by Texas Homesteader ~
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I’m consuming a couple of tablespoons of honey containing ragweed pollen daily to help combat my allergies. But it takes so long using the honey dipper to drizzle 2 tablespoons worth each day. And I was making such a mess trying to spoon it from the jar instead. So I tried pouring it gently from the jar.
Ugh, MESSY!
Luckily I’ve found an awesome solution. Come check out this Homestead Hack.
by Texas Homesteader~
I often make dried beans using my pressure cooker. I’m a ‘Cook-Once, Eat-Twice‘ cook, meaning I like to cook lots of one item and use it either again later in the week, or as a completely different dish as part of my Planned Leftovers meals. So when I’m cooking dried beans, I usually cook the whole bag knowing it’s way more than RancherMan & I can eat in one setting. Then we’ll either consume it over several days or I’ll freeze the remainder for another time.
But recently I cooked some great northern beans and we enjoyed them as a side dish for that evening’s meal. I served them later in the week as a quick side dish also. But then I wondered… Is there a more exciting way to serve these beans that will have RancherMan smacking his lips? Well yes, yes there is! Check out this Homestead Hack!
by Texas Homesteader ~
I was baking homemade blueberry muffins for a Sibling Vacation recently. I typically make jumbo-sized muffins for RancherMan. But this time I used my smaller muffin-sized tin because there would be several of us in attendance. It’s easier to eat two small muffins than to waste part of a larger one, ya know?
So I whipped up my Blueberry Muffin batter, placed my silicone muffin pan on a cookie sheet & filled the muffin cups. But there was still about 4 muffins worth of batter remaining.
Do I overfill the muffin cups? Do I bake this dozen and then refill 4 of the muffin cups and bake them separately? What a waste! Ugh, what’s a girl to do?
by Texas Homesteader ~
Occasionally I have difficulty opening a stubborn stuck jar lid. If RancherMan is nearby I have a handy (and oh-so-handsome) jar opener right at my disposal.
But if not I still have an easy way to open those stubborn jars. And I do it using a common item in the ‘junk drawer’ right in my kitchen.
by Texas Homesteader ~
Do you worry about forgetting something like unplugging a coffee pot or turning off the stove? Or do you hate when you go to someone’s house and just know you’re gonna forget to pick something up, and then you DO forget?? I’ve found a simple hack for remembering tasks like these. Intrigued? Check this out.
by Texas Homesteader ~
Years ago I did away with artificial scents in our home. Oh how I used to love those reed diffusers, plug-in room fresheners and scented candles! But I decided those artificial scents just weren’t right for me or my family.
These days I’m more apt to use essential oils for room fresheners than a plastic-packaged plug-in delivering a sometimes overpowering artificial scent. Recently I made a super-cute room freshener using a repurposed canning jar and leftover lace. So easy, so inexpensive!
by Texas Homesteader ~
We’ve all probably done it – rinsing out remaining fat and letting it go down the drain. A quick flip of the garbage-disposal switch and the greasy problem is gone. Right?
I’ve written before about how I’ve discovered how the problem Is NOT Gone when we flush things through our kitchen sink pipes. I’m not casting stones here. I spent plenty of my younger years flushing things down the sink, from plate scrapings to burnt-on food. And yes, the fat too. I figured if I used hot water it would simply flush that fat away safely. But I’ve learned a lot since then. I now know you should never flush grease or fat down the sink. But how do you dispose of it? Don’t worry, it’s easy – check out this Homestead Hack.
by Texas Homesteader ~
Don’t you hate to have a narrow-neck jar that you just can’t reach with a bottle brush to clean? I’ve often wondered how you could effectively clean those wonderful but odd-shaped bottles & jars. You see, my sun tea is always brewed in a repurposed salsa jar. It’s the perfect glass jar to use, partially because it’s hourglass shaped. That shape makes it much easier to grip and safely carry to the picnic table outside to brew our sun tea.
But although I love the shape of the jar, it does make it very difficult to clean. Of course I rinse it well after brewing my tea. But over time I start to see tea stains on the inside glass. So I sat out to find a good way to get the tea stains out for a crystal clear glass jar, ready to make sun tea again & again. Check out this Homestead Hack, y’all!
by Texas Homesteader ~
RancherMan & I love the wild birds. We have a bird feeder out back that we keep filled so we can enjoy them all. (be sure to check out my Bird-Feeding Homestead Hack where I share how we keep ’em fed on the CHEAP!) There are always a wide variety of birds near our feeder and they nest nearby too, raising their young. Oh how I love it all!
But as you know, recently RancherMan & I had a porch extension built. We spend lots of time out there enjoying the birds and the scenery. But ugh, the birds use the railings as their perch and there was always mounds of poop building up along the railings and on the built-in benches. Until…
by Texas Homesteader ~
We’re (once again) in the grips of a drought. It seems most years in the past 7-8 our little homestead has struggled with terrible drought conditions. The weathermen are finally predicting precious rainfall to bless us for the next several days. Oh it won’t break our drought, but at this point we’ll take that tiny 1/8th inch that falls – ANYTHING!
I’ve got an easy way to track our rainfall which I find quite clever. Oh sure I could measure the rain gauge contents and jot them down. Then I could make note in a calendar to track. But I just never find time to enter it all or even remember to enter it. But this Homestead Hack assures I’ll be able to easily document and track our rainfall throughout the year.
