We had a fun day working in the garden and cleaning out the chicken coops today but my favorite part of the day was collecting about a 1/3 of a our carrot harvest ..read more

The Biltmore Estate This past fall my husband and I visited the humble Vanderbilt Homestead called Biltmore for our 23rd Wedding Anniversary trip.  This was my first time ever visiting the Biltmore Estate and I have to tell you I was in awe of this beautiful home located in my favorite part of the mountains Asheville, North Carolina.  I would love to go see these grounds in the spring as they were amazing in October! We also got our apples to can and dry for the year while we were up in the mountains but we had an absolutely amazing time I am so glad we went so I am going to take y ..read more

You know Grandma did know best….the natural ways are the better ways. There is something quite satisfying about having the ability to ease your loved ones pain and suffering while they are sick.  Because we are a family that is no stranger to sickness and because medicine is so expensive the more natural ways you can heal yourself or your family the better.  In our case this doesn’t always mean 100% natural;   some medicines you do need to take from your health care professional and since I am just a Mom and by no means an expert I always go to my Doctor for medical advice. &nb ..read more

It has been a while I have had one of my money talks conversations here at Lil’ Suburban Homestead and the reason they are few and far between is because while I am good at being frugal, and I’m a great bargain hunter I am by no means a financial expert or a finance enthusiast but I do have friends who are! But I do have thought, opinions, and reflections……and one of my opinions is because our government doesn’t want to make any decisions at all. That decision is the portion that affects me is that for every $50,000 middle america makes we give yet another $1000 back to the government(this is ..read more

It has been chilly here in coastal North Carolina lately…..I even went out to my car this morning and it was icy all over my car and my car doors were sticking that is such a rare occurrence in our area so I bundled up in my sweater, socks, and coat and headed on to work.  I have learned it’s best too just keep moving on colder days because my office is quite chilly too this time of year. This afternoon while I was collecting the eggs I decided to snap a few pictures of what our garden is looking like this time of year…..we do have a few cold weather loving plants!  The carrots fea ..read more

Even though we are all back to the daily grind or at least I am I know some of you never left but I just had to share this new macaroni and cheese recipe I tried over the holidays.  The one thing I want to do over the holidays is relax….and in my case there is not much lazing around and relax time to go around so I definitely embrace and love recipes that are super easy and in the case of this slow cooker mac and cheese you can’t get any easier!  The other wonderful thing about this recipe is that it tastes so much better than the boxed version trust me you will be absolutely deligh ..read more

The Gals and The Viking and I would like to wish all of our readers a prosperous and healthy New Year for 2013! We have been so thankful to share with all of you our hopes, our dreams, our successes and our failures…. We have shared some of our best homesteading moments and some of our worst homesteading moments….. We have shared some funny family moments and some of our favorite family recipes…. But it’s because of all of you that I share you are the ones who continue to inspire me and my husband “The Viking” in my life! We are so looking forward to spending 2013 with all of you! It’s becaus ..read more

First of all I have to start this blog post off saying this isn’t my recipe I give my sister-in-law credit for this recipe however in her email to me when she sent me the recipe she doesn’t take credit for the recipe either.  That being said since she is the one who introduced me to the recipe she is the one I give the credit too.  These ham rolls are absolutely delicious but as you know I never leave any recipe completely alone I have to tweak it to make it mine so I will share with you my version of how I make these but know that I only wish these ham rolls were my idea. These ar ..read more

Oh my! I absolutely love scones…..I love how heavy, creamy and how they crumble just so if they are made correctly and they are certainly filling so when I found a recipe for them that looked simple enough I decided to give it a go it had been a while since I had made scones.  I actually can’t remember the last time I made them and after having them I don’t know why I waited for so long. Here I am getting ready to cut the butter into the dough until it resembles crumbles. For the past couple of years I have been ordering a frozen pre-made pastry from a friend of mine because her daugh ..read more

I love Pinterest and this past year I found a vegetable hod for gardening that I wanted this was the inspiration “Vegetable Hod” and when I showed it to my husband he said “It’s a shame I don’t have time to make this for you.”  I had pretty much planned on not getting one this holiday so I was absolutely thrilled! So here is a close up picture of my beloved Gardening Vegetable Hod…..the handle is made with old rake handle and the Viking even tucked in all the wire he actually tucked the wire into a groove unlike the inspiration one that is stapled either way will work but he did this so ..read more