripe with history lessons. For me, the most thrilling part of the find–after wondering about its story–is figuring out a way to use or display my newly found treasure.

It’s an easy choice if the treasure is an old brown bottle. A battery of amber jars enlivens my kitchen ledge by the back door, and I’m always happy to add one more to the ranks.

After we discovered an old abandoned dump on our property last fall, we always have a place to go if we feel like pretending we’re archeologists. And old jars are always in plenty.

Wanna know the 3 Secrets An Old-Home Owner Might Never Tell You?

Wanna know where you can unearth some rustic treasures of your own? Keep reading! (Or go here if the suspense is killing you.)

Every bottle has a story. One of my favorite was the bottle that still had its original lid, screwed on tight, but a beautiful green plant was growing inside.

The clear glass had leaf-shaped indents embossed on its sides and capital letters, that bent like vines, spelling out “WILDROOT.” That jar sat in my window ledge about six months–all winter–as a pretty terrarium. (The plant has since dried up but still enchants me. I’ll admit it, I’m weird like that–dusty, old, dried up things are usually to my liking.)

As I researched the bottle’s markings, I felt that I was introduced to the gentleman who lived in this little cape up on the hill, where the lake empties into the river, almost a century ago. A reserved man who was a little embarrassed about his premature hair loss. Turns out “WildRoot” was a popular solution to that age-old dilemma in the 1920s. How fitting that the bottle went on to house a true Wild Root.

But I need a purpose for all of the buckets full of bottles my resident archeologists drag home on rainy days (when there’s nothing better to do, of course, than to go digging in treasure-ladden mud).

Read here if you’d like to know what I find to be the bitter truths (& joys) of owning an old home.

Or snag a free copy of my ebook, Give An Old Door New Life, if you’d like to take on a new project of repurposing an old farmhouse door, or just check out how I did.

I also needed a less-labor-intensive way to keep my potted plants watered, on the not-so-rainy days, so the solution was obvious. I pulled out the jars with the longer, narrower necks and filled them each with water.

Then I turned them upside down (quickly) into a hole I pre-dug in each potted plant.

They’re industrious waterers, and around here that counts for a lot. If a good story gets thrown in once in a while, well we’re all the better for it.

So a few times a month I collect my bottles, fill them, and set them back in their respective pots (I do keep the same bottles with the same plants, so the holes in the dirt are always the perfect size), where they do weeks worth of watering for me.

Every time I fill my bottles, my curious hens come pecking around me. They’re always quick to trot to my corner of the fields when they spy me, thinking surely the reason I’m around is because I want to feed them. I do spoil my hens, in fact I adore my hens. They know I save any grubs or worms I see in the gardens and call them to partake of the treats. So if they see me, they tend to stay close by. I’ll admit it, I’m weird like that–I’m a goofy chicken lady. I can’t help it; no other pets have ever given me delicious, magical treasures every morning. (UPDATE–> We now are enthralled with another amazing treasure every day: glorious, fresh, delicious milk thanks to our sweet Holstein. And my favorite repurposed item to-date is my treasured door I found in the attic.)

I share about my beloved old door that I uncovered in my barn’s attic in this post.

While my feathered ladies enjoy a worm or two, and my old bottles keep my plants quenched, I revel in the stories that fill my days. The ones the chickens gabble and their rooster prattles. The silent stories the bottles whisper about the past as they do their job today.

And I have to tell you about another exciting find! I stumbled across this site that had me clapping my hands in giddy excitement. I probably shouldn’t admit this, huh? But any girl who loves discovering an old, muddy, cracked bottle is bound to act like a silly school girl when she discovers  Antique Farm House.  Any girl who’s favorite keyword search on Pinterest is “farmhouse” is bound to find 100s of things to love on this site. Any girl who is immediately addicted to checking this site for beautiful new deals every day will have to share it with all her friends!

So many of you all have reached out to me over the years and asked where you can find something similar to some of the found treasures I’ve shared in old posts… like my dove-tail chocolate box, or my old pendant light, or my enamel pans that I planted my succulents in. Usually the things I’ve shared on SoulyRested were rustic finds around our homestead.

I hated never having a good answer to your questions, since I dug my treasures out of my backyard midden or rescued them from my town’s give-and-take room. (Gosh I LOVE that room!)

I can’t tell you how happy I am that I’ve found an online source for you all to unearth similar treasures for yourself! I mean, just look at these treasures pictured here! Just click the images below and peruse for yourself!

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And then there are the yet-untold stories of our family as we work on this land for the time we are here. The same land where others have grown old before us, and dealt with hair loss, aging bones, and achy muscles. But as I grow old here, I will always be telling stories, and all of them will circle back to God’s goodness in placing us here and guiding the scripts of the chronicles being written on this little plot of land.

