A lot of people ask me all kinds of questions about what we do around here on the Schell Urban Homestead. The question I get asked the most though is, hands down, “With three kids, how in the world do you do it all?” The answer is pretty simple… I have a strong partner:
Been attacked by some sort of bug here. How come before I had kids, no one ever told me how terrible it was to be sick with kids?
Cora was sick last week, that wasn’t so bad. Now Emmett and I are both sick together… You know when Rick has to go back to work. And when Henry are Cora feel totally fine. And they want stuff like food and water and whatever.
I hear the TV calling. Boot camp resumes next week. In the mean time, enjoy random pictures of the kids.
Like many girls, when I was young I loved the Little House books. I was enamored with the pioneer life and wished I could be Laura. I used to tell my mom that I was born in the wrong time. I should have been a pioneer! I’m pretty sure this is what led us to getting chickens. Needless to say, I was very excited to share these books with my own children.
Last summer, Henry and I started reading Little House in the Big Woods out loud because he was curious about maple sugar and I remembered that there was a great description of maple sugar being made in that book. What I had forgotten, however was all the other great things that the Ingalls family did.
For example, the book begins with the harvest and putting things away for the winter. In the first chapter Laura describes how the family smoked venison in a hollow tree. It was Laura’s job to run and fill the smoker with green wood chips. The method of smoking described is pretty similar to one that Rick and I have worked towards doing ourselves in our yard using an old oak barrel.
Next the family butchers a pig and Ma carefully makes the sausage balls and head cheese while Pa smokes the hams and the children roast the pig tail on a stick. The girls play in the attic on the pumpkins among all their vegetables that are stored for the winter. Pa goes on to hunt and make bullets (which Henry loved reading about) and Ma has her house keeping (every day with its own proper work) to keep the girls busy through the winter.
The more we read, the more I realized I have made my life very Little House. I wonder, just how many other people out there are like us? So I made this quiz…
The Modern Pioneer Quiz
How Little House is Your Life?
1. Has anyone in your house ever used an axe to cut a Hubbard squash or frozen meat?
a. What is a Hubbard squash?
b. No, but we do have winter squash stored in the attic.
c. Yes, it’s the easiest way.
2. Have you used a pig’s bladder as a balloon or roasted a pig tail on a stick?
a. Eew!
b. No, but I would if given the chance.
c. Yes! Bladders make the best toys.
3. Do you butcher your own meat?
a. No, but my grocery store has a butcher.
b. Yes, we even have our own smoker.
c. Yes, we butcher every fall after killing the meat we hunted and raised ourselves. Then we smoke it in a hallow log.
4. Do you store food for the winter?
a. Sure do, my freezer is packed with deals from Costco.
b. Yes, I can and pickle and use my dehydrator.
c. Yep, I hang my smoked hams next to the hard cheeses and salt pork.
5. Have you made maple sugar candies in the snow?
a. What?! You can make candy in the snow?
b. Yes, and the kids loved it.
c. Yes. We tapped the trees ourselves, boiled the sap, and afterwards we had the whole family over for a dance to celebrate.
6. Have you ever harvested honey?
a. No, but we get honey from a local farm.
b. Yes, our beehive is so interesting.
c. Yes, from wild bees living in a hollow tree.
7. Do you churn your own butter?
a. I think we did that in school once.
b. Yes, once in a while it’s a fun thing to do.
c. All the time; in the winter we cook carrot sin milk to color it yellow.
8. Has your neighbor ever delivered gifts on behalf of Santa Claus or loaned you some nails?
a. Neighbor? Oh, we don’t really see our neighbors.
b. No, but he’s helped me with some DIY projects.
c. Yes, he’s like family now.
Add up the number of A’s, B’s and C’s you answered. Results are not scientific. So, just how Pioneer are YOU?
Mostly A’s: More modern than pioneer, you might try a little DIY if you have the right tools, but you are more likely to hire someone. Though you enjoy cooking at home, those foodie extremists will have to pry your microwave from your cold, dead fingers. You’re not sure what head cheese is and you don’t even want to think about a pig bladder. Baking bread is for artisans, you don’t really have time for that. You’ll support the local bakery and farmer’s market instead. We didn’t spend the last 100 years making advances so you could haul water from the creek.
Mostly B’s: A modern pioneer and proud! You use today’s technology to do yesterday’s work. Smoking, preserving, sewing and hunting are not lost skills thanks to the likes of you. When you read about the Ingalls family, you are inspired to experiment in your own life. But you don’t go overboard either. You’re not about to give up indoor plumbing in favor of a weekly bath on Saturday, whether you need it or not. Keep blazing the trail and those pioneer skills will be around for future generations too.
