Northern Prairie Acres

Did you know that all traditional cultures consumed bones in someway, whether that was a bone paste, fermented, softened bones, or they made bone broth. And these methods were some of the best ways these cultures were able to get adequate calcium in the diet. Of course, you can also get adequate calcium if you drink two large glasses of raw milk a day, but it must be raw milk because you cannot get the same nutrition from pasteurized milk. Here in Canada, they have made it against the law to purchase or sell raw milk, which is a natural food, so you would have to own your own milking cow in order to get adequate calcium that way.

Let me ask you, have you wondered why it is that collagen is all the rage right now? There are companies starting up all over that are selling collagen products. Why? I suggest to you that it is because this practice of making bone broth is not common to most of this generation, and this generation is suffering because of this lost tradition. Bone broth has many benefits and one of those benefits is that it supports our connective tissues. And one of the things I hear a lot of people say that take today’s collagen supplements is that it’s helped their joints. Of course there are many more benefits when you drink bone broth.

This practice of making bone broth is making a comeback as more and more people are embracing the Homestead farming lifestyle. And one of those reasons is because more and more people are discovering that we have lost these very valued traditions of our ancestors and we have been suffering because of it.

But we don’t have to suffer. When someone isn’t feeling well, give them a nice hot cup of bone broth and they often feel better. One of those reasons is because it helps regulate your dopamine levels which gives you that nice calm happy feeling. And don’t we all love that feeling? 🥰

Save your bones from cooking or buy soup bones and enjoy this delicious and nutritious traditional food.

I pulled out my box of homemade ornaments for decorating my Christmas tree, which hubby needs to cut down for me now that we are back from our trip to Manitoba.

There is something beautiful and special about homemade. Something I have worked on and have put my time and effort into that makes it so much more satisfying than anything I just go buy.

Of course I do have many sentimental ornaments too from years gone by that were either made or given to me by friends and loved ones, and I am thinking of adding some of those to my tree this year as well. Mostly because I have lost those loved ones now and want to include them and their memory in our celebrations of this beautiful Christmas season.

Have you put up your tree yet this year? And is there anything special or anything that you just love and treasure about your decorated tree.

# #

Making crafts and creating things has become something that brings me a lot of joy, and Christmas is such a great time to play with and test out your creativity. These are some of the Christmas ornaments that I made for Christmas a few years ago. I am making more ornaments this year that I will share when I am finished. 😊

It’s sad to see such a small basket of eggs each day. We have gone from 17-19 eggs a day down to 7-9 eggs a day. That means we lost 10 good layers to that darn fox. 😞

We do sell eggs from our homestead, and the selling of our eggs allows us to eat about $100/month worth of eggs for free. So having lost those ten layers will be noticeable in our monthly budget for the next few months.

That being said I am very thankful that we have had four broody mamas that have hatched chicks this summer, even though the first batch was mostly roosters with only one hen. We have a few hens coming up that should be laying in the next 6-8 weeks. And on top of that we currently have a broody mama that we just moved to the cottage sitting on 10 eggs, so hopefully she too will hatch a few more females that will be layers come late winter.

All in all I am beyond grateful for what does fill our egg basket each day and that we haven’t lost any more layers…while waiting to catch this fox. We have been attempting it almost everyday but he’s a sly one that’s even managed to grab the bait and still make it out of the trap without triggering it. 🤷‍♀️

Thea is our most favorite kitty! She is super smart, very obedient and more affectionate than any other kitty we have ever had. She will nose nuzzle every chance she gets, all it takes is showing her some affection.

I decided to take a few minutes and take some photos of her because she is such a sweetheart.

“Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.” – Elizabeth Lawrence

🍂Autumn brings a sense of knowing that the busy days of summer are slowly slipping away and those quieter, slower paced days will soon be upon us.

Days of warm fires, slippers, a hot bowl of soup, sweaters, blankets and a peaceful stillness will soon bring about not just a time of rest for the earth, but a time of rest for us. And for me that makes it a joyful, beautiful and welcome season.

*Click on the photos to see the full capture!

August is coming to an end, and even though we did not plant a vegetable garden this year, we have still been blessed with many beautiful gifts from our flower gardens. The green beans were a blessing from a neighbour while they were away on holidays.

Did you plant any gardens this year? If so what did you plant and what was your favourite thing that you grew?

Came across this interesting looking mushroom last night. In fact I came close to stepping on it. I think it’s a Coprinus Comatus - Shaggy Ink Cap. At least that is the closest image I could find when trying to identify it. I won’t talk about the details in case I am wrong on its identity, but I thought it was a pretty cool looking mushroom.

Some hens are having an easy day and others a pretty rough day. 😉

I know I’ve been away from here for a long time but let’s just say it’s been a difficult year for me this past year.

All of that being said, I am back and feeling so much better and have new goals and a new vision, and here we go. Hope you’ll enjoy the content from our life on the northern prairie.

Does anyone else love choosing a beautiful teacup to drink their tea?
Though I don’t always use a teacup, there are days when I just want to sit and enjoy the beauty and the graceful feeling that comes from drinking tea out of a lovely teacup.
I chose the pink one today because it was the one my dear mother had from our years growing up on the farm. 💗

Moulting season is tough when you’re only getting eight to nine eggs per day. But, I am very thankful that we have enough hens still laying to provide for our household.

Some of you may not have realized that this page was Northern Prairie Acres and we have changed the name to Whispers of a Homemaker. So I thought I would do an introduction post.

My name is Amanda and I am married to my amazing husband and a mom to our two grown boys. We are currently homesteading on 13 acres in Northern Saskatchewan, and learning more and more what it takes to become self-sufficient.

This page is to share snippets of our life and what we are learning along the way. From recipes, food preservation, keeping a home, creativity, thrifting and more. This is our little space to share with those who have the same desires or maybe just want to follow and learn more.

