Industrious Stories from an Old Farmhouse

Last Updated on June 20, 2024 by Michelle

Problems abound when one chooses to live in a structure that was built over two centuries ago. Rotted foundations. Falling walls held up by a turnbuckle. The list goes on. Even so, I have many reasons I’d choose to live nowhere else.

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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.

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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.)

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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).

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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.

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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.)

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

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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.

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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.