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.”)

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

There’s a story I love to tell about the house with golden windows. (I’m not just a crazy chicken lady and homesteading homeschool mom; I’m also a professional storyteller, so I have a few stories tucked away that tend to spill out sporadically. )

The Longing

A sweet, hard-working farm boy thinks another home, far across the long valley, is the epitome of a perfect life. Every evening he rushes to complete his farm chores, longing to lean against the barn–during those magical minutes of promise as the sun is setting–and peer north. He squints, and he quietly waits. Most evenings he is rewarded with a glimpse of a magical house that is surely filled with joy, ease, and perfection.

When he catches sight of the house with the golden windows gleaming in opulence, he longs to know what life would be like in that luxury.

The Journey

So when his father gives him a Saturday off, when he is free to spend his hours in any way he chooses, he has no hesitation. He packs some hard boiled eggs, apples, and water and tells his momma he won’t be back until long after supper.

When he reaches the place he has been desiring to see in all its glory, up close, he assumes he miscalculated his route. It’s just a homestead, not unlike his own. The fences are in need of repair, not unlike his own. The cow is complaining and mooing for her evening bale of hay, not unlike his own.

And the chicken, not unlike his own in these waning minutes of daytime, are scurrying for their roosts, across the yard that they have  scratched and dirtied all day.

The paint is peeling off of the barn’s clapboard and the home’s windows are simply made of old wavy glass, like the glass he peers out of every morning; it’s not the golden opulence he expected when he squinted toward this perfect mansion from afar.

A kind mother greets the youthful stranger on her doorstep, and an affable farm girl invites him into conversation while he helps her close up the coop and toss hay in the cow’s stall. He apologizes for being misdirected, explaining he set out this morning to find the amazing home he has always longed to live in, the home with lustrous golden windows.

The View

She tells him he has indeed come the wrong direction. She explains the opulent home he speaks of is in this valley, but it’s over on the far side, pointing over his right shoulder. He turns, looks back across the valley, and instantly realizes his foolishness of longing for something better, when indeed his home was the best of all for him. He realizes that his own home, far away, perched on the southern mountain of the lush valley, holds windows of gold when the evening sun reflects off of whatever house is across the valley from where you stand.

He realizes that his own home is shimmering in the sunset more brilliantly than any other could.

Sometimes we simply need separation from our daily blessings. A little distance changes our view. If we occasionally glimpse the value of the love and joy that we share with those whom we love, well, we occasionally see “home” in all its opulence. Only then can we understand that “home” is more valuable than other things we long for.

Hayley’s Perspective

I thought of that story when I saw my teen daughter’s recent photo of our home– our transom indeed looks golden, doesn’t it?– & read her blog post, after we recently sat down to create some Artist Trading Cards together.

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.

The post Making an Old Farmhouse Home first appeared on Souly Rested.

Needless to say, with that history of family farming comes a beautiful history of family stories. Family stories that are often treasured memories and unforgettable heartbreak woven together. The tapestry often turns out to be beautiful, in the end, and for that I am grateful. This past week my daughters and I had the privilege of spending hours in front of the wood stove with my parents, who were visiting from Delaware. We asked questions about their childhood memories and were enthralled with their recollections until the fire dwindled each evening. At times, the walls resonated with our tear-filled laughter. Other moments, we somberly, quietly listened to past heartaches that seemed so distant yet compelling, because they were literally a part of us.

We were appreciative to hear family stories about a few back-to-basic things that we’re now doing on our own homestead the way my grandparents did on theirs.

But we were also so content as we realized how blessed we are to be self-sustaining in little ways while enjoying modern conveniences and luxuries.

My grandparents had no medical resources to lessen their baby’s pain.

Rosa, my Dad’s mom, had an arduous labor, at only 17, with her first child. The baby girl, Pauline, was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Having no modern resources to help her manage the joint disease, she was crippled with pain until old age.