I look forward to this becoming a fun community of inspiration, sharing and learning, and getting to know those who are apart of it.
~ Amanda ♥️

A good part of my childhood was spent running bare feet out the back door, down the stairs along the wooden walkway and across the gravel driveway that separated our home from our grandparents home.

The scent of home cooking or baking would flood my young senses as I would walk through their front door, through the entrance and then through the door that opened up into grandma’s kitchen. Grandma was always there to greet us and invite us in for something to excite our tastebuds, usually some kind of baking and of course a little visit. I miss those days!

I was blessed to have them next door on the farm my entire growing up years and the blessings, knowledge, wisdom and faith that was instilled in my life stays with me to this day.

Whenever I look at this photo it is a beautiful reminder of where I came from and the beautiful legacy that these two treasured souls have deposited within me all those years ago.

Life is really all about leaving a legacy, and we as parents get to decide what kind of legacy we pass on to our children. For the legacy that was passed onto me I am eternally grateful.

The winter storm has passed leaving behind a soft white winter wonderland. There’s such a quiet stillness that has come over the land. It stirs within me the desire for a toasty fires, warm bowls of soup, cozy slippers and the smell of fresh baked bread and cinnamon buns fresh out of the oven.

It also stirs within me the desire to put away the autumn decor and bring out those lovely winter treasures. These trees that I crafted last year have become one of my favourites. ❄️🤍

“For winter was coming. The days were shorter, and frost crawled up the window panes at night. Soon the snow would come. Then the log house would be almost buried in snowdrifts, and the lake and the stream would freeze.”
~Laura Ingalls Wilder

When I started this page years ago it was to share my love of photography and nature. Then it evolved to our homestead life and then our life in Kelowna.

During the last two years my life focus has not just changed but I feel like I’ve entered a different chapter in my life.

I want to share my love for the changes that have happened and are happening and share more from my heart. I feel like I want to be a gentle voice in a world filled with noisy distractions and chaos, and bring a sense of quiet stillness to all who pass this way.

I hope you’ll stay and enjoy the journey with me.





















🍁

ANNOUNCEMENT!
Norther Prairie Acres is changing their name to “Whispers of a Homemaker”.
New content and a new look. I look forward to more interaction with everyone. ♥️

Though this heart shaped log is just one small log out of hundreds of logs that have found their way into our winter stockpile of wood. I can’t help but think of the hours and hours of love and hard work that has gone into making sure our home is heated for the winter months ahead.

Though we are not off grid, we try and be as self sufficient as possible. Burning wood is our homes main source of heat during the winter. Unless it is a sunny day, in which case our very large wall of south facing windows will do the trick. And though we do have in floor heat in our basement, and occasionally the furnace might kick in during an early morning cold snap, our main source of heat is burning wood.

It’s a warmth that only the sun can compete with and I am so grateful to the Creator for his provision.

One thing I really tried to practice during this years garden season, was to make the most out of what we were growing. Normally I would just make dill pickles out of my cucumbers and whatever was left we either enjoyed eating fresh or it went to the chickens.

This year however, I found myself looking for different ways to utilize the food we were growing so that we could enjoy it in different ways throughout this next year. By doing this I could also save more money on our grocery budget.

So with my cucumber harvest this year I didn’t just make dill pickles but also bread and butter pickles and green relish. It was more than worth it, to not just save money, but the taste of store bought does not compare to the flavour of what I preserved here at home.

Finding new ways to store-up the food we grow is another way to take the pressure off the system and become a more self sustaining home, and that brings an even greater sense of freedom to our lives.

“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
~ Jane Goodall

This year I grew two different varieties of oregano. This variety however never did get planted, till yesterday that is, when I decided to make it into a beautiful and fragrant house plant for the winter months ahead.

I grew calendula for my very first time this year and this is my very first harvest. 😄

After learning so much about these amazing flowers, I couldn’t wait to grow them and dry them for winter projects.

Do you use calendula? If so, please share with me your favourite way to use it.

I used to hate dead heading my flowers. Even though I knew I was supposed to, I just wouldn’t because I just wanted to enjoy them. I was in a sense a bit afraid to cut them away. But the process of pruning over the years has become such a joy for me.

Sometimes it’s hard to prune away the things in my life that just need to go. But, in pruning all those things away, it makes room for even more good fruit to come into my life.

It can be such a hard process in the beginning, but the more I have given myself over to accept the process, the more I love the pruning in my own life. From what I allow myself to watch or listen to, to letting go of bad habits or even purging my closet and cupboards. It’s a blessing to simply… let it go. 🤍

Do you grow your own herbs?

Ive tried growing both basil and oregano before, and I failed. That is until I set out to learn how to prune the plants in order to harvest a great crop over and over again.

This year I am getting an abundance of oregano and basil and I’m loving it. 🌿💚

Just a little Saturday night humour. 😂

Soaking nuts and seeds is one of my favourite things to do. Why? Because soaking them before we consume them makes them easier to digest.

Nuts and seeds contain enzyme inhibitors, making them hard to digest. But soaking them first releases the enzyme inhibitors and therefore make them much easier to digest. And it makes them taste amazing.

Soak them for around 8-12 hours or overnight. Then strain and rinse them and place them on your dehydrator trays and dehydrate until dry and crispy.

I store them in glass jars.

We have had so much rain the last 2 days and even with the layers of shavings and yard waste in the chicken pen, it’s still a very soggy mess.

Everything is certainly green and beautiful, but I’m looking forward to sunny and drier days so I can get back in the garden. 😃😁

These are the friendliest of all our chickens. I can pet them like I pet a cat and they’re ok with it. LOL

Do you have chickens?
What’s your favourite breed?