Beautiful AUTUMN Homemaking

These beautiful autumn days are definitely some of the coziest of the entire year and I am so honored to have you join me here as we celebrate the season. It is finally autumn and this morning I'm thinking I'll head outside. It's actually really foggy this morning. It's been raining slash fogging the last couple of days and looks like it will for the next number of days as well. So it's beautiful outside with the fog. I just want to go and work in the flower bed first thing. We do have some recipes and some baking and things like that coming up here soon as well but my dahlias need attention. They have been sitting out in the rain and so I need to go and deadhead them and pick a nice bouquet as well. It looks like we have our work cut out for us here. The goal is to cut every last one of these flowers off that are fully open. We'll leave some buds on for sure. But dahlias are workhorses and the more that you cut them the more they grow and so we're deadheading all the bad ones. We'll just throw those on the ground and then keep the nice ones just to keep encouraging the plant to produce flowers because as soon as it starts going into seed it thinks okay my work is done. A plant has one goal and it is to make seeds. So that is what we're doing here. Avi is joining me. I think Lessie is also coming out here soon and we're just going to have a fun little time cutting flowers. It feels more like play than work but it's actually a crucial part in growing dahlias. We are not selling to wedding florists this year which if you've been around for a while you'll know that in previous years we did. We're taking a break from that this year. Just too much on our plate right now but we're still thoroughly enjoying these and want to grow them right. This is literally the size of my face. That's dinner plate dahlias for you. These specific ones are cafe au lait. Definitely a favorite around here and also in selling to weddings in previous years these were pretty much every single week's order. I'm about to go and make some homemade yogurt downstairs but it reminds me of a couple months ago when I was down there pouring this giant jug of colostrum into my Instant Pot thinking I'm going to make colostrum yogurt because it seems to be all the rage these days. I've heard so many people raving about the benefits of colostrum from immune health, skin, hair, nails, joint pain. The list goes on and on and on and I was like I want in on it so let's try some colostrum straight from the cow which I'm sure has a lot of benefits but it was not very tasty. You guys actually came through in the comments section. A number of you were like try armra and I was like okay okay I hear you. Let's try them. Fast forward a couple months and I am very honored that they are sponsoring this portion of today's video. Colostrum is a bioactive whole food that all mammals produce within the first 48-72 hours after giving birth as all of you mamas well know but it is the most nutrient dense, contains vital nutrients for our body to thrive. Now Armra offers that to us in a digestible form with over 400 functional nutrients. Two things that I noticed personally, huge difference and the first one was really unexpected for me and it is energy. So much more energy literally day and night and as a mom of five that is saying a lot. And then the second of all, hair. I am planning to give this to my kids because it's so incredible for immune health. I told Josh this might be the most expensive sponsorship I've ever done because I am never going to want to go without it again. I'm so excited to get to share that with you. They were so kind as to offer me a 15% discount for you. I will leave that for you right here on the screen as well as in the description box below. Thank you so much to Armra for sponsoring this portion of today's video. Now let's go make some not colostrum yogurt. Do I follow what happens tomorrow I turn to you and hope you can guide the way. Sometimes I give up just want to be on my own. Even in the darkest times you give me hope. So I lean on you when I've lost my way. I keep holding on for a better day. I lean on you when the world's astray. I left my heart open so you hear my prayer. Alright, moving on to a couple of things in the kitchen now. I just pulled these raspberries out of the freeze dryer. Our raspberries are on their fall bloom. But these I actually just picked up for a really good price at the grocery store. So we're going to put these in jars. We really have been enjoying freeze dried fruit for sauces. I really like it for sauces or for ice cream flavors. We have been devouring them as snacks. So these will be really tasty and I just can never get over their color either. Alright, got William down for a nap and now I'm ready to make some homemade yogurt. Josh likes his yogurt drinkable. I like my yogurt super thick. So I've played around with this for a little while and found a recipe that's kind of the middle ground. It's thick enough that I like it. It's thin enough that he likes it and so we're kind of covering all the bases. I just make this in the Instant Pot. We go through about one pot of this a week. And all that I'm using is some raw milk and then some leftover yogurt from my last batch. Or you can also get a yogurt culture but it is pretty expensive so I like to do it this way. And then some gelatin. Now, I'm sure some people out there are like, you shouldn't use gelatin in your yogurt. It does get a funky texture if you put too much in. So I'm going to use just a tablespoon of this. And I found that that makes it that perfect consistency to where I don't need to strain it later then. Which is kind of a win-win for me. But you do not want to put too much in or it will get kind of gloopy. I did that a different time. So to start off with, I'm just going to heat my milk to 100 degrees. And then we'll add our yogurt, our gelatin and that's pretty much all there is to it. I don't actually measure the yogurt that I'm putting in here but, I don't know, probably around a cup or so. And then I'm also going to put in my gelatin that is now thick because I mixed it with some milk while my milk in the Instant Pot heated up. Can you pause for a minute? Thanks. I keep forgetting that the kids are practicing piano back there. They're doing such a good job with it by the way. But I let my gelatin sit in a little more milk while I heat up the milk in here. And then my Instant Pot does not have the yogurt setting. So what I do is literally just put the lid on. If it's a really cold day, I'll wrap my entire Instant Pot in a Big Fur Blanket and let it sit there for 8-10 hours before I pull this insert out. Cover it and put it in the fridge overnight and then in the morning is when I finish the process. Well, it is raining and blowing out there again. Blowing, that sounds like snow. Rainy and windy. Again, feels chilly which definitely gets the baking itch. So, I am going to make some Sourdough Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls. I should learn my lesson. I know my zucchini cake the other day did not turn out great. Here I am again trying something for the first time on camera but I just couldn't not do it. We still had some leftover pumpkin from Kyra's pumpkin in last week's video so I added some of that. And then I made a pumpkin butter again to put in as the filling. So we'll see how they turn out. I've never done this before but I'm excited to try. And if they turn out I will leave the recipe for you down in the description box. Same is thank you. Thank you. Alright, it is just over an hour later and it looks like we're ready for the oven. Kyra put the, I had three leftovers so we just did another little pan. But we'll bake those now and then frost them with cream cheese frosting. You alone can see me clearly Even in my deep despair In the giving we receive it Show me how to lead you there Gratefully and humbly I give you everything And all that I can say Is thank you Thank you It is days later now and I realized I never filmed an outro. So I wanted to say thank you so much for watching. I hope you were inspired. Don't forget to check out Amra's Colostrum and I will look forward to seeing you next time. Bye friends! Golden, golden things