When I was 16 my mother gave me one of the most precious things she’s ever given me. I got some of her artwork, a beautiful head she carved out of stone, an original Joy of Cooking cookbook, her gray serge wedding suit. I have enjoyed owning all these things but the one thing she gave ...

I live in a predominately Mexican town in the middle of the Central Valley of California. Roughly 75% of the people here are from Mexico or are one or two generations away. Parts of the town have signs in Spanish and every where you go the people are bilingual or only speak Spanish.As a ...

I always struggle with trying to figure out ways to use all my garden bounty. I’m a real estate agent and I wish I had time to can, pickle and preserve. I even wish I had time to beg, plead and cajole my husband into digging me a root cellar but, alas, he works at Tractor Supply and only has ...

I love going around barefoot. It’s an issue with me. I love the feel of the earth beneath my feet but it makes my feet so very dry to the point that I had to invent a salve that helps and sometimes heals if I remember to apply it nightly. With socks. The other issue is that during this time ...

We often hear the phrase “a house is more than a collection of bricks”. I don’t know what that might mean to you, but I can tell you what it means to me. I’m going to talk about my Gramma’s home. For me it’s a symbol for home and family.When I was a kid we would visit my mom’s ...

I touched on this topic when I wrote about my advice for getting into your first country home. Now I want to go deeper: back-up supplies and systems. I’m simply going to share with you what we’ve done, and maybe it will give you some ideas about how to run your little homestead so it ...

It’s Cheaper to Live in the Country… or Is It?I have heard this so often I could gag. No! It is not cheaper to live in the country! If you are extremely handy and good at repairing things, if you have a double, triple green thumb and everything you plant grows in leaps and bounds, if you ...

In this part I want to talk about how to evaluate your property once you find it. Here’s where my real estate and personal experience comes into play: there are no 100% perfect properties. Let’s say that again for emphasis: there are no 100% perfect properties. If you have your list of ...

My friends, there is so much I want to tell you about buying your first country property I almost don’t know where to start. So many people have this dream but they absolutely don’t know what they’re getting into and then, realizing the truth of it, they pack up and leave before they ...

In keeping with that do-it-yourself tradition I am making homemade body scrub today.As usual my system is flexible as to what ingredients I use. I always try to use ingredients I have on hand or, barring that, that are easily gotten from local vendors. I believe in supporting local business and ...

You might be wondering about my choice of words in the title. It's just a little joke or play on words. I'm not talking about yogurt that is hip or more hip than other yogurts. I'm talking about the device in which to incubate the milk to make it turn into yogurt. Get it? I guess I could have ...

Near the warmth of the woodstove we listened raptly as Gramma told stories about life-threatening experiences on the Illinois farm when it was dangerous to go out in a blizzard to take care of animals in the barn. You had to know how to get back to the house. There were stories of men who ...

Are you huddled by the wood stove? Is a blizzard raging outside or has the thermometer plunged off the bottom end of the read-out? Then it's time to thank the postal worker who goes out in every kind of weather to bring us seed catalogs! "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays ...

Armed with my trusty pruning shears and humming my little made-up ditty to the tune of that holiday classic "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,"my leaping, cavorting dogs and I make our way to our fruit trees. We have persimmons, nectarines and pomegranates. The trees need pruning and ...