• Life&Land

    To Write a Blog

    As I sit down to write each week – sometimes at my kitchen table, other times on the couch or at our home office desk – I often find myself almost frozen with doubts. I feel a dramatic scene from a B rated film where past voices from friends and family drawl in slow motion commenting over the fact I blog. If written words could better give tone to the words said … I’ll simply say the reactions I have received have been less than encouraging. Those comments, those doubtful tones and sneer remarks lock in my brain as I…

  • Recipes

    Peppernut Cookies

    Fall is in full swing. The leaves have changed color and the air is getting crisp. It’s firewood cutting season. It’s hunting season where I come from. And that means that it’s peppernut season at our home. Though Peppernuts might be a Scandinavian favorite around Christmas time, fond memories of firewood getting and hunting trips have me craving these spiced bites of goodness as soon as the weather turns cold. No hunting trip would be the same without a pile of peppernuts tucked away in your coat pocket as you trudge through the snowy mountains. Nor would a long, cold…

  • Garden - Life&Land

    Growing Food and Babies

    We had our first frost last Monday. Though this is our first autumn season in our current area — and everything is new — the first frost still came as a bit of a surprise. I had fully expected to have another two weeks before that first layer of frost coated my garden, and the weather report indicated five degrees above freezing. I suppose the weather had other plans because frost it did. The frost was light, and within a few hours of daylight, my favorite crew of littles had helped me dig up all the potatoes, pick all the…

  • Kitchen

    Better Breakfast Planning

    When it comes to breakfast, our family meal planning looks a little different. In fact, it is more like meal theming than meal planning. Figuring out what to make family for breakfast – something that is healthy but also quick – is not a struggle I like dealing with five minutes after I roll out of bed. That early in the morning my brain is already having a hard time dealing with the reality that sleep time has ended, and to throw the puzzle of what to have for breakfast at it so soon after coming out of a slumber…

  • Life&Land

    August is Here, now Summer is Over

    At the close of every July, I find myself almost uncontrollably feeling the sad sense that summer is over. As a born and raised Idaho farm girl, I know that isn’t true. There is still plenty of farm work to do. Where I’m from, wheat harvest is just wrapping up. Neighbors will begin third cutting hay within a couple weeks, and fourth cutting won’t come until mid-September. The fields still need irrigated, and there’s plenty to do outside. I know this, yet I still find myself engulfed by that feeling. Summer is over. Reflections of Youth Likely, this feeling stems…

  • Life&Land

    This is the Life

    The other day I found myself in the kitchen prepping lunch after a morning outside doing all the things – feeding the animals, weeding the garden, scouring the garden for any ripe produce (which was limited to a handful of sweet peas), and doing yet more sanding on a table build I have going in my garage. It was hot outside and a relief to come inside where the house remained a few degrees cooler. As I stood there in the kitchen, I could hear my three littles in the next room fully engaged in The Land of Make Believe.…

  • Kitchen

    Summertime Smoothie Time

    Rather than a smoothie recipe followed by dozens of links to other smoothie recipes – this article is all about building a list of your favorite smoothie combinations for you to hang on your fridge or add to your cookbook to inspire your own smoothie creativity. We are on the downhill slope of June, now, and it is hot, hot, hot in the Rocky Mountains. When we get to this time of year – when summer weather descends, and you wake up feeling uncomfortably warm and know it is only going to get hotter as the day goes on –…

  • Kitchen - Recipes

    Backwards Breakfast Toast

    This Backwards French Toast is backwards in more than one way. Not your typical French Toast breakfast, but one that will leave you wanting to eat it again. Eat with syrup or without, this breakfast is simple and sweet in the best of ways. A little over a year ago my husband treated our family for breakfast at a local restaurant.  As a family always living on a tight budget, eating out is a rare occurrence. But of course when we do get the opportunity, especially as a planned outing at a sit-down-restaurant (as opposed to a quick zip through…

  • Life&Land

    15 Minutes to Change My Life

    Two weeks ago found me reading an article on writing. Though my efforts are not always shown here, due to my lack of posts and apparent inconsistency in posting, I spend a great deal of my week reading, writing, capturing photos, and planning for this here blog. But this last week, my reading of how to better write was related to a different writing medium. My goal to someday publish a children’s book. I know, I know. I’m all over the place. And whether I’m good at anyplace is still up for deliberation. But there it is, my small yet…

  • Purse

    Getting Back on Track

    Sometimes time really does fly. I cannot believe we are already in May – and already a full week into May at that! How the last four months have just swept on by. And now that it’s May, it’s time our family got back on track in terms of our spending. After moving at the first of the year, starting a new job, and figuring out the new routine for everything in our lives, it has taken all of us several, several weeks to get our feet back under us. Getting into a routine has been a slow and bumpy…