Living on a Little: What Laura Ingalls and Life Taught Me About Faith and Frugality Senior Homesteading | The Biblical Homestead “We are living on a little, and enjoying it.”— Laura Ingalls Wilder, “Living on a Little,” Missouri Ruralist, 1921 There’s something about Laura’s words …
From the Homestead Table Category: Old-Fashioned Favorites There are days in the kitchen when the scent of something baking pulls more than just your appetite to attention — it pulls your memory. This morning, as I slid a pan of old-fashioned sweet bread into the …
Sometimes while I’m standing at my kitchen sink, mechanically washing my dishes, my hands soaking in the warmth of the wash water, my thoughts drift back to the 1970s — not to my own life exactly, but to the people around me who quietly shaped it.
They were older then. Neighbors. Friends and acquaintances of my mother’s. Women in house dresses and men in white t-shirts and suspenders, who had begun their lives in gentler times. People whose lives had begun in the early 1900s — a time when slowness wasn’t a rebellion but the rhythm of everyday life. Life was based on traditions handed down and “knowings” that were seldom replaced by “better and new” but rather, just simply improved from one generation to the next.
To me, as a child, their ways seemed inconvenient. Outdated. Almost amusing.
Their furniture was “ancient” to my young eyes. Upholstered in patterns, often having belonged to their parents or even grandparents — a dresser, a dining room table, a china cupboard. There was no end to the generations that the furniture had passed through. These were things that my childish eyes of the 1970s didn’t recognize, with doilies tucked under every dish. They dried their clothes on lines, not because they were romantic — but because that’s just what you did. They saved rainwater at the downspouts to wash their hair once a week. They saved the bacon grease. They made coffee in percolators and served it in cups on saucers, with quiet voices and no rush to go anywhere at all.
And I, like so many children of the modern age, was being raised by a mother drawn toward the “now.” She herself having long ago rejected those times of the past. There was a sense that we were moving forward, that progress was the goal. What had come before — those old methods, those old ways — was something to be replaced.
But deep in my young spirit, I felt the tension.
Even then, even as a child, I was watching them — and something inside me stirred. I couldn’t name it yet, but I knew I was witnessing something true. Something solid. Something different from what the world was rushing toward.
But my teenage years and all that the 80s brought took me far from those ways of curiosity and observation — granted, it was a short period, but it was sadly too long.
By the time I was in my early twenties, I knew. I knew their way was the better way. I knew I wanted to live in the rhythm they had lived in. I knew I didn’t want the pace, noise, and emptiness that was already overtaking my generation. I wanted to live like them.
But by then… they were gone. The generation that had held such wisdom and knowledge — that they themselves probably didn’t even realize they possessed — were all but gone.
They had passed on, quietly — as they had lived — and they took with them the firsthand wisdom I didn’t know how to ask for in earlier times. And so, for over three decades now, I’ve been doing the only thing I could: trying to rebuild what they left behind.
I’ve spent years learning from the books they would’ve read, using the tools they would’ve owned, seeking out the cast-iron pans, the flour sifters, the embroidered linens — not for decoration, but because I want to live as they lived. I’ve tried to mirror the spirit of their homes: calm, ordered, faithful, rooted.
My furniture, mismatched to some, is a collection of the very things others once tossed away — but to me, they are beautiful echoes. My cooking methods may seem tedious to the modern kitchen, but I find in them a kind of peace and purpose the microwave will never offer. And as odd as it may seem to some, I feel a strange kind of companionship with those long-gone women when I press dough beneath my palms or hang laundry in the breeze.
I am who they were.
I wish I had honored them more when they were just down the street — just next door. I wish I had seen sooner that they weren’t behind the times — they were rooted in a richness we had already begun to forget.
But I know they’d smile to see what I’ve tried to do. Not just me — but so many like me. Older now, ourselves. And realizing what they carried was not just useful… it was eternal.
