Now is a Great Time to Purchase Mason Jars

Lately, I’ve tried really hard to become better prepared in our home. Preparedness is smart on so many levels. Each month, it is a good idea to take stock of what you have in your home and what you would like to purchase more of.

Of course, it also is good to take a look at what is readily available in stores, and purchase those items if you need them or would use them. I’m not sure how things are looking in your neck of the woods, but around our home I have noticed a lot of canning jars gracing the shelves.

This is very good news after several years of short supply! There have been many times that I have looked high and low for canning jars and come up empty handed. Canning jars are great to have on hand for many things. Not only are they good for canning, they can be used to store things like herbs, popcorn, sugar, rice, etc. I use canning jars for all of these things! We even use them to store our goat’s milk. Canning jars are also relatively inexpensive, so they are wonderful to use to give a handmade gift. You can try to give things like a brownie mix in a mason jar.

Our local Walmart had so many canning jars recently, they were spilling out into the aisle. Of course I picked up two dozen while I was there. I also asked my husband to pick up more for me on his most recent shopping trip.

I probably will pick up a couple more dozen before I’m done for the year. I’m hoping to can many vegetables this season, Lord willing.

Blessing Others with the Skills You Have

Blessing others is always a good idea! Since I’m a homemaker, I often look for ways to bless my husband and children. Sometimes that might be a favorite meal or an extra word of encouragement at the end of the day. It doesn’t take much to make a difference!

While I most often have opportunities to bless my family, sometimes I get the chance to bless someone else as well. While it can be nice to learn a new skill when these opportunities present themselves, often blessing folks with the skills we already have goes a long way!

We all have unique skills and abilities. If we bless people with the gifts we already have, then the blessing can be delivered more quickly.

Even the smallest skills that we have can matter a lot to someone else. We can bless people with our writing, baking, sewing, cooking, cleaning, and much more.

A lot of times, I am tempted to take time that I simply do not have to learn something new. While learning something new is amazing, I am very busy in my current season with my family and my current responsibilities.

Take herbalism for example. I would love to take an in depth herbalism course! But right now, the time simply isn’t there. Instead, it would be best for me to be content with a couple of herbalism books that give me the knowledge that I need, while focusing on the food garden that my family desperately needs.

And if we have an abundance of food, we can bless others with it. How wonderful!

I hope you are encouraged to see how valuable the skills you already have are. You are a blessing to someone when you use them!

Homestead Happenings

Welcome to our homestead this week, friends. This week has been super rainy, and we’ve started to battle fungal issues in our tomato plants. Oh, it is the worst! So far, I’ve been able to keep on top of it, though. I’ve been doing my best to take a look at each plant every day, and then I remove any yellow and brown leaves. I then spray the plants with an anti-fungal spray. Copper is a great organic product to use.

Otherwise, it looks like our tomato harvest will be the most prolific yet! While picking diseased leaves off of my plants yesterday, I decided to count the tomatoes on each one. I came up with 293 tomatoes! This isn’t including the flowers that have yet to turn into tomatoes. Now, half of these are cherry tomatoes, but I will still take it! I hope to can a lot of tomato sauce this year.

I also have been harvesting a lot of the calendula that my sixteen-year-old daughter planted. My calendula plants are behind, and are just starting to produce. Before long, I hope to spend the morning making a large batch of calendula salve for the year.

Inside of our home, my husband is putting the finishing touches on our bathroom renovation. I love it so much! It is the favorite bathroom I have ever been in, hands down. Since my husband has done all of the work on it, it is very meaningful to me. We were planning on purchasing a granite countertop for the vanity, but after counting the cost, we have decided for my husband to build a slate tile countertop instead. I adore the slate floor and shower he put together, and I decided that I would likely love a slate countertop just as much. This lowers the cost from $1250 for granite to around $150. Much better!

Thanks for reading this update from our home to yours!