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How to get unlimited shade trees for FREE

So I grew up with a dad who was obsessed with trees. We moved a lot, and the first thing he did at every single house was plant a whole bunch of trees. I always wondered why he did it, because two years later we would move and never get to enjoy the fruits of his labors. Even worse was the fact that he would torture himself by checking up on our old houses to see how everything was doing. And almost every time he would find that the next tenants had removed his precious baby trees.

Well I guess it’s contagious …. or genetic …. I don’t know which one is worse. But whatever it is, I have it. I can’t get enough trees! I love everything about them. And I especially love big giant shade trees.

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But trees are an expensive hobby.

Trees can put you out hundreds of dollars very very quickly.

So instead of forking over $30-$50 for your next tree, let me show you what your paying the tree nurseries to do for you.

Today I am going to show you how to get as many beautiful weeping willow trees as you want …. for absolutely FREE.

My dad definitely had a weakness for trees, but he sure taught me a bundle about them, including how to get them…

Weeping Willows are one of the most hormonal plants out there. Can I use that word when I am talking about plants? Oh well, I just did. For a tree to produce roots, it must have rooting hormones. Some trees have lots, some trees have well … NOT lots. Weeping Willows are so abundant in rooting hormones that they can actually be used to root other trees! So imagine how easy it must be to root a tree that is so fertile it can root other unrelated trees!! IT IS SOOOO EASY! It might even be easier than going to a tree nursery and purchasing a tree ….. seriously though.

However, since I know you came here for detailed instructions on the topic, I will do my best to drag this out as long as I can.

Scout your neighborhood for beautiful weeping willows. Bring pruning shears.
Find one you like.
Park your car at the home nearest to the tree.
Walk to the front door.
Knock on it.
Ask person answering the door if you can cut off some branches from the underside of their tree. (underside so that it won’t be upsetting to the owner)
Cut off branches about pencil size to sharpie marker size in diameter. Get a whole bunch.
Take them straight home.
Put them in a 5 gallon bucket all the way full of water.
Forget about it for 2-4 weeks.
When they start producing roots, clip off the tops so just a few inches are sticking out of the water.
Plant them now or leave them in the water until it’s convenient.

Okay was 12 steps enough? I made it as complicated as I could, but there is only so much you can say when all you have to do is cut something and stick it in water.

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If you feel like you need more then here, I will give you some tips ….

The best time to do this is in early spring before the leaves have come out. In fact, you can probably skip step # 11 if you get them early enough because the tops might not die off. I obviously didn’t do that so mine got all crunchy. If you do it in the late summer or fall you will have significantly less success.
You don’t have to do this, but if it makes you feel better you can change the water every few days so it doesn’t get slimy and gross. I didn’t.
After you have planted your trees, it’s almost impossible to water them too much. Weeping Willows LOVE water. The more you give them, the faster they will grow.
Don’t give up on them. If after three weeks they still don’t have any roots, just try not to look at them for another week or two and then check them. Most of them will root eventually.

So now instead of being sad that you can’t afford a bunch of trees in your yard, be glad! And start searching for the perfect specimen!

If you like trees then you will love my post on How to save thousands on your dream orchard.

And as always, be sure to subscribe to The Real Farmhouse so you can see my list of what garden plants save me the most money and the least.

Happy planting!

~Farmer’s Wife

Farmhouse Garden Preserving The Harvest

How to can incredible raspberries in 4 easy steps

You know that one food that you absolutely LOVE, but it is almost impossible to get your hands on? Maybe because it’s incredibly rare or way too expensive.

Well for me that food is canned raspberries.

The reason it is so hard to get my hands on is because you have to have so many raspberries to do it. And by the time my family and I have eaten a truck load of fresh ones, and made enough jam for the winter, we sometimes aren’t left with buckets of raspberries.

I love canned raspberries SO MUCH that when I was younger, I used to ask for them for my birthday! Skip the gifts, I wanted grandma’s canned raspberries! Those scrumptious, juicy, sweet, little buggers just melt in your mouth!

