I am a thirty-something year old FORTY (!!!) something-year-old, who finally got to move back outside of city limits. We now happily own a 1940/1950s 2 story house on 15.5 acres in the piney woods of East Texas.
We are striving to become as self-sufficient as we can. This will mean becoming debt free, raising our own food, and utilizing our land. As of the beginning of 2010, we have established a chicken flock, a duck flock, and a large ‘kitchen garden’, an herb garden, as well as a small orchard and grapevines.
*2017 Update* – We have our chickens, a big square foot garden space, some pear/fig trees, and muscadines.
About me: When I’m not cooking or cleaning, you can always find me in the garden. I enjoy sewing, reading, canning, budgeting, and all other sorts of homemaking skills. If it has to do with homemaking, I probably have either tried it or read a lot about it!
Come join the Sisterhood on Mary Jane’s Farmgirl Connection!
I am sister #1390! This is where you can find me now that I am gone from Facebook! Click the link to see what it’s all about. http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/snitz/
My Little Country 
I’m so happy for you. I’d love to come see you. I miss you.
Hey! I love reading this! Most of it out loud to Billy while LMAO!
You are too CUTE! I love love LOVE this blog. I WILL start at the beginning. The pictures and writing are absolutely darling. Great job and keep it UP! OXXO
Hope to see the country house soon…where everything begins! love, W
This is really cute. Will have to get some spare time to go back to beginning, but I’m very impressed with your writing. You should do a column for the paper !
haha everything you say is so true! And I love nothing more than to have a perfectly clean house but as you said it never stays that way for more than 3 minutes! Funny stuff! I wish I could be a stay at home mom, that is our long-term goal because I am going to home school Addie. I can’t wait!
LOVE your blog, you’re too funny 😀
Hugs from Marian/dutchy on MJF
This is great. I’m new to chickens ducks and computors. Came across your blog when i was on BYC. Im trying to get back to nature too. Going to keep looking you up to see what happens next.
I would love to know how you process your chickens. We are looking at much the same idea here in Smith County.
actually, if you will look up ‘Joel Salatin’ chicken processing on YouTube, this is the video I watched over and over before we processed our birds. We use one of those outdoor propane burners to heat the water. We have a day coming up. I’ll try to remember to take photos.
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I’ve just acquired a National treadle machine badged as Betsy Ross and am wondering if it is similar to yours? I’m looking for needle size and a threading diagram. Photos of my machine can be seen on my blog here. http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2013/10/when-betsy-came-home.html and I am hoping you can help me.
Thank you!
Bonnie Hunter
Quiltville.blogspot.com
Oh, I love this life. We are from the woods and coast and now in the city of Sacramento. I long to get back into the woods! I dream of having a big garden again, not this little one that basically has been feeding the raccoons and squirrels. I also have already planned in my mind what fruit trees I’ll be planting. I want chickens but they seem so hard yet easy? I have some blogs you may enjoy on getting out of debt. Lot’s of ideas on that since I spent 6 years getting out of debt.
Oh, yes! I need to show you some photos of our home when we lived in town… We dug up the whole yard and made a garden. Back then, I was more about ornamentals and not veggies, though! We planted so many fruit trees right years ago and I have one left! As we discovered, our place has some kind of blight which kills peach and plum trees… But I do have two pears and an apple! Lol. I will talk chickens anytime! I’d be happy to give you my advice from eight years of success and failure! I will definitely read more on your blog. That’s my new passion: becoming debt-free. Have a great Sunday!
Ooh, a blight. Bummer! I plant gardens in all my yards, however, we are getting close to buying our own home and I just can’t fully commit to this place. We also have dogs and children so the whole back yard has to be divided up for dog play, child play…soon we will have our own home and then I’ll need all kinds of advice on everything! Yes, I have a few books out on amazon. I just reduced them all to .99cents because a friend said they were books people needed, however, the ones that needed the advice couldn’t afford the books. Now they are cheaper than a gas station coffee so on one has any excuse. I saw the books you are reading and think you’ll love some of my blogs on budgeting and my books. I give them away free all the time if you have an ebook app. I love frugal talk and being thrifty. I love staying home so I must make sure we have a great budget so I never have to return to the rat race.
MsDoolittle – Been a little crazy here. Just had a right knee replacement and I ain’t been feelin’ so hot. I finally looked at all the pictures in Front Yard Gardens and these are the pages I really liked: 86-87, 155 (the gate), 177, 208, and 210.
Bless your heart! I hope you are feeling better now! I will have to go look later today. I’d love to be out in the yard but they are forecasting snow, so I’ll start planting some of my spring veggies indoors today!
Would love some occasional snow but it just doesn’t happen in FL. I have cherry tomatoes vining at the front steps. Finally starting to feel better but still doing the couch potato. 🙂