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A Rosy Weekend

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We drink a lot of tea in our family. The girls and I often drink it in the evening as we relax at the end of the day, but even the men in the family enjoy a cup now and then.  During winter cold season, it is a must-have at our house and we will often blend different herbs to help with different symptoms.  We like to grow our own herbs and forage wild herbs for tea. That way we know that there are no chemicals or pesticides on our tea ingredients. Each year I try to add a few more plants to my knowledge base for teas, cooking, and medicinals. One of earliest plants I read about and also one of my favorites to forage are wild rose petals.  Since the wild roses in our area are blooming, the girls and I took the opportunity to pick petals to dry for tea.  We spent a bit of time picking and visiting, then returned to the house to prepare the petals for drying. Our oldest daughter wanted to make rose lemonade, so our youngest daughter and I washed, dried, and spread the petals out on dehydr
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Harvest What You Have - 5/30/23

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Hello!  If you have been to our website ( www.preppedliving.com ), you already know that I try to incorporate the "harvest what you have" idea into our lives.  At the end of May in North Idaho, what is available to harvest? Here is a peek at what we have done this past week: Tarragon - We planted tarragon last year and it was one of the first things to come up again in our garden.  It grew so much that we already harvested some of it. One batch went into the dehydrator and another batch is hanging to dry in the attic.  This is an herb I never really used until about 2.5 years ago.  I since discovered that my favorite use of tarragon is in beef soup. I enjoy the sweetness it adds. Do you have a favorite use for this herb?  If so, feel free to share in the comments below. I would love to add more uses to my repertoire. Lilacs - Our lilac bush was in bloom last week, so I picked blossoms, washed them, and made an infusion to turn into lilac jelly.  I didn't have time to actu
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The Pine Trees are Blooming

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The pine trees are in bloom and have spread yellow pollen everywhere over the past several days. I took the opportunity to try my hand at collecting pine pollen, which reportedly has some great health benefits.  My chosen method of collection was painstakingly slow.  I used a small Ziploc bag (that was all I had with me), put it around the catkins, and gently shook the pollen into the bag.  While I did collect a bit of pollen, I had more covering my arms than I had in the bag. Next time, I will use a larger paper bag so that I can put it around the end of the entire branch and collect from multiple clusters at a time. I did collect a few of the catkins themselves to see if dehydrating them and then collecting the pollen will be a viable option this late in the season. I read that it is best to try this method just before the pollen is released or at the very beginning of the pollen season.
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Welcome to the Prepped Living Blog!

Hello to all and welcome to the Prepped Living blog page. I thought I should begin with a little background on why I started this blog focused on self-sufficiency, healthy living, and preparedness. While I always loved the idea of living in the country (I grew up in town) and growing a garden, I became much more interested in the idea of preparedness and self-sufficiency nearly 20 years ago following a financially challenging year for our family.  Due to a cataclysm of incapacitating health issues for my husband (the main bread winner), one nearly fatal health scare that landed him back in surgery, my fourth pregnancy, and a line of customers who liked my husband's work but decided paying him for it was not on their list of priorities, our savings was depleted and we were struggling to pay the bills.  My husband and I were blessed to have grown up with parents and grandparents who gardened and canned, and we had continued that tradition. We were fortunate that year to have a supply
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