The captivating little girl in the photograph is my Aunt Pauline. I study her downward-turned eyes and the low corners of her mouth and I truly see my aunt, minus the wrinkles, chin rolls, orthopedic shoes, and awkward wheeled walker of my memories. Mostly, I recognize her melancholy that never left her. Back in the days of bell bottoms and banana bike seats, my parents and I would visit the doleful Pauline. We would sit in her small, stifling apartment whenever we traveled to the hilly poorly blacktopped streets of Cumberland, Maryland.

The picture gives me somber joy.

Previous generations faced grave heartaches we don’t know today.

Rosa’s third child, Catherine Grace (who, for a reason unknown to me, was called “Betty”), caught a cold her thirteenth winter that turned to strep throat and led to her death. Something that today requires a simple trip to the doctor’s and a stop off at the pharmacy led to a young teen’s funeral and a mother’s heartache. My dad, the next-to-last baby of the family of 12, doesn’t remember Betty, only a picture of her holding him, as an infant, in her lap. My heart sagged to hear he had no idea what became of that photograph. I’m praying that some day it surfaces and I can be its caregiver.

So I’ll never complain about a little hard work.

When I began typing this, I was watching the coal blackness of night turn to midnight blue morning hours in the glow of the fire and Christmas lights I’d turned on in the living room, listening to an icy snowy mix hit the windows, and waiting for a confirming call that my parents had arrived safely at the airport, where they boarded a pre-dawn plane and went back to their home. Now the telephone is the only gateway to our family stories. (Country folks forever, my parents refuse the modern technology of computers and Skype. They would surely refuse the modern convenience of flight if it didn’t offer such a smooth connection to their granddaughters.)

About the time they were exiting the Baltimore Washington International with luggage in tow, my daughter and I were trudging through winter’s first snowfall carrying steaming hot water for the animals, dishing out pellets of nutrition for the hens, and tossing hay to the cow.

If you’d like to know the story behind my family’s homesteading journey that none of us ever planned on, read here. (Or you can pin it for later right here.)

Our biggest homesteading mistakes along the way? Sadly, it’s a pretty long list that you can read here. (Because that’s a long detailed list–ugh–you definitely might wanna just pin that one.)

And you can read the #1 reason I can think of that you may decide that homesteading is NOT for you in this post. (Or pin that one here.)

But I’m so thankful for modern comfort.

Snow scrunched under my boots, with the accompaniment of Scout’s soothing moos, ducks’ bantering, and the rooster’s morning song, and I was thankful. Thankful for a rich history of family farming. Thankful to live life on a rural farm, and yet even more thankful to do so in a world full of comfort and advantages.

Deeply mindful of the treasures and heartbreak that have been woven into my personal tapestry of gratitude, I watched Bixby beckon me to his morning routine of fetch…

His exuberant tail and face full of freshly fallen snow, in which he’d already buried his nose, reminded me that in any season, in any century, we should look back with appreciation and run forward with joy.

Meet Bixby in this post and find out how we trained him to be chicken-friendly when we brought home free-ranging hens. (That’s a great one to pin for later if you think you might ever need it!)

“Walk in him,  rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” Colossians 2:6

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

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The post Wanna be a modern homesteader? You need to have THIS attitude. first appeared on Souly Rested.

As a writer, I wholeheartedly agree with the Russian author.

As a teacher, I instruct my students to interrogate all of their readers’ senses.

As a New Englander, looking forward to the approaching Harvest Moon that will bathe our homestead in cool, penetrating splendor in the crisp autumn stillness, I have to rephrase Chekhov’s truism.

On September 27th, when we amble across our moon-illuminated fields and rest in our hammocks under the apple branches, or when we move our picket fence gate to the side and inspect our corn crop or tap our watermelon to test their ripeness, I might remind my daughters, “The Harvest Moon has lit these fields for generations before us. But tonight just might be one of those simple moments that is worthy of being remembered as great. Write about this moment and keep it for the next generation. Tuck away your words and unfold this moment again some day, to show your own daughter.”

