Life in a old Farmhouse

Hello dears,  here is a small escape for you, it maybe for just a moment~ however, let your cares melt away!  My hopes and prayers is that each one of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas.  There is so much to be grateful for, and in my heart I am so very grateful for so many blessings.

"Winter is the time for comfort, 

for good food and warmth, 

for the touch of a friendly hand and 

for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home."

- Edith Sitwell

 

Proverbs 3:5

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; 

and lean not unto thine own understanding.

May your days and hearts be filled with love, joy, peace and hope!

Psalms 62:8 - Trust in him at all times; 

ye people, pour out your heart before him: 

God is a refuge for us. 

Theses photos are not mine, they are just pins that I have collected on pinterest.

 Please visit PINTEREST to see the credits of all these beautiful photos! 

Life in this 1817 farmhouse

About twelve or so years ago, we used to live in this old 1817 farmhouse ~ I grew up in a farmhouse when I was a little girl, but when I got married and I got away from the farmhouse life. 

We found this farmhouse to rent, and our plans were to buy or build a house later.  Little did we know that this old farmhouse would become home to us for the next 13 years.   I found out later that this house used to be an log cabin.

I remembered the first day of January in 1998 when we peeked into these farmhouse windows, I felled in love with this little place.  

It was only $300.00 a month for the next thirteen years.  It was such a cheap place to live with its well water and wood stove for heat.  This farmhouse taught me how to slow down and lived a more simpler life.

 

 

This farmhouse had two bedrooms down stairs, a living room, one bathroom, a kitchen, a laundry room and a large attic room.  Two of my girls used to sleep in the attic when the weather allowed them to.  In the winter, it was too cold up there, and in the summer, it was too hot at times.   

When I first moved here, I didn't bake or cook from scratch.  I didn't know how to can or even plant a garden.  I look back now and wished that I would have kept a journal on our everyday life.  What it was like learning how to do all these things, and journaling about our life there.

( In the photo above was my garden and this little white cat showed up one morning on Christmas day, 

so we named her Christmas)

 Over time, little by little I began to slow my life down. I planted a small garden and strung up lines for a clothes line.  I learned how to canned, and I learned how to make my meals from scratch.  I was falling in love with the old fashion way of life.  Each morning, the first thing I loved to do was to open up all the windows to let the fresh morning air to come in and cook breakfast on the woodstove.  This old farmhouse was changing my heart for the better!

Every year, we would buy 8 to 10 loads of firewood to last us until spring. I remembered how much work it was to stack all this firewood into rows, however, it was the only heat source this house had.

 

Canning jars begin filling the shelves from my little garden. I had to learned how to use this wood stove, how to clean it, and how to get a fire started. It was all new to me. I remembered on one winter day when the electric went out, I learned how to cook on the top of the woodstove.  I cooked eggs and bacon for breakfast, Fajitas for lunch and in the photo above a pot of chili was cooking for supper. It was actually kind of fun cooking this way.

Christmas held a lot of memories for us, and not only did our daughters spend Christmas here.  A few of our grandchildren had Christmas here as well. 

“It was so wonderful to be there, safe at home, sheltered from the winds and the cold. Laura thought that this must be a little like heaven, where the weary are at rest.”

― Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter

 

Winter was beautiful here and there was a few times we got snowed in, but we was prepared for winter with food from the garden, and the firewood was chopped and stacked.  We stay busy with puzzles, reading books, playing board games, playing in the snow, baking,  and watching christmas movies.

Every spring, we loved seeing the baby calves being born, our girls even named some of them.  

 

The attic was my favorite room in this farmhouse; I loved going up there to listen to the rain. The wooden stairs twisted up to a one room attic.  I remembered back in one part of the attic closet the flooring was made out of old army wood boxes. The attic became my quiet place to pray and just to be alone.   Oh, how I miss it!  Everyone needs that little place to be alone with God.

   

We fished many times from this pond, and climbed up in loft of this barn.  We enjoyed playing with the barn cats that lived in the barn.  

Thank you, for reading about our farmhouse! 

A farmhouse may change your life, this one did just that for me!  

Simply Handmade Farmhouse

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Living during the depression

 As I placed apples in the storage closet, my mind was thinking on these uncertain times for 2020.   I began to think of my grandmother Maggie and how she raised 9 children during the great depression. Times were very hard for them and others.  My grandmother was born in 1889 and she married in 1909.  These were the days of wagons, horses and yes, she lived a life much like Little House.  She saw hard times, death, war, the first car, planes, lived on a river boat one time and she rode buses because she never learned how to drive. 

Source unknown

 My grandparents were poor before the depression hit and living during the great depression life became even harder for them. 

My grandmother had no choice but reuse, save and make do with what she had been given to work with.  However, she knew her plants and berries in the woods to help feed her family.  Many times she and the kids would gather walnuts to store for later.  She would pick flowers to dry and use for teas or just brighten up their home. She always had a large garden and a kitchen garden.  She raised turkey's to sell and she had meat hens for eating and hens for eggs to eat and to sell.

Grandma Maggie would cook rabbits along with carrots and potatoes from the root cellar that was located under her house. She would pinch a hand full of dry herbs that hung on her kitchen wall and toss it in the rabbit stew.  She placed the stew in a cast iron kettle and cooked it all day on a wood cookstove. Kindling and firewood was placed in the wood stove all day to make sure supper would be ready by six.    She always served it with homemade biscuits and a pat of butter. Nothing was wasted.  She would save the last spoonful of food and the last biscuit.  She would always say, "someone may by  and be hungry."

 I thought I would share with you the struggles and life during the depression of my grandmother Maggie. Who knows maybe we can learn from it in these uncertain time

Simply Farmhouse  ( more on my grandma coming soon)