restoring the roost

North Carolina Country Living and Farmhouse Style

North Carolina Country Living and Farmhouse Style
since 2010

Preparing for Twins: Baby Gear we are Doing Without

· family

After working on our baby registries and having my first baby shower over the weekend we have been thinking a lot about what items are essential to have before our little ones arrive! Just entering the baby stores with a sea of baby “must-haves” and dozens of choices for each thing is incredibly overwhelming and can be downright stressful. We were extremely blessed to receive a good variety of gifts as well as all of the major and important items on our registry!

Onesies with chicks- how perfect! 

good friends at my first baby shower

eating brunch on the back veranda at the shower

 I don’t think I will want my house transforming into a babyland zone of toys, walkers, swings, play things, and whatever other baby contraptions cluttering every room! We just simply don’t have the space for that to be honest.

So, we are really trying to simplify our wish list for the twins and register for the essentials. Of course, our essential list may differ from yours, and there are many items that we’d still like to have that perhaps we don’t need, but we are trying our best not to overdo it on baby gear. To me, this stuff takes up precious space and distracts us from working and playing with our babies in other ways that are beneficial for building their minds and muscles–not to mention the expense of all these extra things!

Below is a list of items we plan to NOT register for and go without (unless donated/gifted to us to try):

– changing table 
we will use a dresser with a changing pad–that way the dresser can stay in their room and be useful

–  swing
Nice to have, but not necessary.

– Pack n’ Play
This just takes up room when they can just as easily play on the floor. If we need to be moving around or doing housework, we can put them in the sling or carrier with us. The only exception is we may have to get a portable crib for two, which could double as a play-yard.

– diaper pail 
We plan to cloth diaper the babies for a variety of reasons (saving $$ is one), but even if you use disposable diapers you can just use a trash can perhaps located in the garage or on the back porch. We will be using wet bags for cloth diapers.

– full sized high chairs
 We plan to use portable high chair seats (Chicco 360 booster seat) that clip-on to the dinner table-a HUGE space saver!

– toys 
We aren’t registering for or buying many toys ourselves- I’m sure they will have plenty loaned or given to them!

– expensive newborn clothes 
Again, I’m sure the twins will receive plenty of darling outfits as gifts, so we won’t waste our money.

– different types of strollers 
We will just be getting ONE all-purpose, high quality double jogging stroller- if needed, we can buy cheapie umbrella strollers later on. We were so blessed to receive the stroller we wanted at our shower!

–  walker or bouncy seat
Again, nice to have but not necessary. It’s important for babies to lie on their tummies to play on the floor to strengthen and exercise important muscles. However, we did receive a nice bouncer as a shower gift so we will certainly try it out and keep it if it turns out to be really useful.

– bassinet 
 They will just use their cribs- plus, our room is located right next to the nursery with a door that connects or adjoins to the room for easy access.

– bottle sterilizer

– wipes warmer
umm……..just one of those things we don’t really need 🙂

-any type of baby videos or other technology

– a bumbo seat
They only use this for a few months anyway before they are sitting up on their own.

The one exception is that we are registering for a large sized portable crib so that we can travel with the babies and have something that we can easily take with us for them to sleep and play in. After getting home with all our gifts from the shower we have been setting up the nursery- it is SO exciting and fun! I will admit though it’s certainly overwhelming the amount of stuff that comes with these tiny babies. We are already running into not having enough space for things–especially in the kitchen. We didn’t think about extra storage  and cabinet space for the booster seats, bottles, sippy cups, toddler plates, snack bowls, baby food storage containers, baby spoons, and bibs.

I’m sure there will be even more items that we can add to this list after our babies are already here and we find we aren’t using a product as much as we thought we would.

What baby gear items did you find unnecessary?

Filed Under: family

Fresh Baked Bread with Local Spelt Flour

· Homesteading, recipes

Mmmm……who doesn’t love fresh from-the-oven homemade bread?

In our quest to eat foods that are grown locally and that are healthier for us, I recently picked up some bags of Lindley Mills “Super Sprout” flour, which is their version of an organic spelt or whole wheat “sprouted” flour. Lindley Mills is a historic working mill in Alamance County, NC and is only about 15 minutes from our house! They sell all types of flours, grains, and other mixes and everything is 100% organic. Sprouted flour is supposed to be much healthier for you and easier to digest.