The worst part is, if you don’t make them yourself or know someone you can get them from, the local fruit stand and farmer’s markets sell them for $20-$35 dollars each. It’s a fair price given the amount of raspberries you need and the time spent working, but I can’t exactly buy a year’s supply at $25 a pop. Poof, there goes my entire food budget for the month!

So I would love to teach you how to can them yourself so you don’t end up broke after you discover your own canned raspberry addiction. Yay for DIY and saving money!

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What you need:

raspberries (A LOT! seriously though, as many as you can get)
sugar
water
vinegar
pint canning jars
lids and flats (just the two part lid for the top of the canning jars)
canning pot with rack
stove
something to get the jars out with (I use a jar grabber, but you could make do with hot pads)

Step 1: Make your syrup

Fill your clean jars with about 1 inch of hot water and stir in 1/8 cup sugar until it’s dissolved. My canner holds 7 jars, so I set out all 7 jars on my counter and made my “syrup”.

Step 2: Fill your jars

Wash your raspberries and put them in your jars with syrup. Your going to want to leave about 1/2 inch of space at the top, otherwise get as many raspberries in there as you can without squishing them. Then top them off with hot water so the water is about 1/2 inch from the top also. Wipe the rims clean, then screw on your flats and lids finger tight. No need to tighten them as hard as you can, they need a little give to release any air bubbles they have while cooking.

Step 3: Process them!

Fill your canning pot 2/3 full of water and turn your stove on high. Add a splash (like two tablespoons) of vinegar to the water to keep your jars clear and clean looking. Place your jars, full of raspberries, with lids on, in the rack. Lower them into the water carefully just so they don’t crash together and break each other. Make sure the water covers all the jars by at least 1/2 inch. Add water if you need to. Put the lid on and go quench your pinterest obsession for a few minutes while you wait for it to boil. Ya I know you have one!

….tick tock tick tock ….

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K now that your water is boiling, turn the heat down to medium high (just so it will keep boiling) and set your timer for 15 minutes. I guess that means you get 15 more minutes on pinterest! Yay!

…. tick tock tick tock ….

Step 4: Remove ’em and forget ’em

When your timer goes off, shut your stove off, remove the lid, and carefully lift the rack up out of the water. Use a jar grabber or hot pads to take the jars out and set them on a towel so they don’t destroy your counter. Put them in a place out of the way because they need to sit there for 24 hours before you start moving them around. That’s it! Forget them for the next 24 hours, then wash them if they are sticky and put them on your shelf. Do be sure to make sure they sealed though before dropping them on your shelf. If the middle of the lid pops up and down freely, put that jar in the fridge and eat it first.

It’s not like they are going to last long there though. If you are like me, then they will be dessert tonight with fresh whipped topping. And tomorrow night. And the next night. And every night until they are gone. And probably for breakfast too …. Ahhh yep, they are all gone again.

Sorry that I have now caused you to develop a canned raspberry addiction. You better read my posts on growing raspberries now so that you can supply your own for canning. Find out what the 3 biggest factors are in how big and juicy your raspberries get HERE, and the secret to getting your raspberry plants to stay put HERE.

Enjoy!

~Farmer’s Wife

Farmhouse Garden Gardening How To's

The secret to getting your raspberries plants to stay put!

I know you all know exactly what I am talking about. Getting your raspberry patch to STAY where you want it to stay, and not take off sprinting in all different directions is incredibly difficult. Those voracious little buggers love to creep underground and pop up exactly where you don’t want them too. Usually their favorite places are in between your nicely laid pavers, smack dab in the middle of your flower box, out in the driveway, and anywhere else you wouldn’t want a raspberry plant to spring up.

To be fair, I should be thanking my raspberry plants for growing so vigorously and spreading out rather than reprimanding them, but sometimes it makes me crazy!

So after several failed attempts, and three different raspberry patch locations, I can now say I have come up with a way to get my raspberries to STAY PUT…. at least for a few years.

My raspberry patch has been exactly where I want it to be, and no where else, for 3 years now.

Here is how I do it.

