Simple Home and Hearth

We've been hearing this strange sound for about 2 or 3 mornings now. I went out to investigate, thinking it might have been a deer in distress by the creek. Lo and behold, it was coming from our chicken coop! One of our roosters was attempting to crow! He hasn't quite perfected it yet, but he's trying!

There's nothing like a cold piece of watermelon on a hot summer day...but watermelons are BIG! Sometimes we don't eat all of it. Some pieces go to the chickens, and a little is set aside for watermelon jam! Now there's nothing like watermelon jam on a hot piece of toast on a cold winter morning when the body is craving fruit. I take you step by step on how to make this jam from fresh watermelon pieces. Yummy!

I went to a little pop-up farm stand yesterday and bought a delicious cantaloupe, among other things. I was going to cut it up this morning anyway, so I decided - just for the fun of it - to show you how I do it. So many ways people do it, and just thought I'd have a bit of fun with the camera this morning. How do you cut up yours? Feel free to comment.

I've had this video ready to edit and upload since Christmas! Finally finished it today, and so it's a real treat to watch at the beginning of summer when the temperatures are soaring! Enjoy!

We may have the beginnings of a small homestead, but we are not off-grid...yet. Our old house desperately needed an electric system upgrade, and we hired our neighbor and business owner of Armor Electric, Steve, to do the job. He and his crew worked tirelessly all day, not stopping for lunch or anything. Appalachian Electric came toward the end of the day and hung all-new cable/wires from the pole to the house, after seeing a flaw in the old cables. The inspector came and gave everything a "thumbs up." We would like to thank Steve and his crew for doing a very professional job!

Here's what it looks like each morning when we let our young pre-laying hens (and a few roos) out of the coop in the morning. It's like you can almost hear them saying, "Freedom!!!"

This is a video we put together about our new chickens' first week on the homestead: day one to the end of week one. More follow-up videos to come. Stay tuned!

This morning, I sat outside on the porch swing, drinking my coffee and listening to nature all around me. Part of my view is the picture you see overlaid in the video, with the creek behind the chicken coop and run. You can hear the creek, too. The sounds of nature were so inspiring, I had to share. Enjoy!

We let our 8-week old chicks out of their coop after about 3 days, to explore their run. They were a bit wary at first, but then got excited for a few minutes! After about 20-25 minutes, they all ended back in their coop and were done. LOL . We'll keep letting them explore each day until they are willing to be out for several hours a day. Little bits at a time, for sure.

While taking my walk along our property the other day, I found these beauties growing abundantly on a dead log by the creek bank. In this video I show how to ID them, and give the medicinal properties. You can find this in print version, and with more details, by clicking on my blog here: https://simplehomeandhearth.com/2021/02/27/turkey-tail-mushrooms/

Like a little girl on Christmas morning! My first "unboxing" video! My Weck jar lifter and canning funnel arrived today, and I decided to open it up on camera. These were ordered from weckjars.com. Enjoy!

I love to can milk for long-term shelf life! This shows my first attempt at pressure canning milk in 1L Weck "juice" jars. Enjoy!

After a couple days of heavy rain which melted several inches of snow already on the ground... this is what our creek turned into: a river! Gotta love the mountains. Enjoy!

The first morning of our trip to Florida, we watched the launch of Elon Musk's Falcon 9 satellite transport rocket and watched the booster rocket land again on a different pad. We were standing across the launch site, on the other side of the Indian River. Then we did a little sightseeing around Cape Canaveral, afterward having lunch at the famous Southern Charm Cafe. Enjoy!

We're newbies. Go ahead...laugh. We don't know what we're doing. This is our transparent attempt at dissecting a venison hindquarter. OMG. We need lessons. Enjoy.

We are on a short pre-Christmas trip to visit family in Florida. On our first day, we stopped by Cocoa Beach and enjoyed the Atlantic Ocean. A bit too nippy to don our swimsuits and jump in.

Just took this video a few minutes ago. Only captured the last of them. About 10 deer in all. We are blessed to see these beautiful creatures nearly every day. (They run down into the creek and into the forest to escape the “big bad humans.” LOL)

Is taking seeds/roots from store-bought veggies viable? Can they be replanted? This is part 1 of my experiment in doing just that! This should be interesting...

My mother's "secret" recipe when I was a child. The secret is out! Here is a detailed how-to video on making these yummy chocolate cream cheese cupcakes. I dedicate this video to my late mother, whom we lost to cancer earlier this year.

New to canning? Want to know how simple it is to pressure can? This detailed how-to video is for you!

The second and final part of my experiment in scrap gardening. Was it successful? Watch to find out!

I have to shamelessly admit that this video is simply grandma's brag book! Our kids and grandkids came for a visit to Henry Hollow this summer, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time!

My raw and transparent journey dealing with alopecia. I document the day I went to the hair salon for the first time, to get my hair cut and outfitted with a hairpiece.

This is the very first video upload (2019) when I began my YouTube Channel. However, in light of the events of 2020, we are moving our channel to Rumble (hello everyone...)! I wasn't the most confident in front of the camera at the time, but I'm learning and getting better. This is an introduction to Simple Home and Hearth.

We had a bad wind storm that felled one of our large trees. This is a video documentary of the damage and the cleanup.