Hello Friends!
Welcome to another month of Honey, We’re HOMESTEADING!
I’m Julie from Brinker Family Farm where we are raising beef from our farm to your table and educating on the simple things.
This is a written form of the the YouTube Live I did. If you’d like to see the video you can find it here.
To start things off I wanted to share a couple books that I’m leaning into this month .
First is Northeast Medicinal Plants by Liz Neves
This time of year has sooo many plants growing, blooming and ready to be harvested for later uses I don’t want to miss out. This book shares pictures, and descriptions along with uses for over 100 plants in our region. It’s very helpful, especially when learning about new plants.
Second is old cookbooks. I bought The Joy of Cooking By Irma S. Rombauer last year . It was written in 1931 and packed full of so many wonderful recipes. While Thai book definitely shows it age, duct tape holding it together, I love that it has bits of paper and special notes that the former owner of the book thought were important.
Now onto our 4 main topics.
In the kitchen.
I think I have arrived….I am now in my sourdough era. I have tried (and failed) many times to keep sourdough starter alive and to make something tasty with it. Recently I started making sourdough bagels and loaves. They are actually turning out AMAZING!
Because of this I have started a small, in home bakery with our girls. We offer a handful of items, some are sourdough , some are not. We have pickup at our home once a week and at a families business (B & S Country Carryout, Salineville, Ohio) twice a month.
You can check out our drop locations and menu items here
We are very excited about the opportunity to bake for our community 
In the home
Back to talking about harvesting plants, I have been gathering and drying lots of comfry this week to make salves.
Salves are so easy to make, all you really need is dried plants, (comfry, lavender and calendula are my fave), oil and beeswax. The recipe can be found in my book, The Simple Homestead. It’s available for download on our website www.brinkerfamilyfarm.com/shop/
Comfry is a spring plant that is great to make a salve for aches and pains, muscle strains and more of the like.
Calendula and Lavender are more late spring, early summer type plants. They are great for cuts and scrapes.
In the garden (and on the farm)
I have been working on so many projects this spring! The hoop house is actually almost completely planted. I just need to make some more holes in our landscape fabric along the one side then I can finish it. I have lots of spring plants , broccoli, beets, peas, carrots, kale, etc right now. I also have some flowers and just started adding in cucumbers and peppers. I usually add a few tomatoes, but try to keep it at a few.
The other garden project that we are adding is 200 ft of flower beds ! The kids and I went to relatives and loaded up my car with plants that helped fill in some of the spots. I also have been ordering shrubs and bushes, like lilacs, hydrangeas, azaleas and more. I am looking at adding more roses as well. Once it’s all planted, Bo is going to put a fence behind it. It’s going to be so pretty and I cannot wait to share more you soon.
On the farm we moved cows out on pasture and have 2 girls that we are watching carefully for babies.
The guys are working on planting our new hay fields and then it will be time to bale hay in our other fields.
In our community.
Next week we will be starting a new Ladies Bible Study. We will be meeting once a month at our home. If you are local and would like more info, feel free to message me and I’ll get you more details.
We are also very excited for the bread pickups. I have hopes and dreams of this becoming a time of fellowship while we meet new friends and prepare breads for them.
Until Next Time,
Grow Something Beautiful Friends,
Bo, Julie & Kiddos
Sow your seed in the morning,
and at evening let your hands not be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed,
whether this or that,
or whether both will do equally well.
Ecclesiastes 11:6
“Raising beef from our farm to your table and educating on the simple things.”
Also, pre-orders for “Save the Small Farms” t-shirts are still available
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