Choose your spot wisely

Before you so much as THINK about planting a raspberry plant, you need to consider where you really want it. Raspberry plants get big, really big, and they spread out. You have to provide them with room to spread a little or they won’t thrive. You also have to remember that they will be there for several years. So if your planning on sandwiching them in between your tomato plants and your flower box, please rethink your plan! You need an area AT LEAST 8 feet wide, preferably more like 12.

The first secret to getting your plants to stay put in your chosen spot, is water. Raspberries like water, and they will grow in whatever direction they have to, to get it. So find a spot where you can control their water completely and only put it where you want them to grow. DO NOT put them next to your grass under a sprinkling system, because they will immediately take off into your grass and never look back. You will spend the next ten years mowing down raspberry plants out in your yard, instead of picking berries from a flourishing patch.

Pick a spot that doesn’t get any added water within several feet all the way around your patch. I chose to plant mine across the ditch from our yard, in a place about 12 feet wide, that doesn’t get watered by the sprinklers.

By choosing this spot, my raspberry plants will be less likely to grow OUT in search of water. Instead, they will stay close together where I choose to put their water. It also gave them plenty of space to spread out a few feet and move around a bit, while still in my controlled environment.

Alright, now that you have a good spot, that doesn’t receive added water, and is plenty wide for your plants to spread out in their space you need to ….

2. Set up your watering system

Wherever you put your water, that is where your plants will want to grow. If you water your area with a huge sprinkler, within two years you will have plants popping up wherever the water is.

Water your patch with a drip system. You can get the water exactly where you want it, and it will seep way down deep into the soil so the raspberry roots will grow down instead of out. You can place your drip system RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR PATCH. Can you see my DIY pvc drip system going straight into the heart of my patch? This is the only water I give my raspberries. No sprinklers, just one strip down the middle. Once your raspberry plants reach the end of where the water gets to, they will be more likely to turn themselves around and grow back into the moisture instead of venturing out into the crusty. They will not ALWAYS do that, which is why I have another secret for you.

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3. Put down tarp and mulch wherever you don’t want them to grow

Like I said earlier, I put my raspberry patch on the other side of the ditch from my yard. I wanted to have a pathway in between the ditch and the plants, to walk along and pick berries. The space where I wanted my raspberries to spread was in the other direction, away from the ditch and the pathway.

So I have my space, and I have my water, now I needed to keep the plants from growing in the wrong direction.

I put down thick tarp for my pathway and piled wood chips on top. I held down the edges with bricks and overlapped the tarp and the concrete ditch edge. This semi permanent pathway has successfully kept down the raspberries for a few years now. Everything has stayed fairly compacted and has spread in the direction that I have encouraged them to spread.

The important thing to remember when placing your permanent pathway is that you really do need to allow your raspberries a few feet to spread or you will never stop fighting them. My pathway is about 3 feet wide, then the space where I am allowing my raspberries to spread is about 4-5 feet wide. On the other side I have placed a temporary weed barrier that the raspberry plants will grow through. You can read about my free and organic weed control that I use if you CLICK HERE.

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By using these three secrets, my patch has stayed right where I want it to stay for three years. It’s perfect for the kids to pick out of because we have a clear pathway for them to walk along. My patch looks nice and well kept because everything is in a compact row instead of a huge mass of raspberry shoots all over. I am confident my raspberries will do well staying where I want them for at least a few years more. If they ever venture all the way underneath the ditch to the grass on the other side then maybe that means it’s time to move the patch anyway!

I love to grow raspberries and have written quite a bit about them. So if you enjoyed this article, then be sure to check out the 3 biggest factors in how big and juicy your raspberry fruit gets. How much water, when to compost, and how to prune make all the difference in the size of your berries!

And while you’re at it, subscribe to The Real Farmhouse so you can get my list of what garden fruits and veggies save me the most money and the least. Then you will know what to plant in your garden for maximum profit!

Do you have any secrets for how to keep your raspberries put? Let’s hear ’em!

~Farmer’s Wife

Family Life Farmhouse Life

21 things we did to save over $230,000 in 7 years

There is no part of me that claims to be a financial expert in any way. However, Farmer and I have been married for almost 8 years now, and we have managed to save over $230,000 in that time frame. Let me be clear, this is NOT because Farmer makes a lot of money. He doesn’t. In fact, by America’s standards, we fall below the impoverished line because of how many kids we have(4). I am a stay at home mom, so the way I bring in the big bucks, is by NOT blowing through everything Farmer brings home. Saving this much money is all directly related to what we choose to do with the money we DO HAVE.