Their “Super Sprout” flour is the only thing they sell in a quantity less than a 25 pound bag and is supposed to have an amazing flavor- it can be used for any type of baking. Picked up straight from the mill, these 2 pound bags were only $3 each, and I bet had they been sold at a place like Whole Foods they would have been around $8 each or more because they are a specialty product.

I haven’t been baking fresh bread nearly as much as I had hoped to in the past several months but I am hoping to start a new routine of weekly bread baking of some kind.  Perhaps one week it will be a sandwich bread, another week more of a crusty artisan bread, and another week maybe some dinner rolls. I like to keep things simple in my kitchen though and don’t want to deal with too complicated of a recipe.

For this bread I followed a very simple recipe from the Bob’s Red Mill website.  You can find it by clicking here.

Ingredients include:

5 1/2 cups of organic spelt flour (plus more for dusting)
2 cups hot water
1 tablespoon of active dry yeast
1/2 tablespoon sea salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup honey

In a large mixing bowl place water and yeast, stirring to dissolve. Add butter, honey, sea salt and 1/2 package of the spelt flour. Mix until smooth and then gradually add additional spelt flour until thick enough to knead. Knead with remaining spelt flour (reserving about 2 TBSP flour to shape into loaves later) for 5-7 minutes. I did this part in my Kitchenaid mixer with the dough hook. 

Let rise for about 1 hour, or until double in size. Shape into 2 loaves using reserved flour and place in greased loaf pans. Cover and let loaves rise another 45-60 minutes, until center reaches the top of the loaf pans. My loaf pans were pretty big and therefore my dough didn’t quite rise tall enough, but it still turned out fine.

Bake at 375 degrees for 45-60 minutes or until bread is brown and crusty on top. Let cool completely before cutting or storing. 

I was pleasantly surprised and impressed with this bread- it wasn’t at all dense like I thought it might be and had a great texture. It’s flavor was wonderful- a perfect taste of whole wheat, yeast and not bitter at all like some wheat breads. I had a piece toasted with jam and butter this morning for breakfast 🙂

I think this spelt flour bread recipe is definitely a keeper- and I’m looking forward to doing more baking with my “Super Sprout” local flour!

Blueberry Jam

· Homesteading, recipes

I made some fresh blueberry jam over the weekend- it tastes like heaven on fresh biscuits, pancakes and toast. Our wonderful neighbors (who regularly watch our chickens for us while we are away) brought us back an entire flat of blueberries from Burgaw, North Carolina in Pender County, the home of the annual Blueberry Festival.

I was so excited to have a sea of fresh, plump, local blueberries to make jam with and enjoy in the weeks ahead!

This was my first time making blueberry jam- I followed a simple recipe below for a small batch:

4 pints ripe blueberries
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice (bottled)

Wash and sterilize jars in a hot water bath. Heat and boil canning lids in a separate pot. 






Prepare jam by combining ingredients and bring to a boil, cooking for about 25 minutes or until mixture thickens and sets well. (when a spoonful is set into the freezer for a minute or two and when removed the jam doesn’t slide off the spoon easily, it is ready). 


Fill hot jars with jam and wipe rims with a damp cloth, leaving about a 1/4 inch of headspace. Place hot lids and rims on jars. Lift jars into hot water bath and process for 10 minutes. Remove jars from water and check seals, drying off jars. Let cool and label jars. Makes 3 1/2 pint jars of jam. 






Jams are so much easier to make than canning other vegetables and a great way to use up extra fruit on hand.

We are enjoying the fresh jam on morning treats and look forward to enjoying it all year round.

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Smokehouses, Privies, and Corn Cribs: Historic Outbuildings on the Farmstead

· architectural history, Homesteading

I’m kind of obsessed with old outbuildings. I LOVE them and find so many uses for outbuildings on today’s modern homestead or small farm.

likely and old dairy barn, Alamance County, NC

gabled barn, Pamlico County, NC 
either a privy or smokehouse, Franklin County, NC

A couple hundred years ago and earlier outbuildings were essential to the farmer– a profession in which the majority of Americans participated. A farm was not complete without a handful of dependencies including structures such as:

