Gleanings from January

Hey, real quick before we dive into this month’s gleanings, I wanted to talk to you about Pinterest.

It turns out, they figured out how awesome they are and have decided to capitalize on that and make a bit of money so they’ve gone the way of Facebook and decided that you’re not intelligent enough to know that when you follow a pinner you’ll be seeing all their pins.

Silly you.

So, like Facebook, they have instituted an algorithm and will determine exactly what you want to see in your feed for you. Oh, and while they’re changing it up, they’re throwing ads in the mix too.

Personally, I hate it! I find that I’m spending much less time on there (which is a good thing I suppose) but when I am on there, I’m missing all the fantastic stuff from the pinners I follow!! Grr!

The good news is that, for now at least, you can change your settings to try to discourage stuff from showing up in your feed that you didn’t ask for, especially ads!

Let me show you how to do that:

See the little gear with the drop down arrow on the right side? Click it. Then click “Account Settings.”

Make sure that the 2 boxes shown above are on “No.” You’ll still see promoted pins and suggested pins, but at least you won’t be seeing ads!

If you aren’t seeing my pins, you can see them all by following Reformation Acres Pinterest page.

My favorites and yours from off the Pinboards and around the web…

•A Biblical Vision of Submission in Marriage

Oneness is the goal of marriage; submission is a tool to get there. It is not the end, in and of itself.
But I think what I mean by submission and what some other people mean by submission are really two different things. I consider submission when I care about my husband’s needs first; when I think about what he may want or need, and I sacrifice something to meet that need. I consider submission when I pray God’s will for his life.
Yet to some people, it seems the only definition of submission that matters is that when you have a difference of opinion, she defers to him.

•Dissatisfied

 I want my kids to thirst for learning. I want them to be wowed by this world in which we live. I want them to find their passion and then pursue it until they’re cross-eyed. I want them to stay up until two in the morning finishing that crazy-good book they just can’t put down. I want them to job shadow. To intern. To take those art classes and guitar classes we’ve been putting off. I want them to spend time with their friends, talking about nothing important and everything that matters. I want them to trade kitchen chairs for bicycle seats. I want to go for hikes on muddy afternoons, and visit the local superhero museum. I want them to memorize lines for plays, and invent colorful compounds with chemistry sets. I want them to build their own motherboards and design their own video games. I want them to write stories and songs.

I want them to know that learning has nothing to do with textbooks compiled by educational experts and everything to do with finding out stuff.

I want Monday mornings to stop feeling like Monday mornings.

•The Great Fear of the Great Outdoors

“Americans find ourselves in a period — arguably, the first in our nation’s history — when our unease about being in nature is coming to outweigh our desire for it….Being on the trail, in the woods, or on the river for days on end brings not just thoughts of blisters and bugs and rain and heat, but perhaps more alarming, the loss of cellphone service and Facebook.”

•Why You Should Take Your Kids Out of School

“The moment we quit trying to teach our son anything was the moment he started really learning.”

•10 Things Homeschool Moms Wish You Knew

1.)Our choice to homeschool is not a judgment on you.

We made a decision. For our family. For our kids. It was the best decision for us. For our kids. Not for you or yours. We don’t think less of you because you don’t homeschool. In fact, there are moments we are jealous of you because you actually have 5 minutes alone during the day. However, we are just trying to do what’s best for our kids. We know you are trying to do the best for your kids, too. Don’t judge us. We won’t judge you. It’s a win-win.

•Why Homegrown Food Tastes Better

To see all that hard work pay off in such a delicious way – well, there are no words. Rewarding is an understatement. It’s life-changing.

Because we’re able to sit down at the table with fresh eggs, gathered the day before from our own free range hens, that have been fried in our own butter, served alongside a slice of our very own home cured bacon, a tall glass of fresh raw milk from our family cow, and a variety of vegetable or fruit from the garden… well, it’s easy to get spoiled.

Kings couldn’t dream of eating this well!

•FREE ebook-
Home Vegetable Gardening -a Complete and Practical Guide to the Planting and Care of All Vegetables, Fruits and Berries Worth Growing for Home Use

No products found.

The best single volume, practical manual of family-feeding, high-yield home gardening ever compiled,

• Remember the Tales From the Green Vally, Edwardian Farm, Victorian Farm, and Wartime Farm? Well Ruth & Peter are all laced up (literally) and showing what life was like on a Tudor Monastery Farm. We LOVE these videos- they are so educational and give us all sorts of ideas for our homestead. After watching the first episode my latest obsession is coppicing.

Ok, now the articles: •Never Stock Rocking

Helping your baby to trust – that she is safe in your care – can be a powerful influence on her overall disposition, sense of optimism, and outlook on life. I can imagine that in those early weeks with a newborn, this talk of bonding may seem a bit abstract as you are doing all you know to do, but rest assured that this time together will not only grow your child’s trust in you, but also encourage you in your motherly instincts.

•Grow Your Own Food First

First of all, the farm must furnish food for our own table – not in a roundabout way, mind you, but directly.

•Homestead Burnout: What it is and how to avoid it

Homestead burnout doesn’t always happen right away when a family moves to a new homestead. In fact, it’s more commonly seen after a few years of homestead living and mounting disappointments.