I love to read other people’s ideas and tips on saving money so I thought you might want to know how we do it around here. I am certain you won’t agree with all of my financial opinions, and that’s okay! But hopefully you can find one or two things that might work for you.

Before I start the list …. I wanted to share a few things that helped us out big time.

To really be able to succeed at saving money, we needed a true motivation. This will be different for everyone, but in our case, it was saving for our dream home. For someone else it might be, taking their family on a huge vacation, being able to pay for their kids college, or starting their own business. Maybe your motivation is to get out of debt and quit fighting with your spouse about money, or to be able to get out from under owing other people money. Find your motivation so that when your shopping, you can say no to that extra something that you don’t really need.

It has really helped to have reminders all along the way so we are always thinking about our motivation. I have been working on other things for our dream home for years. I save pictures and articles about the things we want all the time. We are constantly being reminded that if we are diligent with our saving, we will reach our goal and be able to build what we want.

And you have to have a budget. Unless you make a crazy amount of money, you just can’t save effectively without having a plan, and keeping track of what you spend. For me, the best strategy has been cash. I can see exactly how much I am spending and how much I have left. I put our budgeted amount of cash in my planner every month. I am careful with what I spend it on. And when it is gone, it is gone, and I just have to wait until the next month for more money. If you always stick to that, you will always know exactly how much money your spending and how much you can save. Everything else goes in the bank!

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So shall we get started on this crazy long list?? Buckle up, it’s going to be a long ride! In no particular order ….

Don’t go out to eat.

Going out to eat adds up really fast, especially for our family of six. We budget $100 a month for “outings” and then we eat at home the rest of the time. $100 bucks usually gets us two trips to a fast food restaurant or one big night out with pizza and bowling. Imagine if we were going twice a week. That would be like $400 a month!

Live life for the adventure, not the screen.

We don’t have a satellite subscription, Netflix, Blockbuster, or any other subscription of the sort. Every single one of these things are for entertainment only. There are a million and one ways to get entertainment that don’t require you to pay for something on a screen. It may seem like a small payment each month, but over the course of seven years, that’s a lot of dough!

Grow a garden

I few weeks ago I figured out that growing our garden saves us over $2,400 each year. 7 years of that = $16,800. You don’t have to have a bunch of space to grow enough veggies to make a big difference. If you click HERE you can see a garden plan I drew up that produces $244 in 9 square feet. Or you can subscribe to The Real Farmhouse and I will send you my complete list of the 26 things I plant in my garden every year, and how much each plant saves me. Then you can design your own garden to save you even more money. One tomato plant alone can save $50-$150!

Side jobs and skills

Over the last few years, Farmer and I have both had a number of small side jobs. He started a part time hay hauling business that brought in a nice side income for about four years. I coached basketball at the high school for one year, and then organized a kids camp every winter after that for five years that did really well. I taught personal fitness training for 1 year and was a Zumba instructor for two. I also started selling my extra produce at a local fruit stand 3 years ago. Another one Farmer and I have done together is babysitting, and currently we are long term house sitting. Pick something you’re good at or that you enjoy, and figure out a way to teach it or offer your services somehow.

Borrow Entertainment

I like movies just as much as the next person. Sometimes you just need to chill out and relax in front of a good flick. Do you know how many people around you have DVD collections the size of Texas?? Find a friend with one and trade DVD’s. Quit buying a movie every time you go to Walmart. We have traded or borrowed DVD’s, CD’s, entertainment boxes, and even an outdoor projector several times. If you hate asking to borrow things, then offer something to trade!

Preserve everything you can get your hands on

If you knew that taking a day off and preserving food could save you hundreds of dollars, would it change the way you feel about canning, baking, making jam, etc? Every fall we spend an entire day, sometimes two, freezing sweet corn. We can get it for free if we go pick it ourselves. Then everyone helps shuck it, blanch it, cut it off the cob, and put it in bags to freeze. We end up with around 50 bags of frozen corn that lasts us the entire year! Yes it takes an entire day of work, but it also saves us hundreds of dollars. There are people all over the place that are letting their produce go to waste. Find them! They are almost always happy to see it get used.

