Author: Shannon

I am wife to Stewart, mama of six, homeschooler, messy cook, and avid fermenter. This is where I tell our story... of building a sustainable off-grid homestead... of raising this growing family of ours... of the beauty and the hard and the joy in all of it.

sound bites from the garden

tatume squash hardly any make it into the house

Of Chores and The In-Between

It’s eight o’clock at night and bright as can be. The baby is asleep, it’s still over 90 degrees, and when my littlest man asks if I want to go on a garden walk, I say yes. I could be washing dishes. There’s always laundry to tend to. But I grab a couple of little…

Growing Medicine: Oregano

When we began having children eight years ago, I found that having an unwell child struck a fear in me that I’d never really known before. I went on to observe the result of that fear in myself – a blind trust in a medical professional who I just wanted to make my baby well…

The Nourished Kitchen: a review and a recipe

Recipe and photos reprinted with permission from The Nourished Kitchen written and photographed by Jennifer McGruther (Ten Speed Press, © 2014) When I first started Nourishing Days, about six years ago, there were only a handful of real food bloggers that I knew of on the internet. I watched some of today’s biggest real food…