by: Texas Homesteader ~
RancherMan is constantly maintaining our vehicles’ tires & dashboards as well as various tractor rubber & vinyl parts. But we recently ran out of vinyl- cleaning/protectant spray. Oh no that just can’t happen – he’s just not going to be without this favorite maintenance spray.
But instead of automatically running to the store (and true to our crunchy-green nature) we started wondering if this was a product we could make for ourselves.
Turns out you can indeed.
by Texas Homesteader ~
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When my vegetable garden gives me lots of those ripe, delicious tomatoes, I want to make sure none go to waste.
I’ve found that after we’ve eaten as many fresh as we could, I like to pop some in the freezer for later. But if I roast them first they’re more powerfully flavored and ready to use in my recipes.
by Texas Homesteader ~
Making homemade chicken broth is beyond easy, super healthy and makes use of bones/trimmings that used to be just thrown away!
And there’s a special ingredient to make it more calcium rich. Check it out.
by Texas Homesteader
OK y’all, yesterday we started a two-part series about surviving in self-employment mode without the benefit of a regularly-scheduled corporate salary infusion on the side. I encourage you to read ‘Saving Money, Part I’ if you haven’t already!
The topics covered were how important pre-planning is before you ever make this independence leap, then adding the steps of recognizing “needs” vs “wants”, paying cash, buying only high quality, researching purchases, finding lower-cost alternatives, repairing instead of replacing things and buying used where possible.
But now let’s look into some more ways to break the corporate paycheck shackle so you can follow your dreams, whatever they may be.
I was dehydrating lots of vegetables from my garden. Each one was placed in a repurposed glass jar in my pantry. Then I decided to assemble various dry veggies, add some seasoning and make dehydrated salsa in a jar as a gift. The gift recipients LOVED IT!
by Texas Homesteader
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This year I planted heirloom sugar pumpkins in my garden. And when it was time to harvest them I knew I’d first be able to enjoy them for a bit as decoration. I love the way those little pumpkins looked propped on our antique cast-iron Franklin stove.
But several days later I was in the kitchen enjoying the last of my favorite pumpkin granola. I knew that since I planted those delicious pumpkins for use in my granola it was time to cook those babies down into pumpkin puree.
by Texas Homesteader ~
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A dear friend told me about dehydrating tomato puree (sometimes seasoned) into a leather. WHAT?? Tomato leather??
Yes, tomato leather can be used to simplify your pizza night. Just plop a tomato leather on top of your crust and start adding fillings. The leather rehydrates as the pizza cooks. Oh yeah, I’ve gotta try this!
by Texas Homesteader
We have two tractors, a 55 hp Mahindra for the big jobs and an older and smaller 32 hp Ford 1910 tractor for mowing, disking, etc. RancherMan usually hops on the newer big-boy tractor with the higher horsepower and front-end loader to do the rough stuff. And I happily allow him those tasks.
Recently our Mahindra dealt us an unpleasant blow by having a deteriorating gas tank, rendering it USELESS. So much for the reliability of a fancy-schmancy tractor that’s only 5 yrs –OLD!
So RancherMan went to work playing tractor mechanic for the Mahindra. But it was the ever-faithful Ole Blue Ford tractor that pulled the load on the Homestead.