If you grow a garden, that’s awesome! But if you let a bunch of it waste then you are putting in the work for nothing. Schedule days to make sure you get as much as possible preserved. If you honestly knew how much money it saves, it might even be worth taking a day off of work to do it.

Make trades

The first time you ask someone if they would accept a trade for something instead of cash, it’s going to feel a little awkward. But on the other hand, the first time someone says YES to a trade, your going to be so excited you’re going to want to trade for everything! People LIKE trades because both sides win! Just a few weeks ago we traded an old grain silo that we weren’t using anymore to a guy in exchange for drawing up our house plans. He gave us a service that we couldn’t do ourselves, and we gave him something we weren’t using anymore that he had a use for. We both got what we wanted and we only had to fork over 1/4 of the original bill. Try it out sometime, it’s addicting!

Show appreciation for gifts and hand me downs

Whenever anyone asks me where I shop for my clothes, they are always surprised by the answer. Nearly everything my kids and I wear, was given to me.

The next thing they want to know is how I get people to bring me their clothes that they would have just taken to good will. And the answer is …. show some serious appreciation when things are given to you. And I don’t mean say thank you, I mean make a BIG DEAL out of it. I don’t think I have ever straight up asked someone to give me their old stuff. But when people give me things, I make absolutely positive, that they know that I appreciate it. I have written thank you notes, actual cards, not texts or emails. I have taken pictures of my kids wearing the clothes or playing with the toys and sent them to whoever gifted them to us. I wear the clothes they gave me when I am around them and say thank you again. If it is food or produce that they give me, I will take them some food in return.

If people know that you are using what they gave you, they are going to keep bringing you stuff. I have several awesome friends that call me every year to let me know their fruit or veggies are ready for me to come get simply because they KNOW I will use it. The word spreads from there. Everyone around here knows that I appreciate any extra produce they have and that I won’t let it go to waste. So every year I have more and more people giving me things.

maintain your weight

Clothes are expensive! For me personally, all it takes is ten pounds and I can’t wear most of the clothes in my closet. If your weight fluctuates all the time then you need several different sizes of clothes on hand. A new wardrobe can be several hundred dollars or more, depending on your personal style and preference. Save yourself a bundle by maintaining your weight and not being forced to buy new clothes.

Know your schedule

This might not be as big of a deal for you as it is for me, but knowing my schedule saves me a lot of money on makeup and other beauty supplies. I stay home quite a bit. When I am home, there is no reason for me to put on makeup. Of course I clean myself up and try to look nice for Farmer, but I don’t need to put on makeup every day to stay at home. Makeup is another one of those things that ads up fast. Make it last four times as long by only putting it on the days you are going somewhere.

Never buy on credit

You know how interest starts out small but the more you owe, the crazier your interest payments get? It works the other way too. The more money you save, the faster it grows. By never allowing yourself to buy anything until you have the money to buy it, you will never be paying interest and you will never be in the hole. I can’t even put a number on how much this has saved us over the years, but Farmer and I have been debt free for about 6 years. Once we paid off our debt, we were able to start saving A LOT. Now we don’t buy anything on credit, we just wait a little while until we have the money.

Give of what you do have

This kind of goes along with showing appreciation when people give you things. If you give to other’s, they will want to give back. Be generous with what you have, you just might be surprised what people will want to do for you if they appreciate your generosity.

Research everything

I have been blown away by the range of what people charge for things. When I take my time, research the product, and look for other options, I save BIG! For example … by shopping around for someone to draw up our septic system design instead of taking the first bid we received, I saved over $500. The highest bid we received was $1,4oo, and the lowest was $475. It only took me about two hours to make a few extra phone calls.

Be patient

This is directly related to researching everything. If you give yourself time to find the best deal and your not rushed, you will have the opportunity to find the best deal. After searching on craigslist for a few weeks, I found enough tile for our entire bathroom, still in the boxes, for $100! Later I saw the same tile at the store, and it would have cost us over $700 for it. Be patient when buying anything big, research your options, and you will be pleased with what you find.

