63_Snowy Studies

Come, stroll with me through the snow as we learn skills for keeping the home...

Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace. Romans 8:6

Happy 2026!

The season of celebration continued right into the first weeks of January, thanks to our wedding anniversary and a birthday in the family. I paused my writing routine to be fully present for those precious moments, and I am now excited to begin with you a new year of Adventures and Academia! May the time we share here serve to glorify God, encourage our faith, and animate us to appreciate His grand creation.

Let’s jump right into the life and learning that last week brought our way…

Come, take a stroll with me
Through snowy Saxony,
And we’ll delighted be
By God's creativity…

Today we begin the first full week of 2026, and there is already so much learning lined up for the coming days. After investing most November and December nights in creating Christmas gifts, I am now trying to prioritize a healthy bedtime. That means I won’t be able to attend every session of this week’s Homestead From Anywhere Crash Course presented by Homesteading Family, but I look forward to sharing with you the lessons I do manage to squeeze into my days.

Today’s talk focused on finding a rhythm instead of struggling with schedules:

• Take the time to observe and note what needs to be done in and around the home.

• Set up systems that optimize your time, space, strength, and materials.

• Start where you are with what you have - “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin…” (Zechariah 4:10a, NLT).

• Select daily and weekly tasks to keep the home running smoothly and attach them to habits you already have.

• Enjoy the fruits of your labor as you move from one area to the next and appreciate the satisfaction of what you have accomplished.

• Allow your rhythms to bend with life instead of trying to adhere to rigid schedules.

• Don’t expect your life to look like social media - or anyone else’s life!

My personal practical application step from this session is to select one more weekly task to add to our rhythm. We already do laundry on Mondays and gardening or houseplants on Tuesdays. What essential rhythms are part of your week? Which of the above points resonated most with you?

The session for today focused on setting up the kitchen for success, but several of these tips apply to the entire home:

• Examine your space and ask Is this working for me? How can I best use this space? What can I do right now without taking the whole place apart?

• Start by removing the “non-emotional items” - throw away trash, clean up items that are in the wrong space, and take out obvious donations.

• Everything left in the space either belongs there (consolidate like items in the same place) or needs a home (ask Where would I first look for this? and store it there).

• If there are any items that you know you would not think of looking for, get rid of them. Put the value on the space you gain instead of on the item you remove.

• View organizing your space as something that can be done a few minutes at a time, not as an overwhelming project that requires several hours.

• Keep basic ingredients on hand to prepare healthy meals.

• Meal plan with what you already have in the garden or pantry.

• If you start preserving foods, choose recipes that match what your family is already eating.

• Eat seasonally to maximize nutrition.

To practically apply what I learned today, I finally organized one bookshelf in my bedroom. It feels so good to sit down to nurse my little one without that giant stack of magazines and papers judging me anymore! What is one item from this list that you’d like to apply during the coming days?

The learning continues today with one of my favorite topics - gardening!

• Get daily nutrients and vitamins by succession planting greens. Plant the seeds densely, so they grow upright and can be harvested as microgreens or baby greens.

• Extend gardening into early spring by starting some plants indoors, seeding frost-hardy varieties directly into the ground, and fall-planting vegetables that can overwinter outdoors.

• Care for garden soil by learning from nature: add layers of organic material each year and don’t overwork the ground to avoid damaging the soil ecosystem and structure.

• Focus on controlling the weeds, not becoming weed-free (because that will never happen). Keeps weeds at bay in spring until garden plants are established. “Chop and drop” weeds before they go to seed - leave the roots in the ground and lay the leaves on the soil as natural mulch to keep moisture from evaporating and to add nutrients as they break down.

• Use the space you have by keeping potted herbs on the kitchen counter, container gardening on your porch or balcony, creating raised beds on the driveway, or planting a vegetable garden in your yard.

As much as I love gardening, I always forget about growing microgreens on my windowsill, so my application project for today is to start some cress seeds. We can enjoy them in a few days on buttered bread. They grow very quickly, which makes this great fun for kids, too!

I didn’t have the time to attend today’s food preservation course, but I do have something fun for you…this year’s first picture book pick!

In January, we are enjoying nostalgic stories about snow, and I am excited to share with you First Snow by Kim Lewis. Her beautiful illustrations and gentle storytelling will sweep you into Sara’s snowy adventure on her family’s sheep farm in northern England.

I listened to half of today’s course on herbalism and gladly send you to Dr. Patrick Jones to learn directly from the expert. He is a veterinarian, traditional naturopath, and clinical herbalist who has saved many a life with God’s good green medicine.

What was I doing instead of taking notes? Preparing for a loved one’s birthday weekend! We started the celebration today with a day trip to Treuchtlingen. There are plenty of bigger cities to explore in Germany, but we appreciate the quieter towns as a family with young children. We bundled our boys into their snowsuits to explore, and they managed most of the walking really well, thanks to the short distances between points of interest.

We started at the visitor center in the castle, which also houses a free museum with hands-on learning and play activities for little ones.

After securing a town map, we opted to follow the 2.9-kilometer railroad tour. There is also a Middle Ages tour, a church tour, and a Celtic-Roman tour. All of them sounded wonderful, but we chose the shortest option for the little legs in our family.

We still passed a few churches on the way and stopped inside the “Marienkirche” to appreciate the large nativity.

The end of our walking tour aligned perfectly with lunchtime, and the birthday boy chose the Taj Mahal for a delicious Indian meal. An added bonus was that the servers and atmosphere were very child-friendly!

Thank you for being my guest.
In God’s word you will find rest;
Seek Him, be bountifully blessed. 💚

Unless otherwise indicated, all words and pictures are original creations by ewebeak for the glory of God. Bible passages are from the CSB translation. This publication is for educational and entertainment purposes only.