Mostly C’s: Grab your fiddle and don your bonnet! The pioneer spirits of Pa, Ma, Mary and Laure run strong through your veins! The Little House books are not historical fiction, they are a guide! Your friends are probably fascinated by your lifestyle, but you’d never know it, since you don’t have the internet. In fact, you can’t even read this quiz. You are too busy weaving straw hats, greasing bear traps and making bullets. You really were born in the wrong century. Good for you for making yourself a pioneer life in these modern times.
Two weeks ago was my birthday. This year was a big one… the big three-oh! Rick was so great and took me out to an oyster bar for amazing seafood. And he bought me pearls. See how great he is – oysters, pearls. 
To me pearls are real-life grown up jewelry. Ladies wear pearls. Not girls. I’m not normally a jewelry person, but I loved this gift. Totally appropriate for a thirtieth birthday. He got me a set; a necklace, bracelet and earrings.
The necklace was a bit longer than I preferred, so we decided to see if we could exchange it or have it shortened. We went to the jewelry store the day after new years. It was very busy in there. Lots of newly engaged couples getting their rings sized to fit their fingers. The guy behind the counter helping us was also helping one of these couples. We had our three kids with us and they were behaving very well for being in a jewelry store.
As our sales guy bounced back and forth between us and the newly engaged couple, I heard the woman talking about how she had to go home, across the country, and was hoping the ring would be done before she had to leave. So I joked with the guy that he should go ahead and take care of them, saying we’ve been married almost ten (nine, actually in February) years and that we were not going anywhere. I motioned to my three kids behind me, implying that they were proof of our comparatively long relationship. Some jokes were made about not seeming old enough to have been married so long, and then he lays it on…
He says, “Yeah, kids can make you feel old. I used to work at a laser tag place. There were days, after all those kids, I’d come home feeling like I was thirty!”
Wow. Thirty. I can’t imagine.
The other morning I stumbled into the bathroom well before the kids were awake. “Yay!” I thought, “I’ll get to take a shower today!” But then I remembered. I was all out of shampoo. And I forgot to get more last time I went to the store.
My spirit, unwilling to be dampened, I decided I’d try that whole baking soda for shampoo/apple cider vinegar for conditioner, thing I’ve heard about. I mean, really. I use all natural soap, natural toothpaste, natural household cleaners, homemade laundry detergent. I can do homemade shampoo! Yay for less chemicals! Yay for clean hair!
Except baking soda in your hair is gross. Really, really gross. I almost titled this post “The ‘Poo’ in Shampoo.”
I mean, I know it was the first time I tried it, and maybe I did it wrong. Maybe I just need some guidance? If you do the baking soda thing, let me know. I did a quick Google search, and I mixed up baking soda and water according to the recipes I found. Basically 1 Tablespoon soda and 1 cup water. I also mixed up the apple cider vinegar and some water.
First, I tried what they all said to do. I wet my hair and poured the baking soda mix into my hair at the roots. I massaged it all around and rinsed. I have really thick hair and by this time it felt all tangled and I was having doubts about the vinegar thing, but that part was actually uh.maze.ing! I had put the vinegar mix in a squirt bottle and it completely detangled and smoothed my hair, pretty much instantly. “Yay! This will make such a great blog post!” I thought.
I got out of the shower, and went to dry my hair and it was all smooth and sleek and shiny! WOW! I blew it dry. Gorgeous. Well. Almost. It looked all greasy at the roots. It felt all greasy at the roots too. Super greasy. Not oily, greasy. Worse than before I got in. Maybe I got carried away with the vinegar? Hmm. The kids were still asleep, so I decided I’d give it another go.
I decided to sprinkle in baking soda dry at the roots. I worked it all around and it looked like the grease was all absorbed. But also like I had grayed out my hair, since my hair is quite dark and there was now a fine white dust on it. So I hopped back in the shower to give it a rinse. And I could feel the greasiness about ten times worse than what it felt like before. It was not the vinegar that caused this. It was totally the baking soda. I gave up. I scrounged around the bathroom until I found some tiny, little bit of shampoo in a travel bottle. I used it.
I will totally keep that apple-cinder vinegar thing. It is awesome. But the baking soda for cleaning your hair – a total sham.
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Thanks for all your loving and supportive comments! I have a few posts in the works but busy right now. Dave seems to be doing well with the feeding tube placement – he even snuck away to play with our kiddos the other night.
Just wanted to let you know I’m still here. I have a couple posts in the works, but it’s been taking me a long time to get things done around here these days.