Ask for things

Now I am not saying you should become a begger, but it’s okay to ask about things sometimes especially if you know they are not being used. Here is a perfect example …. A few weeks ago I was driving to the store and as I passed my friends house I noticed two of her big wooden tomato cages were laying in her burn pile. Now I can assume she is planning on burning them right? So all I did was shoot her a little text asking if she was going to burn them, and she happily told me that I could have them.

You want another one … A few days later I was at the store again and the produce guy was sorting through some stuff. He picked up some strawberries, took a good look at them, and turned to throw them away. So I said wo wo wo! Are you throwing those away? He said yep, they are getting too old. So I said can I have them? Then he scribbled out the barcode and wrote free across the top of 8 packages of strawberries! Sure there were some that couldn’t be used, but I went straight home and made two batches of delicious jam and had some left over to put on ice cream.

Asking doesn’t have to be awkward or greedy, just pay attention and when you notice something going to waste ask what is going to happen to it.

Eat before you shop

Someone told me this a long time ago but I don’t remember who. It has proven to be excellent advice. I notice a complete change in what I buy when I go to the store hungry versus full. I buy healthier stuff, cheaper stuff, not convenience food, and whole lot less of everything.

Cloth diaper

I actually only do this part time, and it still saves us quite a bit. When you have a lot of kids, diapers just seem to turn into a huge deal. One blog that I read about cloth diapering claimed that she was saving 30-50 cents for every diaper changed. I haven’t don’t the math to know if that is true, but I do know that I used to spend over $100 every month on diapers and pull-ups, and now I spend about $20 on disposable diapers and my entire collection of cloth diapers only set me back $80. If you would like to read about my PART TIME cloth diaper strategy click here.

Shop thrift stores, craigslist, yard sales

I understand this is not exactly everyone’s “style”, but you can find nice stuff for crazy good prices if you look often. Like I said earlier, I saved over $600 on brand new tile on craigslist. Thrift stores are awesome for kids clothes because often times they don’t get used much before the kids grow out of them. I buy all my husbands work shirts for like $2 at thrift stores … they are just going to end up covered in oil and torn apart anyways. Some other things that I always buy from one of these three places are: kids books, craft supplies, fabric, magazines, picture frames, some sports equipment.

Quit over eating and snacking

I come from a family that takes eating very seriously. I remember almost every Sunday afternoon, eating so much food, that I had to stretch out on the couch because of how uncomfortable I was. I have since learned better, but I still have the ability to put away some serious food. I have noticed though, that when I over eat like that, I can eat over twice as much food as I should. That means the grocery bill is twice as much! Same goes for snacking all day long. Snacks foods are expensive, not to mention usually not very good for you. So eliminating snacking and over eating has the potential to cut down significantly on your food bill, especially if you eat like I used to.

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Pay off all debts

Every debt you have is costing you interest. Make it top priority to pay off your debts and you will be amazed at how little you can live off of. Do whatever it takes to get your bills payed off. Farmer walked to work for about six months when we were saving up for a car just so that we didn’t have to take out a loan. Not taking out a loan saved us thousands of dollars. It was totally worth waiting a few extra months and only having one car.

Involve the whole family

The kids need to learn about money anyways, why not get them involved with the family finances. Once our kids knew what we were saving for, they were actually excited to help us save money. It makes it a million times easier to tell our kids “let’s not buy that right now, let’s put that money towards your new bedroom” instead of, “nope, we aren’t buying that because I said so”.

Wow! That just went on and on and on didn’t it? My fingers are cramping a little bit! I hope that some of these things can be helpful to you on your money saving journey. It’s been long and hard at times, but I can’t tell you how awesome it is to not argue about money with Farmer. It’s also an amazing feeling to know that we did it, and we can start our new journey of building our own home. If you would like to know more about How we are building our own house CLICK HERE.

You can do it! Start saving more Right Now!!

