Category Archives: Uncategorized

This was the weekend I had planned to experiment with bread making. Other than corn bread and sweet breads, I’ve never actually made a loaf of yeast bread, on my own, without a machine. I’m not a big fan of machine bread (those loaves aren’t natural), so I was excited to hear about this book,Continue reading “Bread So Easy, I Skipped it This Weekend”

There’s more evidence in this San Francisco Chronicle story to support ponying up the extra bucks to buy organic. But like the headline suggests, “it depends” a lot on how and where the organic food is produced. That’s one reason I’m starting to focus more on buying local and in season. I think those habitsContinue reading “Want Nutrient-Rich Food? Buy Fresh. Cook it Yourself.”

I finally found the picture I was looking for…three Farmgirls actually dismantling a barn. I know there are more like this, so that’ll keep me motivated as I continue to sort through the bins of family photos. [Just waiting for the iFarmer to hop to it and scan it in for me so I canContinue reading “Striking Farmgirl Photo Gold”

Thanks to the Chicago Trib’s Good Eating section and Universal Press Syndicate writer Sally Schneider, I now have a new favorite dessert. The best part is that it’s an ingredient always easy to find, is simple to make and…depending on the add ins…can be a fairly healthy treat. All I have to do is cutContinue reading “Going Bananas Over This Farmgirl Treat”

Word from The Farm is that the chickens are laying up to a dozen eggs a day! Great news. Now if we can just figure out a good delivery mechanism to Chicagoland. I just had to buy a crappy dozen from the store. I’m becoming an egg snob. Once you’ve had those farm-fresh eggs, it’sContinue reading “Farm Fresh Eggs…Only 390 Miles Round Trip”

I’ve started my winter project…going through several bins. Yes, bins, of photos from my mother-in-law’s estate. Here’s some advice. Label your photos. Even a note on the pack of negatives. A year on the back of the photo. Something to date it, place it. I’m doing a presort first…quickly going through each bin and separatingContinue reading “Sorting Through Family History”

Jan. 3 is the anniversary of my first post on Virtual Farmgirl. I can hardly believe I stuck with it this long. But I feel like I’m just getting my sea legs here, so I’ll keep at it for a while longer. Thanks to all those who send me suggestions for posts, invitations to farmsContinue reading “VFG Turns One!”

Over the holidays, in between our family binges, we did our best to explore. Thanks to a very lovely woman who admitted she had nothing better to do, we got into an art gallery — the Brown County Artists Guild — in downtown Nashville, Ind., just after closing.There we had the pleasure of learning aboutContinue reading “Prettier Than a Picture: Late Bloomer Painter Captures Essence of Rural Life”

Connectagons from the 4-H Champ get the distinction of being the most engaging child gift this Christmas. By engaging, I mean it kept the Future Farmkids happily creating structures, without parental participation. The wooden connectors come boxed in a set of 240 colorful, eight-slotted disks that are really stable once the kids know how toContinue reading “Toy Review: Connecting with a Child's Unlimited Creativity”

Looks like more than 11,000 people took the Handmade Pledge. I’m No. 4,423. The idea was to buy handmade for the holidays and to encourage others to buy handmade for me. I’d say the results this year were mixed. I made more things than I purchased, in terms of handmade. That includes hot chocolate andContinue reading “Handmade Pledge, an Update”