About Me

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My tremendously supportive husband & I have 3 wonderful children, 1 dog, 12 laying hens, 2 dairy goats, 3 bee hives, and a 2000 sq foot vegetable garden on a small 1/4 acre lot in the city. In the center of it all is our small 1,000 sq foot house purchased in 2008 as a foreclosure that we fully renovated to host our growing family, home school adventures, and small home business (CozyLeaf.com). We have a desire to learn a path to self sufficiency finding ways to be good stewards of the resources God has given us. We want to learn to live with less as we laydown roots to our little homestead.

Links

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES AND FORUMS!!!

IHERB.com! I absolutely love this website for finding great deals on a wide selection of products.
http://www.iherb.com/ (Get $5 off your first order at IHERB.com with this coupon code: NAF075 )

Forums:
Backyard Chickens is a great website for raising chickens. The Forum has a lot of experienced people who will help and give advice through your journey of raising chickens.
http://www.backyardchickens.com/
http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/index.php
The Easy Garden is also a great website and forum that comes with a tremendous amout of advice and experience from "those who know"!
http://www.theeasygarden.com/
http://www.theeasygarden.com/forum/
Sufficient Self is fantastic! They have every topic from Saving & making energy to "Roll Your Own" Homemade products! I love this website!
http://www.sufficientself.com/forum/
And of Course you have to look into Backyard Herds!
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/ .

Cheese making!!!
You HAVE TO give the "30 Minute Mozzerella" a Try!
30 Minute Mozzerella! http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/pg/21.html
http://www.cheesemaking.com/recipes/recipedetails.html

Seeds:
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has a fabulous variety of seeds! Their catalog is amazing as well with great photos and detailed descriptions. Check it out!
http://rareseeds.com/
Heirloom Seeds has a great selection and very good prices! I ordered my seeds from them last year and was very happy with every single purchase! (the only reason I didn't get to order them again this year is because they were overloaded with orders and were not taking any more orders...so order early!!)
http://www.heirloomseeds.com/main/index.html

Great Websites!!
http://backwoodshome.com/
http://www.motherearthnews.com/

http://www.urbanhomestead.org/ The Dervaes Family is tilling a path to self sufficiency in the midst of Pasedena California. Highly recommended to check out their websites! And their YouTube channel will have you watching for hours!! http://www.youtube.com/user/dervaes