Cornbread for Cereal – and Other Forgotten Mornings Some mornings at the homestead are nothing short of a time slip. Today, for instance, my youngest padded in from the barn with hay on his sleeves and a grin on his face, asking, “Did you save …
There’s a certain rhythm to spring on the homestead.It doesn’t arrive all at once.Not here. Not where the winters hold on a little longer, and the ground takes its sweet time waking up. We still have a few mounds of snow lingering in the shadows …
(From the Hearth)
The story was passed on to me, not in a book or a museum — but over kitchen tables, worn photo albums, and memories shared with soft smiles.
Jim and Marge were already well into their married life by the early 1920s.
They lived on the edge of a small-to-medium-sized town, on three acres where town thinned into farmland. It was still a time when keeping a cow for milk, a horse for a buggy, or a few chickens for eggs was as normal as breathing — and nobody thought much of it.
It hadn’t been that long, after all, since nearly every back fence had a hen scratching under it.
Jim and Marge had raised two sons, Jim Jr. and Dan, both now grown and chasing dreams of their own. One had even made his way to the city, full of big hopes and bigger plans.
Their childhood rooms in the old farmhouse still looked much the same — the beds neatly made, the walls still holding the memories.
Life had been humming along in its quiet way until the Great Depression hit.
When the markets crashed and the world tilted sideways, it was the big cities that bled first.
Jobs vanished.
Dreams shriveled.
And letters began to travel back home.
Jim Jr., now with a family of his own, and Dan, struggling to find steady footing, packed what little they had and came back to the one place that still had room for them — their childhood home.
Jim and Marge didn’t have much money themselves — few did.
Taxes loomed, repairs were forever needed, and every penny mattered.
But what they had was land — and with land, there was life.
They worked what they had, growing nearly everything they needed:
a huge garden, chickens for meat and eggs, a few pigs for the butcher block.
When hard times came, they bartered with neighbors or sold extra produce in town — sometimes to buy animal feed, sometimes just to keep the lights on.
Food wasn’t abundant, but it was enough.
One of the first things they did when the family came home was take one full acre and plant it — half in potatoes, half in pumpkins.
Potatoes for hearty meals that could stretch a long way.
Pumpkins for canning, baking, feeding livestock, and filling the cellar shelves with jars of golden pulp.
That garden grew hope as much as it grew food.
With mouths to feed once again and work enough for every hand, simple meals became family treasures.
One of the household favorites was Marge’s potato pancakes — crisp, savory, and fried in lard.
Marge would always make a great pot of mashed potatoes a day ahead.
The first day’s meal would be simple mashed potatoes, piping hot beside whatever meat could be stretched that week.
And the next day — oh, the next day — there would be a towering platter of potato pancakes.
Made with a bit of flour — often bartered from the small town store — fresh eggs from their hens, and mashed potatoes, those pancakes filled bellies and hearts alike.
Jim Jr.’s son — Jim the third — though older now than his grandparents were then, still remembers it all as clear as if it happened yesterday:
The togetherness of a close-knit family
The endless hours in the garden, hoe in hand
The bittersweet work of butchering animals you cared for
The family table, crowded and worn smooth with years
The church pew warmed on Sunday mornings
The Wednesday night prayers offered in hope
And the smell — oh, the smell — of Grandma’s potato pancakes sizzling on the stovetop, filling the kitchen with more than just the scent of lard and flour — but with love stitched into every crack and corner.
Nothing fancy. Nothing wasted. Everything treasured.
“They didn’t have much, but they had enough. Enough faith to plant seed in uncertain times. Enough love to stretch one acre into hope. Enough hands to turn a crowded farmhouse into a sanctuary.”
And sometimes, enough potatoes to remind us — even generations later — that God’s provision often comes not with grandeur, but in the humble beauty of a meal shared around a table full of gratitude.
