ReMARKable Farms: Natural cleaner

Around the Homestead

A couple of months ago, I taught Joshua how to clean the bathroom! Now, it is his duty to do each weekend (I even made a YouTube video of how to clean the bathroom so he could reference it...).

I walked in a couple of weeks ago, to check how he was doing, and I could hardly breath. He really, really, really likes to spray a lot of cleaner. It was a bleach cleaner and he had it all over the place and all over him...

So, I was listening to this podcast the other day and they were talking about using vinegar and other natural cleaners. I have made some "homemade" cleaners in the past but I have never found one that I really liked. She described one that was super simple...just fill a jar with citrus peels and then fill to the top with vinegar and let sit for a couple of weeks. Citrus is known to be a great cleaner and it helps to cover up the vinegar smell. So, I made some this morning and it is stewing...

Also, this is great because I rarely buy oranges but the boys love them so we will be getting our vitamin C! We are also working on spraying an area 2 times...

The podcast I was listening to is called Pioneering Today. I really enjoy the podcast and her blog. Click on the picture and you will go to the vinegar cleaner recipe.

Reading...

I picked up this book at the library last week.

Here is the intro from her website: "IN 1979, MOM AND DAD plunked their ideals and $40,000 down on some of the poorest farmland in one of the poorest counties in New York State. They dreamed of living off that land, of their children living off that land. And from the first night I laid my head down to rest on Sap Bush Hollow Farm as a child, I never wanted anything else. As I grew to adulthood and began a family of my own, I realized that this little farm was more than just a pastoral dream. It was an antidote to industrial food, climate change, harried living and social injustices. But how was one little grassfed livestock farm high in the mountains going to support two families? I looked to my Appalachian neighbors, who had lived well up here for generations, with little to no cash. If they could do it, so could we. We would simply have to learn to make what we couldn’t buy. I would become the radical homemaker."

I would say that the book pretty much reflect this intro....it was a nice read.

In the Garden

I think I will rip out my last tomato plants today. It looks like we might have gotten between 1 and 2 inches of rain yesterday! I have gallons of tomatoes in the freezer and when I have a free day, I am going to make sauce from all of it.

In the Kitchen

I finally cut into some pumpkin to make our jack o lanterns yesterday...took all the "scraps" and through them into the crock pot to cook down and make some pumpkin for recipes. Also, roasted pumpkin seeds this morning. Joshua asked if I was making fries (it's 8:30 in the morning...). He just smelled them and they are delicious...