It’s easy to be apathetic about what kinds of books your child reads and is exposed to. After all, books are books, right? But if you’re more intentional, you become keenly aware of good books, or “living books” as they are sometimes called. You spend a lot of time combing through children’s literature and picture…
When we took the the plunge to enroll Fiona in preschool it felt like a monumental decision. (You may or may not know that both Barefoot Farmer and I work full time outside the home, along with our homesteading, so we need full-time childcare.) All of my mental energy had gone into making the decision…
New adventures abound here at the Barefoot Homestead, including a 5-day trek to (and thru) Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Have you ever been? It’s gorgeous! Each year, instead of hosting parties, we each choose a special adventure for our birthday. Mine happens to fall right after a holiday, so I usually get the benefit…
Our biggest investment of time and resources in our garden is definitely our elephant garlic. It’s a niche item that Bob learned to grow while working on a small farm as a teenager. Today, we cultivate about 1/2 an acre of it. It’s the perfect blend of simple and unique. Elephant garlic is more closely…
We were having a bit of a hard week when someone close whispered this bit of advice: Do something special, one of those things you have always wanted to do with her but never have the chance. Enter, homemade playdough. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s fun. We had an hour before lunch and nap time,…
Every day, she troops out to the barn to collect eggs. “Pick eggs? Pick eggs?” she pleads. She carries them back to the house so proud and, mostly, reverent in her task. Truly, she’s only broken one or two (like when she excitedly shows Daddy her find by knocking them together like rocks…). “Make eggs?…
Endings are so often also new beginnings; goodbye and hello in one fell swoop. Goodbye to college is hello to career. Goodbye to single life is hello to married life. Goodbye to freedom is hello to the joy of a wee babe. I experienced a heart-wrenching goodbye just before Christmas, when we unexpectedly and quite…
I’m joining The Nester to share #mycozyspringhome with you. Follow me on Instagram to get a peak at our home this spring!
I’ve read that making decisions is the hardest work our brains have to do. Choosing. Selecting. Deciding. It’s exhausting! Sometimes, though, it is in the making of decisions that our true priorities become apparent to ourselves. Is it convenience? Frugality? Relationship? Experience? What makes us make those decisions the way that we do? At what…
Have you ever had a period of internal struggle? Struggle to feel grounded. Struggle for rhythm. Struggle without slow or simple. We just came off of one rough month of changes for Fiona. When the nanny’s daughter came down with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease, Fiona spent 2 weeks with various caregivers as we plugged…
