Free Range on Fairview

I have spent the last few days trying to plan out an uncertain school year and finishing up all the summer projects I thought I would get to before it is officially over. Organizing our living and school spaces, check. Making calendars and thinking about back to school shopping, check. Vision appointments made (although of course not until after our schedule gets jammed packed with everything school), check. Permit for Shane to start the big garage project finally, check. Today I poured over Pinterest after running last minute errands, and finally decided I would just have to make my own printable to find the aesthetic and available items from our property to make my vision come to reality.  Behold the Watercolor Nature Scavenger Hunt! I created the template, then hand painted the images and scanned it all in together. It's fantastic that I was 35 years old when I finally learned how to create and link a PDF document. You're welcome. The scavenger hunt printable is designed to

Each day our first round of chicks keep growing and thriving and it has been so fun to watch. Since we have one more round of chicks in an incubator and the whole world is at home wondering what to do, we thought it would be fun to bring you along for the ride. According to my calculations we are currently around day 16/17 of embryo development for these Americana and Olive Egger chicks to give you an idea. If you are going to be following along on our egg hatch this coming week then I found a few mostly free resources for you to share with your kids to enrich the process. Worksheets Handwriting and Simple Coloring Sheets (free): https://inallyoudo.net/chicken-life-cycle-coloring-pages-free/ Life Cycle Work Sheets: https://www.livinglifeandlearning.com/chicken-life-cycle-worksheets-for-kids.html Life Cycle of a Chicken Printable Poster Set (free): http://www.communication4all.co.uk/Science%202/Life%20cycle%20of%20a%20chicken%20poster%20set.pdf Egg Letter Car

In response to all of the parents who are asking what they are supposed to do all day with their kids just remember we have all been given something we always complained we didn’t have enough of: TIME. We now have plenty of time for the foreseeable future to spend time sitting down together and using time to get back to the basics. You don’t have to set up a rigid schedule, but if that’s helps you then do it! Right now we have the time to teach table manners as we sit down to meals together. We have time to talk, question, and discover. We have time to practice new hobbies, dreams, and skills.           If you are still looking for resources there seem to be an unlimited supply of online resources which we will be wholeheartedly using, but I challenge you to look beyond that. Practice the basics.  Math: Numbers, adding/subtracting, patterns, fractions, multiplying, long division, percentages. All without a calculator. Practice telling time with an analogue clock. Open a pr

Lately the boys have been big into my sourdough biscuits and for good reason! They are quick, hearty, and can go from sweet to savory in a matter of seconds. We love them with elk sausage country gravy but they are usually known to be topped with butter,  honey, jam, used as a sandwich, or just eaten cold for lunch. Flakey. Buttery. Comfortable. Just like me. This recipe uses all my tips to make it simple by not using fancy ingredients or tools. I followed the steps to make my own sourdough starter from the website farmhouseonboone.com and I am happy to report it is doing fantastically after keeping up on it. INGREDIENTS 1 cup flour 1/2 teaspoon salt  1/2 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons baking powder 6 tablespoons very cold butter (I prefer salted, but your choice)  1 cup fed sourdough starter 1. Preheat oven to 425°. 2. Mix together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder with a wisk or fork until well blended.  3. Trick time: Use a box grater! Grate t

The only problem with our mostly from scratch mostly real food kitchen, is that the inner minimalist hidden inside of me feels overwhelmed if I don’t stay on top of all of it. Luckily there is always a plan and most of this will be cleaned by the end of the day.  Elk sausage patties, short ribs in the instant pot with sweet potato jo jos and chipotle aioli, dishes will rotate but they are never ending, pinto beans soaking to turn into refried beans and more for a quick dinner when needed, eggs to trade with a friend, eggs to wash and use for breakfast today, and finally-sourdough starter freshly fed and waiting for the next experiment. I’m also going to attempt grilled chicken tenderloins for lunches, chopping veggies, and {if time permits} I’m out of sauerkraut so I want to start a new batch.

When they say parenting isn’t for the faint of heart, it is so true! I find that when parenting always seems easy then I am not actually doing the best job I can be doing. There are definitely moments of joy and success, but generally it takes a lot of hard work to get there. It’s easy to let  kids get their way to avoid a meltdown. It’s easy to let them do electronics all the time to buy a few seconds of time to yourself. It’s easy to spread yourself too thin to make sure your kids don’t miss out on a single opportunity in life and get to “do all the things.” It’s easy to let things slide until it feels like every moment of your life is a hot mess. It’s easy to loose my temper and yell when someone else is doing the same thing. I’ve written a lot in the past about the different stages of parenting. The physical exhaustion of the late nights with an infant or trying to keep toddlers from tearing down the house. The mental exhaustion of answering the never ending questions o

This weekend we bought the usual groceries and now the usual chicken feed, and while we were at the store I bought a new weeding hoe for the garden. This year we are slowly buying tools we will need for the larger and more unforgiving property slowly as we don’t have a big chunk of change to spend willy-nilly like we did last year when we sold the house and were remodeling. Each little purchase has to be determined if it is going to be worth it to make our lives easier or more enjoyable rather than a spur of the moment “throw it in” kind of attitude. My 9 year old and I took a silly photo  shoot and he thought they turned out dope so I just have to share. We also had the usual Ellensburg wind blowing so I’ve got some exceptional JLo hair going on in these photos as well. Other than the plethora of tools Shane already had, some of the tools we have slowly added to our homestead in the recent year, or hope to add include: Tractor with attachments Extendable tree trimmer an

There have been many changes around here since I stopped blogging about 5 years ago.  The kids have grown by feet and years.  We bought a fixer-upper on 2.08 acres across town and expanded our homesteading dreams. We've taken vacations and enjoyed being homebodies. I started working full-time as a special education paraprofessional. Shane got drums and a guitar and the tractor he always dreamed of. Our family grew with a new son-in-law and two beautiful grand babies. I got on Instagram and have enjoyed sharing pictures there and life has continued on.  Recently many people (ok three) have commented that I should have a blog because I seem to always be experimenting with something in the kitchen. Or out in the garden or chicken yard. Or doing something crazy or boring or fun with the kids. And since I have over 400 posts when I originally was blogging I thought I would try to revitalize this one and see how it goes! 

{ Originally started in May of 2015 and was recently found undocumented. The images aren’t great, but it’s a fantastic springboard for anyone looking for Whole30 ideas. } While I was planning my Whole 30 I liked looking at what people actually ate during their challenge and wanted to see if I could realistically follow the plan as well. I'm no 5-star chef. I am a mom who cooks real food for her family every day. I'm pretty simple and don't have the time or energy to be fancy all the time. Here is a complete list with many pictures while I followed the Whole30 Plan . No sugar. No grains or gluten. No dairy. No legumes. No alcohol. No soy. No guilt.  Mind you I am no food photographer and these were all taken from my phone but I still wanted to be able to share. No judging.  Day 1 April 6th (the day after Easter) B: Small diced sweet potato sautéed in ghee, 3 scrambled eggs, small homemade sausage patty L: Romain Lettuce Leave smothered in guacamole (Peakfe