~Farmer’s Wife

Farmhouse Life

How to know if what your reading on Pinterest is actually true

There is so much information floating around out there it’s crazy! You can find an answer to almost any problem you have. You can find advice on what to do and what not to do. You can see video tutorials and step by step instructions on how to create or build just about anything.

Here is my issue …. anyone, anywhere, at any time, who has access to the internet, can post whatever they want to and claim it’s for real. There are people out there that don’t care to do their research, or care what happens to the people who try out their methods. All they care about is getting you to click on their information and make them more money or get a larger following. You know what I am saying?

This is one of the reasons I created this blog. I was tired of reading something someone told me to do, trying it out, and failing miserably. I didn’t like seeing information being pinned on Pinterest, or shared in other ways, that I KNEW was false, and not being able to do anything about it. The worst is when it not only fails, but it puts you in a worse situation than you started in.

One time I found a “recipe” for a special kind of play-dough that claimed to stay soft forever. The next time the kiddos and I went to the store, we picked up the supplies, went home and made it. The dough was impossible to mix, and it took forever for it to get so the kids could play with it. When we were finished, we put it in a baggy, according to directions. Two weeks later when we got it out to play with again, guess what we found? Sure it was soft still …. it was also gooey, sticky, and moldy. We had to toss the entire thing because it couldn’t be played with again.

Thankfully this was a small thing that didn’t cost a bunch of money, but it still made me angry. It also made me nervous to try other projects that I find online. Now I have to spend double the time researching things to make sure other people will vouch for something working before I put any time or energy into it. Does anyone else feel this same way? Am I the only one that has experienced this frustration?

So I decided to do something about it. First thing was to start this blog and put on it ONLY THE THINGS THAT I HAVE TRIED MYSELF AND KNOW TO WORK. I also try my best to provide you guys with pictures and evidence of the process and the results so you can be reassured that it’s going to work for you too.

The next thing I am doing is creating a place that you can go to find information that you KNOW is correct. On this blog, I can not provide you with every piece of information that you will ever need, but I CAN create a space that all of us can share the things that have ABSOLUTELY worked for us. If you’re here right now, it’s because you want a solution to this problem too. So let’s do something about it!

My preferred place for information right now is pinterest.com because most of the things people save include pictures. You can see my Pinterest account if you click right here. I have a board called “The Real Farmhouse” that contains every post from this blog with a picture included. I have other boards too about all different topics, but they are full of things I have pinned and liked at first glance. I have only tried probably 5% of the things that I have saved on Pinterest, mostly because I haven’t got around to it yet.

So I bet your wondering what my solution to the problem is right???

My solution is group boards. They are a place on Pinterest where we can all share what has worked for us. I have just created 6 new boards that anyone (yes even you!) can pin to. They are Garden, DIY, Home Building, Great Kids, Homesteading, and I threw in a Clean Humor one just for fun. Click on any one of those to see the board. These boards are going to be filled ONLY WITH THINGS WE KNOW WORK AND HAVE TRIED OURSELVES. No more guessing if it’s true, or if we are going to have some allergic reaction, or if we are going to blow $100 on something that wont work. Now we will have one place we can go to that we don’t have to wonder if it’s for real.

I would love to have anyone join any of these new group boards. Let’s start fresh and create a collection of truly useful tips, advice, and ideas. And while we are at it, pin a few funny things that we can all share with our family over dinner!

If your new to Pinterest or don’t know how group boards work, don’t worry!

Create a free account on pinterest.com
Search for “The Real Farmhouse” or click on any of the links I included in this post
You must “follow” The Real Farmhouse, or Pinterest won’t let me invite you to my boards
Leave me a comment or shoot me an email at farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com asking me to add you to one or more of the group boards
When I get your comment or email, I will send you an invite
Click “Accept” when you receive it
Then you are added to my group board and you can start pinning/saving excellent things for everyone to see

If you need more detailed instructions or you have absolutely no experience with Pinterest, send me an email and I would be happy to walk you through it very specifically. And if you’re not interested in joining any of the group boards, just head over to the Real Farmhouse Pinterest page and check out what’s there.

I can’t wait to see what you guys have tried! Let’s get this thing started!

~Farmer’s Wife