•Small Farm Egg-onomics

Josh shares the facts and figures of raising pasture-raised, free-range, organic-fed hen eggs. It’s math that can really help you understand your inputs and what you should be charging for that dozen of eggs you collect from your chickens.

•I’m thinking it’s time we stop asking if home births are safe and turn the tables and question whether the hospital is the safest place to have a baby.

More American Women Dying During Hospital Births While Home Birth Becomes Safer

•Are Vaccines Safe (Part One)

If you look at some of these chemicals individually, they are labelled as hazardous, toxic, and cancer-causing. Can we possibly think that these ingredients are safe just because they are packaged in a vaccination shot?

The medical community says that there is no evidence that these ingredients are harmful in small amounts.

I say that these ingredients are very toxic and can change your health forever.

But this is a question you must decide for yourself. I am not here to tell you what is best for you.

•So You’re Having a Baby!

It’s been confirmed! How exciting! This is the most wonderful experience that can ever happen to you. Check out what God says about you and your baby.

•Moms Be Encouraged

I’m trying to hard to be what the kids need me to be. I vacillate between doing fine and freaking out – like any Mom I am sure. During the freak out moments the self doubt kicks in. What am I doing wrong? Are my kids getting a proper education with all the time I spend with the baby? How long should I let her SCREAM? Even now, after a 45 minute soothing, nursing, calming down session I’ve been at the computer (IE: away from her) for ten minutes and she is screaming.

•The Ultimate Natural Hair Care Guide from Thank Your Body

•10 Ultimate Fall Soup Recipes

•The Great Home Dairy Round Up: 20 Posts to Get You Milking

•A collection of wild game recipes 

•Small Acreage Homesteading podcast from Christian Farm and Homestead Radio

•Canning Forum from New Life on a Homestead

•God cares a lot more what’s in your heart than what’s in your fridge

•Cheesemaking: The Very Basics

Gardening Book Recommendations… including this title we’re reading through as a family.

27 Medicinal Plants Worth Your Garden Space… Feverfew, Slippery Elm, Peppermint, Lemon Balm, to name a few. Lots of information in this article!

Homesteading Binder Nook… How lovely would it be to have a little corner for taking care of business?

Making Fizzy Kombucha … On my to-do list. I’ve never had kombucha, but my husband has and loved it, plus it’s super healthy so I should probably learn to make it.  (I directed you all to this blog last month. I really can’t say enough about her video tutorials- they are fantastic.)

Herbal Wellness Pantry… The article outlines everything on the shelves and how they are even used. Plus it is much more attractive and accessible than just shoving it all in a cupboard.

Flaky Sourdough Crackers… Trying to eat soup without crackers this winter for the sake of health and budget. I might need to change my mind.

Edible Landscaping… This is inspiring!

How to Get Your Kids Out of the Cycle of Constantly Being Sick… We have been sick nearly every day since Thanksgiving with 3 distinct illness. Thankfully no one has had all three, but I’m desperate to get out of the cycle! I’m starting here.

Herb Harvesting Chart… A handy graphic for your garden. (Note: The source of this image is no longer public. I’ll leave the graphic here though in case you can get it large enough to be usable.)

Baby Gate… Most adorable baby gate ever!

Seed Starter Chart by Temperature… Another useful graphic for the garden binder.

Encouragement for the keeper at home.

Mason Jar Storage Idea

Cowl… This is sooooo cute!

Excellent article that dispels a common myth among those of us who submit to Biblical patriarchy…
To Correct or Not to Correct…. Your Husband

Humble, godly men welcome correction as a gift from God. They look to their help meets for counsel. This doesn’t mean they do what the wife wants all the time. But they see their wives as having insights and wisdom (yes, wisdom is personified as a woman in Proverbs!) that they can take advantage of and benefit from.

I enjoyed reading these excerpts very much. There was much to think about and I greatly appreciated how she acknowledged the Lord’s Providence and Provision in their lives…
1880’s Homesteader’s Diary

The cow and our pet yearling fared well on the tender buffalo grass. Such milk as our jersey poured down and after standing a while, great layers of rich yellow cream could be lifted from the pans in big rolls, stirred a short time with a spoon, it was converted into lovely butter. The yearling was so gentle the children could play with her as the would a pet dog. No matter how far she was from the house, if I had a pan of peelings, or some other treat, stepping outside the house I would call and she would lift here head and at sight of me would come racing to the house. Frank and Mabel learned to ride the horses and thought it great fun. Sometimes they were allowed to go to Stephenson on horseback a little post office perhaps a mile away. Frank took long rambles to the canyons; finding lovely wild floweres and berries. What he especially delighted in was the lovely stones of many kinds. He had many lovely agates which might have been of some value could they have been polished. These were happy days for the youngsters. They were too young to have any thought of anxiety and knew nothing of hardships; everything was pure fun for them.

And on that note, I’ll call it a post. Phew! That was a ton of information! Take your time sifting through it all. And hopefully next month won’t be so overwhelming! 

Last update on 2026-05-06 at 02:54 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API