It has been a long time since I have written a blog post. Life got a little crazy, I thought I would coming back writing a blog post about what we have been doing in our schooling this week. We learned about volcanos!
The kids and I made a volcano out of plaster. It’s a small volcano, we decided not to paint it. The kids wanted to get right to the erupting part🤣
The kids made the volcano erupt three times. ( we do not own the rights to the music/ lyrics in the song / theme playing in the video )
When baking soda is mixed with vinegar, something new is formed. The mixture quickly foams up with carbon dioxide gas. If enough vinegar is used, all of the baking soda can be made to react and disappear into the vinegar solution
My oldest picked the theme music for our volcano experiment. #pleasefollow #pleaseshare #thankyou #mjbackyardingwithkids #homeschooling #largefamily #volcanoweek #sci #homesteading #bakingsodaandvinegar
I’ve been having pain in my ribs. The doctor had thought I cracked my ribs, so they been having me take an easy, which has made things go very slow on my little homestead. ( I would have done this when I fell down the stairs) I did have x rays done but with how backed up things are it took them a while to get me into seeing the doctorand then 3 weeks to wait for the x rays. I finally got the test results back. I do not have cracked ribs; she thinks it’s a really bad pulled chest muscle. She still doesn’t want me lifting. With all this resting I’ve been having to do, I have decided that I want an akita puppy!
So now I’m on the hunt for one.
Even though I don’t have the pup yet, email me with name ideas!
The other day I was talking with a friend on what to do with milk gallons. There are many ideas out there but I wanted to use ours for gardening. My friend sent me a link for a video that uses milk gallon jugs for winter sowing. ( I’ll provide that link at the bottom) how he was using the jugs gave me a wonderful idea.
I would use them the way he was but a bit different. See my cats have were using my pots like they were a port of potty at a concert. I finally got them stop doing that by putting pine cones in the pots, but then my wonderful homesteading helpers started to pull out my plants and the seeds.
In the video you will see that he puts his outside for the winter sowing. For mine they will be kept indoors so I can continue to try to get my growing going year round.
You will need, milk gallon jugs, duct tape, knife, dirt, and your seeds.
For my supplies I also have packing tape. You will see that in the video he says not to use a sharpie because it will wear off. Being that mine are going to be indoors I just used a sharpie and then took some tape and put it over the writing. Put four holes in the bottom. Then cut around stopping at the handle.Fill with dirt and your choice of seedsTake your duct tape and tape up around your cut that you made. The jug will work at a mini greenhouse. I like it because now my cats can’t take my seeds/plants out. Leaving the cap off that way air flow happens and using this opening to water
I’m looking forward to this working and getting more planting done using this. Here the link for the video talking more about winter sowing. That is done differently than what I’m doing. For cold germination if needed I use the refrigerator. Most of the time I’ve had good luck not having to worry about doing that. way.https://youtu.be/SKXY6dl-5Tk
I love making my crafts. Normally I would make them and then try to find someone to give it to or just give it to one of my kids. Then someone said many years ago I should do Etsy shop, I always responded with..someday.
The reason for that response was and still is… FEAR. If I don’t put myself out there then I won’t have the feeling of that my art really wasn’t that good, or that I failed and no one went to my shop/didn’t make it as a small business person but if I don’t go through all this I will never know if people really do like my work.
In today’s world it’s not just about them liking it its about the likes, sharing, and the comments. Those are just as hard to get when your scared to try.
Someone asked me this morning what was my new years resolution. I normally do not make them. This year I think I will. Mine is to make my little shop work. To have more people see my art. To have more shares, likes, and hopefully comments! Happy new year to everyone, may this coming year be better for everyone.
When I first got into crafts I just had little stuff here an there throughout the house. When I got into sewing I started to take over my husband’s computer room ( he wouldn’t say I was taking it over lol but I was) getting into other crafts well then you need more items! My husband was slowly getting moved to the very end of the room and put in the corner 🤣. I lived sharing a room with my husband while he played his computer games I worked on my crafts but I needed more room. I finally moved all my items downstairs! I’m in love with having areas set up for my work.
An area for designing and printing, an area for working with my vinyl and mugs, and finally an area for my paintings. Part of my desk is used for #5 school books.
How was your Christmas? Ours was good. I have been busy with redoing the floors it was nice to have today to take a break. I got two bedrooms and the hallway done. I really like how the floor turned out. We had beige carpet through out the house. Which is a magnet for kids to spill or track dirt on.
I forgot to take a before photo this is a part of the carpet I cut out. It’s not that bad but the photo doesn’t show how dingy it looks either.
This is the new flooring I put in. Self adhesive vinyl. It’s called wood ash
I really like this flooring it was much easier than flooring I’ve done in the past. Next to do is my bathroom. What projects have you done? Show me outside or inside ones! Thank you to all who have emailed me a Merry Christmas that was nice of you to remember me. Can follow me on the links down below. My etsy page I’m still working on getting it going but soon I will have more ads.
Are you ready for Christmas? We kinda are. The kitty’s are having a lot of fun with the tree. I need to get cord things to put over the cords. They are trying to chew on them and have been sussful in chewing one of my cords. ( not they were not plug in)
My printer for doing my sublimation work on my mugs is not printing. I’m hoping that after I clean it out ( thinking I have dried ink ) it will start working again. Then I will be able to start making gifts again!
With every homestead there comes s time when you decide to continue on with a certain type of livestock or to go a different route. For me I have decided that I will not be continuing on with the coturnix quail.
I’ve had fun with them for the past five years. But as of right now they do not serve a purpose on our homestead. The quail I do have will live out their lives. I want to work more with my mearns quail and the girls ( chickens ) when we move ( and we are looking at land as I write this) then we will be getting some other breeds of chickens I’ve had my eye on for some time now.
If anyone does need advice on quail or help I will still be here and will answer the emails just like I always do.
Bringing in a new plant is fun an exciting… until you find out that one new plant has spider mites!
Annoying little bastards! There are many different ways people say to get rid of them.. there is the biological control such as ladybugs, lacewings, and predatory mites,I have tried the ladybugs in the past for my rose bushes they did a great job. There are also some who say essential oils work.. I have not had any luck with this or with making the pepper extract. I have also tried neem oil this did not work either some have said they had luck with it.
The dish soap – mixing 3 tables of dish soap with a gallon of water and then spraying it on the leaves. I also have not had much luck with this in the past. What I’m going to try this time around is rubbing alcohol – soaking the cotton ball in the Rubbing Alcohol and then wiping the leaves then a few hours later rinse of the leaves. Some say do one part water and one part rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle.
Then there is always the other way of bagging up the plant and tossing it in the trash and then staring over. There are many other ways to try an get rid of spider mites do research and find what way would work best for you there are some other ways I didn’t list. Remember to always check your new plants before bringing them into your garden!
I normally keep my seeds in a large basket. I wanted another way! So I went online and did some research and I found a cool way to keep the seeds the way I want.
A seed binder!
I found sleeves that you would normally use to save post cards/ photos to hold the seeds.
In the sleeve pack I got came with 50 sleeves. Some people like to alphabetize their seeds I think that is awesome and maybe someday I will do that also. Right now I have my seeds in what order I’m comfortable with.
Here is a video of everything in the binder ( not the seeds I have harvested from my own plants I couldn’t fit those in) please excuse my chipped nail polish it’s hard to keep nails done when your doing lots of outside work! #seedbinder #ineedmoresseds #mjbackyardingwithkids #homesteading #gardening #seeds #reallylikingthisway #pleasefollow #pleaseshare #thankyou
Backyarding And Kids 