Please follow along!

Please take a second to follow along here on SoulyRested to catch up on a few of my memorable mishaps, discover fascinating things about my centuries-old farmhouse, glean a little parenting/homeschooling insight from this momma who’s been failing at the effort for almost 2 decades, or enjoy the inside scoop on the secrets other legit homesteaders might not tell you. I hope my focus always encourages you, because simple joys require hard work. Let’s face it, we all need all the encouragement we can get!

As soon as you subscribe, you’ll have immediate access to my subscriber library of resources, which I’m continually adding to. It includes my popular eBooks and lots of homesteading-related resources, including a DIY print-out about how I turned my old door into a chalkboard.

The post Industrious Stories from an Old Farmhouse first appeared on Souly Rested.

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Signs of spring

A 12-inch yellow ball brings one daughter joy six days out of every week. . .

Bare, muddy feet make another feel elated every afternoon. . .

Delicacies in the mud are a routine breakfast for happy hens. . . .

And clothes once again snap in the breeze and warm in the sun most mornings. . .

Spring has most definitely danced her way into our rural neck of the New England woods. But my lilacs heralded her arrival back in February. With multiple feet of snow still on the ground, the green buds promised warm weather would again return to our homestead. Last week those buds were transformed into deep-purple promises.

And yesterday’s blooms opened and glistened under raindrops.

Of course our new bees LOVE lilacs, so it’s only fitting that I love making lilac-infused honey, no? If you’d like to try your hand at making some, trust me it’s oh-so easy! Check it out right here.

Also, be sure to read up on these 4 simple tips every lilac owner needs to know–tips from a professional horticulturalist.

How to Make Lilac Syrup

While the blooms are wonderful in their own right, they also make sweet, delicious Lilac Syrup.

For directions, click here:

Or, so you’ll have it for later,

PIN the post about DIY Lilac Syrup, and

PIN this post about the history of the lilac bush.

The history of the lilac

They bathe four different areas of our farm with deeply perfumed color every May (by the front door, the horse stables, the front stone wall, and the back stone wall).

But the ones by the front door are my favorite.

I linger in their shade and wonder who else may have done the same over the past two centuries. Indeed, these lusciously blooming branches may be from the original lilacs planted in that very spot. We learned some fascinating facts about the lilac bush when a daughter and I completed a simple page about lilacs in our Backyard Book. (Our Backyard Book has become a treasured way my children learn about natural science and it’s also become a treasured family heirloom. If you’d like to know more, I wrote all about it in this post.)

You see, when our home was built (circa 1800), it was customary to have lilacs by the front door so one could enjoy their scent when entering.

They were a new, hardy shrub brought over from England at the time. They lost favor as time went on. Many preferred newer varieties of flowering bushes that offered longer bloom time.

When I came across this tidbit of history–that it was popular to plant fragrant lilacs by the front door–I immediately inspected the old photograph we inherited with our home, dated 1900. There is definitely a tall, leggy bush at the front, right corner of the cape, in the same spot where our branches of purple joy stand today.

Scroll down a little more to view a video explaining the history of the lilac on our old homestead and showing off one of our lilacs in bloom (not to mention the crazy adorable barn kitty).

And if you’re in the market for a lilac bush, I can’t recommend Nature Hills enough. I truly think they may have the best lilacs you’ll find anywhere. And they’ll ship them right to your door! Cause they’re the largest online nursery with the best customer service ever.

Wanna know the the bitter truths (and joys) of owning an old farmhouse? I wrote about those here.

Wanna know where you can unearth some rustic farmhouse treasures of your own? You will LOVE this site I just discovered–Antique Farmhouse.

Being thankful where God has planted me

When I cut a sprig and place it in a carmel-colored antique bottle that I uncovered on our property’s old midden, I wonder about all the hands that may have nurtured my lilacs through the years and the hands that emptied my bottle and tossed it aside.

And I am thankful.

I am thankful that today it is my hands that have the pleasure of working on this homestead, where God himself has planted me.

The story of our old farmhouse & Old English lilacs

We also learned that Lilac Syrup is super easy to make and extra yummy. Read more about Lilac Syrup in this post. And follow over on facebook for fb lives, like this one all about our lilacs:

I have planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock.  Jeremiah 2:21

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Many readers often ask what camera I use to take the images you find here on SoulyRested. I love my Nikon; you can read more about my camera on my Resources page and even purchase your own here. Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

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The post History of the Lilac Bush first appeared on Souly Rested.