Along the lines of Chekhov’s theme, I will tell them, “Don’t just tell her that the moon was shining, but show her how the cool light highlighted the apples bowing over our rope hammock and bleached the corn silk standing regally in the garden rows.”

If you have the privilege of driving a New England backroad this fall–one that bends around mountains and opens to bold autumn vistas or humble sugar shacks tucked under glowing yellow maple trees–and if you’re here on one of the last days of this month, be sure to not miss this “other” New England beauty.

Yes, we’re known worldwide for our fall foliage that bedazzles our rolling forests with colors yet unnamed.

But we have another Autumn jewel as well… the Harvest Moon.

She’s the quiet but oh-so-bold luminary who has lit our rocky fields every fall, for every generation before us. The generous Harvest Moon has shed her accommodating light over New England farmers since that first brave man and woman turned over their own patch of the rocky soil. The mountainous, granite-rock-covered land can be so unforgiving. The arduous farmers must have been grateful to glean a bounty from her. I’m certain the gracious lunar light that extended their profitable working hours for many harvest days in a row also extended their gratitude.

And this September, we’ll even enjoy the extra-large size of a supermoon. It earns that recognition because this year’s Harvest Moon will be full on the same night that it is closest to the Earth.

Yet we know the moon, regardless of appearances, never actually changes size. So why does the Harvest Moon appear to be so enormous? Well, plenty of scientifically minded folks, who know way more about the cosmos than little ole me, still don’t agree on this. But I’ll give you my two-cent description. (This is based on lots of reading; don’t think for a minute I actually came up with this hypothesis.) You see, when the full moon hangs on the horizon, there are plenty of things surrounding her–trees, houses, mountains–and those things are so tiny compared to her that she eclipses them and makes us think she’s larger than when she’s in her everyday habitat. Up in her usual setting–high in the great expanse of night–the moon is dwarfed by huge amounts of blackness.

But regardless of how large she appears, the Harvest Moon was beloved by farmers because unlike typical full moons, she wakes up as soon as her brother, Sun, tucks his head down for the night. In fact, for many days in succession, she works hard continually illuminating the crops. In the days when our old Cape was first built here, where the lake spills into the river and provides irrigation to a thirsty farm, the Harvest Moon would have been relished. Because for well over a century after our Cape was constructed, the farmers who lived on this land had no tractor lights to help them harvest past sundown.

Turns out September 27th’s Harvest Moon will even be a lunar tetrad too, but that’s getting way too scientific for my little language-arts brain to describe, so you’re gonna have to google that one.

Just promise me if you’re out under New England’s Harvest Moon and you see a little red Cape nestled by the river and bathed in generous moonlight, promise you’ll think of me.

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The post Don’t Miss this Autumn Jewel: the Harvest Moon 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

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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.

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.

DISCLOSURE: This post contains affiliate links. 

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.

There where the lake greets the river in rolling melodies, spilling over the dam, the full moons of many Septembers have certainly rolled their bright lullabies over the humble clapboard walls and lofty shingled roofs of the unassuming home, stretched carriage house, and formidable barn.

There, close to the marshy river bank where moose have made evening stops for centuries, iridescent moonlight has danced over the tassles of ripened corn husks many times before tonight.

But tonight I am the one harvesting.

Reaping in the beauty of the billowing poufs of clouds as they soar through the sapphire dome overhead.

Gathering new perspectives on the beauty of night that I usually don’t traverse.

Gleaning a small insight into God’s unfathonable majesty.

I was up too late, as usual. The dogs, already asleep for hours in remote corners, stumbled to the back door when I beckoned them for their last stop outside before retiring to their cages for the evening. Having heard mention of tonight’s moon being  a Harvest Moon, I joined Maggie and Bixby in their jaunt out back. The bleached clouds, cobalt blue firmament, and ringed, colored orb begged me to linger. Maggie moonbathed by the back door, while Bixby and I ambled through the back field, down to the gardens.

Harvest time always gives something to be thankful for.