(Journal from the Homestead) For decades now, we as people have been trying to fill a void that only Jesus can fill. We work harder.We decorate better.We schedule fuller.We perform, and impress, and strive — believing that if we just do enough, have enough, become …
🧹 Sweeping the Floor, Sweeping the Heart (Scripture in the Ordinary) There’s something about sweeping that has never lost its place in daily life. It’s one of the oldest tasks there is—gathering the dust, brushing away the crumbs, clearing the path with nothing but a …
“When the Blessing Hisses Back”
It’s week five of maple season here on the homestead.
When we tapped those first trees and hauled in the earliest buckets of sap, it felt fresh and exciting—like the earth itself was waking up again, drop by drop. We were energized. Motivated. Stirred by the promise of syrup and the smell of smoke in the air.
Now? Let’s just say… it’s lost a little of that sparkle.
Unlike most folks who boil their sap outside, we cook ours down right in the kitchen. Our wood cookstove—affectionately referred to as the heart of the home—is also our furnace, our water heater, our chick brooder, and of course, our daily meal-maker. So when the sap starts to flow in late winter, it only makes sense to put that hardworking stove to use once again.
And it does work.
So far, we’ve boiled down nearly 700 gallons of sap into about 15 gallons of syrup. Every drop hauled in on foot from deep in the woods. Every gallon reduced by firewood that had to be split, stacked, fed, and tended.
The cookstove wears a new hat during maple season: a large evaporator pan takes over the space where my washwater pans usually live. I can usually sneak in two of my regular five, but the rest have to wait their turn. And while the old stories say maple cooking makes the house sticky—we’ve done this nearly a decade now, and I can tell you with confidence—it does not. What it does do, however, is fill the house with an extraordinary amount of moisture. Sometimes welcome. Sometimes too welcome.
Especially when it’s four in the morning.
The hiss of sap boiling has become the background music of my days. And lately, my mornings.
During my early prayer time, Bible open and coffee in hand, the hiss presses in. It’s not that I didn’t expect it—but after five weeks of the same sound day and night, it begins to wear. You find yourself longing for quiet. For space. For a moment where the air feels a little drier and your thoughts aren’t competing with the rhythm of steam.
And here’s where I caught myself.
Just minutes earlier, I had been praising God. Thanking Him for the syrup, for the fuel to make it, for the money we’re saving, for the strength to keep going. I had counted the cost and offered gratitude for it all.
And yet… I found myself grumbling.
Grumbling about the same hiss I had been thanking Him for. Grumbling about the space taken up on the stove, about the moisture in the air, about how long this season feels. I didn’t say it aloud. But my heart was noisy, and I wondered…
Can sweet and bitter really come from the same mouth? (James 3:10–11)
It’s easy to think of grumbling as harmless, especially when it’s muttered under breath or hidden in passing thoughts. But I think that’s where the danger lives—in the subtle drift.
We don’t wake up and decide to be ungrateful. We just forget to hold our blessings with reverence. We start to let the small discomforts speak louder than the larger provision. And before we know it, we’re asking God to take away the very things we once praised Him for.
We all do it.
It’s not always conscious. But it is real.
And if we’re not careful, we make no room for gratitude—because grumbling has taken up all the space.
I believe the Lord allows these little irritations to rise up not to shame us, but to remind us. To draw us back to our own words of thanksgiving. To help us learn the discipline of seeing the blessing even when it hisses.
This morning, I turned to Psalm 103, which gently called me back:
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.”
—Psalm 103:2
I don’t want to forget.
Not the sweet. Not the hard. Not the hiss that keeps me warm while it wears me thin.
Because sometimes, blessings hiss.
And that doesn’t make them any less of a blessing.
Lord, thank You for the blessings that come with steam, with noise, with weight.
Thank You for the gifts that don’t always feel like gifts at first.
Help me to see Your provision, even when it feels inconvenient.
And when I’m tempted to grumble—quiet me.
Remind me of what I once asked You for.
And fill my heart again with the joy of receiving it.
Let no bitter word grow where gratitude should be.
Teach me to praise You in the hiss.Amen.