Timberline Homestead A self sufficient homesteading life

Let me start by saving that quite frankly, pruning scares me. It’s intimidating. The thought of hacking off limbs and the possible damage I could cause is frightening. But I put on my big girl panties and got over it. I’ve nipped at various flowers before but the worst case …

We recently added 3 more highbush blueberry bushes to our collection. Last year blueberries were an afterthought and needless to say we didn’t have a huge variety to choose from. This year we’ve balanced out the bunch by adding varieties that collectively will give us fruit all through summer and fall. The …

It’s mid February and Mother Nature has been extremely gentle on us the past month or so. We’ve had high temperatures in the 60s and very few clouds. This year our snow fall started in November, giving us 3 feet of snow in 1 storm, with a hand full of …

Even before we moved to our current property our standard poodle  joined us on excursions on the trails. When he was just a wee little pup he spent the day tagging along with us in a dried up river bed with a bunch of 4×4 vehicles. He was too young …

Preservatives, artificial colors, hydrogenated oils, artificial sweeteners…when did our food become chock full of stuff OTHER than nutrients to nourish and feed our bodies? For a long time I’ve followed the old “if you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it” rule pertaining to the ingredient list. I also eliminate foods if they …

At some point in the past few years I’ve become very aware of what we eat and what we’re exposed to on a daily basis. Maybe it’s the talk about pollution, or the constant recalls of commercially produced foods and prescriptions, or the possible long term health effects of eating …

Santa brought us a frozen yogurt /ice cream machine and boy have I had a ball experimenting with it. After a few gelato (YUM!) recipes, which I will be sharing soon, I decided it was time to find a less sugary alternative. The answer? Homemade Frozen Yogurt! The idea of …

The 2 potted blueberries didn’t fare so well through our first significant snow fall of the winter. Nearly 3 feet dropped over the course of about a week and these blueberries were completely buried. Once ma nature showed us some mercy and the snow washed away with rain we were …

Well, it’s been roughly 2 weeks since I first started treating my daisies infected with powdery mildew with Serenade, a biofungicide. Here’s the original post: Powdery Mildew. Here are the results : After 1 treatment there was a significant difference. The mildew disappeared for a few days leaving behind the …

I  brought these daisies home from work thinking they would be comfy in our planter window. Soon after they settled in powdery mildew struck. Slowly, one by one, the mildew took over a large percentage of the leaves and sucked the life right out of them. I cut off the …

These clay bread bakers were received as a gift for our wedding and have been sitting in the cabinet patiently waiting for some attention. Today,  I had a few hours to spare and was looking for something to pair with my homemade baked potato soup. Homemade bread fit the bill. …

We began our food storage on a whim while living in our small 600 square foot apartment. The key for us at that particular moment was the absolute need for easy, space saving storage. We have since expanded quite a bit, our needs have changed and we now have much …

In order to prepare for Christmas festivities this year, I started preparing batches of cookie dough to freeze. When I had a quiet evening I would whip up a batch or 2 and freeze it. When Christmas eve rolled around, my task was simply to toss them in the oven. …

This Christmas we filled our tree with handmade crocheted ornaments. These guys work up quickly,  from 20- 45 minutes. I used some bright, fun colors to add some spice to the tree. The patterns came from a book called Big Book of Thread Ornaments to Crochet by Leisure Arts.

Looks like another large storm front is moving down from Alaska to Northern California to bring 3-6 feet of new snow in the mountains and 4″+ of rain in the foothills and Sacramento Valley. It looks like it should start Friday/Evening depending on location and go into next week! Time …