Seeing the garden vines and plants–a summer’s worth of daily effort–basking in the ancient light, thinking of the generations of farmers who had harvested their crops on this land by the light of the same Harvest Moon, I was so thankful for Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who provides.

He provided this home for our family. Provided the warmth of the summer sun to cultivate the promise of her garden. Provided the extra light of the lingering moonlight every year at harvest time, when more light was needed in the face of shortening days and lengthening amounts of work.

You might wanna know these 8 Things Wannabe Homesteaders Need to Know in the Fall. (I learned some the hard way.)

Harvest time is accompanied by the beautiful Harvest Moon.

The bright full moon of September has been aptly called the Harvest Moon even longer than our modest cape cod home has stood on its small wooded plot. Even longer than our meek New England town was even a thought in anyone’s mind. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the full moon closest to the autumn equinox has been referred to as the “Harvest Moon” since at least 1706. Because of the elliptical path of the moon at this time of the year, the time between sunset and moonrise is much shorter than usual, meaning the night sky is illuminated much longer, giving farmers an extended harvest time during those precious days of the full moon.

Harvest time gives us a chance to reflect.

For me tonight, it gave me time to garner insights into God’s breathtaking creativeness. Insights into the light he provides, so we don’t have to stumble in darkness. Insights that I will store away deep in my heart and unfold again one cold day when I need reminders of the warmth of our family’s first summer here, here in the home where God has placed us. Where he has planted us.

Little did I know just how much coldness was ahead of me on our first New England winter!

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Psalm 8:3-4

_________________________

I found this site very informative about the Harvest Moon and the upcoming Hunter’s Moon in October.

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!) box below:

Pin this for later!

Just hover over this image for the Pinterest logo.–>

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 lots of printables, including my popular eBooks and lots of homesteading-related resources, including a DIY print-out about how I turned my old door into a chalkboard.

And in my Resource Library you’ll find great fall recipes for yummy things like pumpkin bread, whoopie pie cookies, and maple sap switchel.

The post Reaping a Harvest first appeared on Souly Rested.

It had been six long weeks. Three of research: internet, calls, emails. Three of sharpening and scraping: inch by inch, board by board. Read more–the beginning of the story–here.

She helped me with devoted zeal and did more work than I… the daughter who always stares big jobs in the face, non-perplexed, and works till they’re done. The daughter who always respected history, even though science and math are her passions.

She did the math on this one, and the mechanical engineer convinced me, after three weeks of back-breaking hand scraping, it was time to bring in some help. Some mechanical advantage. (She was thinking we needed an orbital sander, like this one.) After all, there were no hand hewn marks left to preserve on over half of the wide plank floorboards. They had been trod for years, with no protection.

On that half of the room, we would use a hand sander and cut our efforts and time of labor to probably a fourth of the amount.

I Didn’t Want Modern Technology Harming Our Old Wide Plank Floors

She couldn’t convince me to allow her modern technology to take over all the old farmhouse floors.

In this northern land of preserved history, where you often turn many a mountain bend and see a Cape Cod like ours greeting you with its symmetrical simplicity and high pitched roof, there were many people I could talk to about preserving our old floor.

To some, it was too common. Not respected enough.

Many flooring experts with thick, lazy drawn out “r”s were eager to help my “flah-bahds” by bringing out their big drum sanders to perfect and modernize my floor. Quickly scrape away multiple layers of uneven, hand hewn uniqueness to each board, leaving me with a floor like I could probably buy at Home Depot. They didn’t pause to offer any amazement at my floor’s endurance, how she had weathered two centuries of wear and yet was still strong under her scars.

But I was determined that this one Cape Cod, the one that sprawls out where the lake meets the river, the one that tucks behind the maples at the bend in the road, it would not have a modern floor.

I Was Almost Convinced

Yet there were experts who did respect the age and character of my weary farmhouse’s wide pine floor boards. And they were gently honest with me. These men conversed with me me at the barn dance.

Or we chatted beside the home baked whoopee pies for sale in the country store.

