Enhancing our children’s personal perspective and improving their mental health is a difficult task. We’re making the most of our PET SHEEP and family farm to help bring out the best in our children. Here’s how farm animals make happier kids.
We have another family dog making the rounds here at the farm house! Sweet little Freya is an adopted German Shepherd mix of some sort. I’m planning to do a test at some point to determine her dog breed since people constantly ask what she is. One thing we did learn about her quite quickly is that she requires fresh pet food.
This year didn’t get off to the healthiest start. A minor cold and a MAJOR bout of food poisoning came at us while we were traveling. Now that we’re back home, I’ve been steering into the drive-through too often. I’ll admit I got spooked away from the kitchen – the sight of raw meat still churns my stomach a bit. So while everyone else was committing to gym-going, smoothie-making and daily yoga, I decided to focus on family food safety. I made a simple commitment to get us back into a simple, healthy routine.
Anyone else ever notice that there always seems to be a summer before the fall? Almost without warning, a winter comes right after that. EVERY SINGLE YEAR. It’s like a conspiracy. Much like the wheels on our adventure truck, the seasons roll round and round. With those seasons come new work that needs to be done. Specifically, work for a pressure washer.
Our family lives a dirty, messy life. We travel a ton, bringing all sorts of sand and grime home. Our suitcases usually land on a dusty floor in the bedroom before we run around dealing with chickens, sheep, goats, dogs and cats. This particular Neato Botvac review is definitely putting the vacuum through its paces. Grime is next-level around here, along with Cheerios, LEGOs and a whole manner of other random trinkets that wind up under our feet. If anything were to break this piece of glorious technology, it would be us.
Setting the stage for the holidays? We always know to sweep the floors, clean the windows, and wipe down the counters – but there’s a whole host of stuff to think about beyond that. Guests see the whole picture when they visit! Here’s a cleaning list that will make sure you get all the most important little crevices in ship-shape for the holidays.
We all crave our own space. A place to get away. A place that isn’t invaded by others, by other issues, other memories. A place with a clean slate to call our own and to escape to so we can process everything we’ve had to deal with throughout the day. Sometimes a quiet place to rest or just read a book.
A few people have asked how we manage all the rescue cats that I impulsively adopt. The answer? A BIG litter box! We have an auto-feeder and one of those self-changing litter box things, so the cats are pretty self-sufficient. As I said, though, the box is large. And the inside of our one-level farm house is pretty small. Ongoing renovations have shrunk our useable space even more lately, so the only place for our big litter box to go right now is a few feet from our dining room table.
We have readers reach out on occasion with questions about our kitchen sink organizer situation. Since we posted about our kitchen hub awhile back, it seems that minimalism in the cooking area is a hot topic! The organization in this space can’t really be contributed to a specific organizer or individual design purchase, though. When it comes to our farmhouse, Nate and I have made a long series of decisions that have contributed to a simplistic space in general. Here are some of our favorite kitchen sink organizer ideas.
Along with traveling about half the year, Nate and I own a low maintenance farm in the rural hills of San Diego. This is definitely one of the things we get asked about most. How on EARTH can we manage to be away for days, sometimes even weeks at a time, while still keeping a bunch of animals alive?