How To Make A Toad House

I was working in the garden the other day when I suddenly noticed I had an unexpected visitor.

He was very patient while I chased him around with my camera trying to get shots because I thought he was just so cute! After a while I resumed my gardening and he hung around to keep me company. David and I were talking about toad houses just the other day, and after seeing "Toadie" in the garden I told David we should make a house for him.

There are many expensive and elaborate toad houses for sale online, but we just used a large terra cotta pot that we found at a local thrift shop for $2. To begin, David simply chiseled out and smoothed half of the bottom of the pot to provide a back door escape hatch for the toad in case he gets chased into the house by a predator. We then buried the bottom half of the pot in a shady corner of our garden to help keep the inside of the house cool and damp. To make it look like a part of the garden, David transplanted some sedum and other plants from another location. I really like how it turned out!

Since we use organic gardening methods, we welcome the toads because they will eat insects and pests that we don't want messing with our vegetables. We also feel good that we are giving the toads a place to hang out and hopefully helping to boost their population.

Do you have any toad houses in your garden?

~Tammy

PS - We found this post very helpful in planning our toad house.

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Feathered Friend Friday: The Pre-Teens Go Outside!

Welcome to our series "Feathered Friend Friday." Every Friday I write a post with interesting facts, photos, or funny stories about our chickens and guineas. If you need to catch up, you'll find all the Feathered Friend Friday posts here. 

As you may remember, about eight weeks ago we got some new chicks from our local feed store. Since then, our hen Ellie went broody and hatched out five of her own chicks. So we now call the original chicks "pre-teens" and Ellie's babies the "chicks" to avoid confusion!

We moved the pre-teens outdoors to their new coop a few weeks back, and they have recently begun to roost on the perches in the coop at night. Once they begin to act upon their instinct to roost, they will usually return to the coop each night on their own so we figured it was a good time to let them explore the covered secure outdoor run.

We've done this several times, and it's always the same. They are scared at first and unsure of what to do with the pop door open. It takes a little coaxing to get one of them to come over and take a peek outside.

There's usually one chick that is a little bolder than the others (Pearl, in this case) and she will take the lead. Once she braves the strange new territory, the others will eventually follow.

We will let them stay in this coop until they are fully grown, then integrate them into the main flock. For now, they can all see each other since the runs are connected, so when the time comes to integrate them it should go much more smoothly. The chickens don't seem to mind the pre-teens at all and the pre-teens don't seem to care about the chickens, so hopefully they are already getting used to each other!

I can't end this post without reminiscing a bit. Two years ago today we closed on our house and began our homesteading journey. I still remember that day so vividly; full of promise and possibility. When we first moved, there was nothing out here. Just the house and a carport in the back. Over the past two years we have added a vegetable garden, flower garden around the house, and chicken coops with a big run that we have expanded several times. We have added many members to our family including Duchess, our outdoor cats Baby and Sylvester, a flock of guineas (and their two flocks of offspring), more chickens, and tens of thousands of honeybees. I am so very proud of what we have accomplished in such a short time. If we were able to get this much done in two years, I can't wait to see what the next five or ten years hold! Promise and possibility are still as rich and real as ever.

~Tammy

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How We Homestead: Real Food

Welcome to the third installment of our new five-week series, How We Homestead. Each Wednesday I write a post about a different homesteading topic to shed more light on where we are on our path to self-sufficiency and what homesteading looks like for us.

If you read the first installment in this series, you may remember that the documentary Food, Inc. was the catalyst for us in getting started on our homesteading journey. Since seeing the film, we have been focused on providing real, whole foods for our family. For us, that means growing as much of our own food as possible. I am somewhat of a control freak, so it is right up my alley to have a hand in each step of the gardening process, from seed to harvest.

Row of cucumbers.


This is only our second year gardening out here, so we still are in the planning and organizing phase. Last year was sort of a test run, and we made lots of changes to the garden area this year. The biggest change was defining a large spot for the garden and building raised beds. We are still working on it, but we finally see an end in sight! We just have to add a little more mulch in between the beds (this way we don't have to worry about weeds) and finish the fence to keep all the critters away from our veggies.

Radishes popping up like crazy!

Our first strawberry!

In addition to our large vegetable garden, we also took up beekeeping this year and are eager to harvest our first batch of honey. In the meantime, I buy local raw honey from the head of the beekeeping club in our area. I love to use honey in place of white sugar whenever I can (especially in my homemade granola and ice cream) so we tend to go through quite a bit!

My first time holding a frame full of our bees. I finally did it!

One of our girls foraging on sedum blooms.

Earlier this year, we decided to try tapping our maple trees to make our own syrup. While we found that we didn't feel the process was worth it for the time and effort required, we are so glad that we tried and learned more about how syrup is made.

If you've been reading this blog for a while now, you know that we also have a flock of chickens and guineas to provide us with delicious farm fresh eggs. At first I was only concerned with keeping chickens for their eggs, but along the way I have learned how much fun they are and what great companion animals they can be. I just love my chickens and the gorgeous eggs they provide for my family!

Our ultimate goal is to be able to grow and preserve all the food that we eat here on our homestead. I realize that is a very lofty goal, and we are nowhere near it yet, but it is what we are working towards every day.

Four other awesome bloggers are participating in this series as well, so don't forget to check out their posts to read more about where they are in their homesteading journey. You can find them here -

Staci at Life At Cobble Hill Farm
Meg at Little Homestead
Daisy at Maple Hill 101
Amber at Making A Home

Thanks so much for reading and please do let me know if you have any questions or comments. I'd love to hear from you! Don't forget to check back next Wednesday for the fourth installment in the series where I will be focusing on what a typical day looks like for us out here on the homestead.

~Tammy

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Strawberries With Graham Crackers

The first strawberries of the season are very exciting for me. I refuse to eat strawberries out of season since they pale in comparison to the real thing, so waiting all winter long adds to the thrill of taking that first juicy bite.

I haven't mastered growing my own strawberries, so I get my fix at the local farmers market. David and I checked it out for the first time this season on Saturday and got some awesome items. I even got to pet some baby goats! It was heaven. And when I saw the big, red, juicy strawberries I knew I had to have them. I ate several of them on the way home along with my chai spiced pretzel from the market and have managed to polish off the whole pint in just a few days. No apologies!

I've had this simple graham cracker strawberry bowl for breakfast the past couple days. All I do is slice the strawberries and sprinkle with a little brown sugar. I stir and let them rest for a minute to get the juices flowing. Then I crumble on a couple graham crackers and have at it. For a little more decadence this morning, I also drizzled on a local honey made from bees foraging at a walnut farm.

For me, this is the perfect way to celebrate the return of strawberry season. What is your favorite way to eat strawberries?

~Tammy

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