They coached me. These men, local builders or carpenters, had themselves spent countless hours and exerted extreme efforts on their knees over antique pine boards. They tenderheartedly pointed out that my method was still scraping away the original hand hewn marks.

These men, like me, were lovers of history that one can walk barefoot across, lovers of history that one can literally feel in ones toes, and they all kindheartedly told me, over the course of back-breaking, discouraging weeks, that my methods were not truly preserving the history. Adding a little mechanical advantage was not only okay, they assured me, but also might save my sanity.

I listened but wasn’t ready to give up yet. It became a battle of me and these old floorboards against the world.

Then I Gave Up

Then the day came. I collapsed. I flung back and sprawled out across the scraped, dusty pine like a child ready to make an angel imprint in the snow. There, looking up at my low, wood beamed ceiling, I gave up.

I simply had no energy left in me to continue my plight. Looking at the minuscule ground my daughter and I had scraped away at over the course of almost four weeks, looking at the rough (I had to admit) ugly results of my efforts, and looking at the smooth efforts of her hand sander, I realized I had been wrong.

Here in the boards that had been rather easily sanded (on the right) I saw more proof of the hand hewn marks made 214 years ago than I did in my ridiculous efforts.The stain had penetrated darker into the deeper hewn areas and it would always be darker. Always bear testimony to the hard, almost forgotten labor of the pit saw crew . I couldn’t feel the dips any longer, but I could see them. In the boards we had scraped (on the left), we lost both the feel and the sight of those marks. So I gave up, but did so gladly.

The next morning I started investigating vibratory sanders. Beside the General Store’s whoopee pies and over strains of barn dance music, I had been assured by the kindhearted experts that vibratory sanders were much gentler than drum sanders and they would enable me to preserve my floors with tenderness. I was ready to try.

Turned out, I could rent a vibratory sander that measured 12″ x 17.” Perfect for my wide plank patriotic floorboards, rebellious by their very nature.

Their width was, afterall, illegal when New England was subject to the British crown. The king declared all large pines were for British naval masts. But this post explains more.

Why I Used an Orbital Sander on Our Old Wide Plank Flooring

I could sand them individually, without smoothing out their unique, hand-hewn edges. I thought it’d be two days, one for sanding and one for applying top coat, and I’d be done. That was a week and three days ago. Granted, she was right (my engineer), adding mechanical advantage made the job much more manageable, but let’s just admit it right here, right now:

The words “easy” and “antique floor refinishing” can never be uttered in sentences of even close proximity.

Yet, most definitely “rewarding” and “beautiful” and “worth the effort” may all be belted out boldly in the same flooring discussion.

The most amazing fact about my patriotic floorboards? They were officially given new life on the very day that celebrates independence.

A voluminous dose of 24 hours worth of rainstorms canceled our small town’s Independence Day parade and fireworks display but led to a true revival worthy of celebration in the little Cape Cod tucked behind the maples at the bend in the road.

How Our Wide Plank Floors Look Today

They’re still in need of a light sanding, another good cleaning, and multiple more top coats, with an all-natural coating made from–believe it or not–cheese whey. Read more about that here. But boy when they’re done, I’ll be hosting a one-person parade on these patriotic floorboards. Followed by barefoot dancing. (It’ll be a two-person parade and dance if I can convince the engineer to prance and promenade with me.)

For one evening though, I put down my sandpaper and knee pads. I reveled in the rain-date firework display celebrating true American strength, persistence, and endurance. In fact, surely I enjoyed the breathtaking symbols of American steadfast determination even more than I would have before I became a liberator of beautiful patriotic floors.

More Details About our Old New England Farmhouse:

More about antique wide-plank pine floors 

What I learned by refinishing old floors the hard way

Why we moved from suburbia to this old farmhouse.

3 Secrets Old Farmhouse Owners Won’t Tell You

 

Talk to me!

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig to show me your farmhouse details @souly.rested.

 

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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.

 

I’d love to connect!

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

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The post This old wide plank flooring was worth saving first appeared on Souly Rested.