– detached kitchen
– privy (or outhouse, sometimes called a “necessary”)
– smokehouse
-spring house or dairy
– corn crib
– livestock barn
– chicken house
– tobacco barn
– storage sheds for hay or grain storage
– pack houses
– dairy barn
– horse barn or carriage house
– greenhouse
– well house
– canning shed

small cottage possibly used for overseerer of farm or servants cottage, Pamlico County, NC
former smokehouse, Yancey County, NC
spring house, Yancey County, NC

most likely a former dairy barn, Iredell County, NC

Most farms didn’t necessarily contain all these outbuildings, but at least a handful of them were needed. Even older urban homes sometimes contained a privy, detached kitchen (if in the South), and a carriage house.

farmstead with collection of surviving outbuildings, Duplin County, NC

The placement of outbuildings either behind or to the side of the main residence or farmhouse often followed a pattern depending on geographical region or type and purpose of the farm. Several architectural historians have looked at this in their research and one of my favorite books on the subject is John Michael Vlach’s Back of the Big House.

Livestock barn, log construction double crib, Hoke County, NC 

Most outbuildings were constructed with wood as the primary material but there are many also constructed of stone, brick, stucco or other hardy materials. More recently farm outbuildings have been commonly built with concrete or metal. I still think outbuildings are incredibly versatile today for the modern homesteader. First of all, we can never have enough storage, and many older outbuildings can even function in their original purposes. Minor updates and careful repairs may be all that are needed to stabilize and preserve historic outbuildings.

I know wherever our family ends up buying a permanent home I hope the property comes with a variety of old outbuildings- I can find uses for all of them!

Planning for the Nursery

· decorating the roost

WHAT?!?! you might say? Planning the Nursery?  Yes, if you missed my last post, it’s true: we are overjoyed and so incredible blessed to be PREGNANT! Pregnant with twins!!! After over two years of TTC, with the miracle of modern fertility treatments we were able to achieve our dream of pregnancy and look forward to welcoming new life into the world. God IS faithful!

16 weeks– not even halfway there and I feel big already!

If you are interested in the details of how we were able to get pregnant with male factor infertility, please feel free to email me and I will be happy to share our journey with you 🙂

Now, on to planning for the nursery. Lately I have been in a planning zone: planning and preparing for raising twins (!!), planning for safety and health of the babies, planning for good nutrition during my pregnancy, planning for how we are going to handle certain situations with two babies, whew! Of course, I have left some room in my racing brain for nursery planning. As you can imagine I’ve been dreaming about this room for quite some time, and I’ve always envisioned it as a light, bright space with soft neutral colors and a lot of white. Since we will not be finding out the sex of the babies until birth, I think my color scheme will work quite well for either gender. Below are some inspiration photos that I’ve pinned:

The room we intend to use is our front bedroom off the entryway, currently used as our home office (and sometimes as a catch-all storage room). This room has a second door that connects directly to our bedroom, so I think that will be perfect for being close to the babies.  The main issue is that we have a HUGE desk in this room that literally will not fit anywhere else (our guest room is already doubling as a music room). I’m thinking the desk with office materials and filing cabinet may just have to stay in the nursery for now, as the nursery is actually a rather large room.

Currently we already have a bookshelf, a few baskets, lamp, and an antique rocking chair in the nursery. We also recently purchased a jute rug from World Market. It measures a little bit bigger than a 6 x 9 and was priced at about $150. We chose jute because it’s a natural fiber and made without synthetic chemicals and it has great durability. It’s also surprisingly soft underfoot even for a jute rug and should hide dirt rather well from two active little ones. Here what the rug looks like:

I have the cribs picked out already (I’ve always wanted a classic Jenny Lind crib), but I’m still on the hunt for:

-an antique chest of drawers that can double as a changing table
– comfy armchair with ottoman (could be a glider too)
– roman shades or curtains in a soft white or sweet neutral print
– floor lamp
– vintage children’s or baby books
– frames for black and white family photos

Another piece I’m going to try and fit into this room is a vintage baby/children’s armoire that was mine when I was a baby and also used for my mom when she was a baby. It used to be in its natural wood state with lamb stenciling on it but was then painted for my room and painted again a few more times when my cousin used it for her kids. It’s a great piece for hanging baby clothes and nice storage in the drawers along one side. Not sure how I will transform it yet, but I have a few ideas…..

I’m curious to know what suggestions you have for nursery planning? Anything you loved or didn’t like about your nursery? Our babies will not be sleeping with us nor sleeping in a playpen or bassinet so they will definitely be spending quite a bit of time in their nursery!