Homemade Natural Bug Repellent
Natural Bug Repellent
Most bugs sprays are pretty toxic and smell terrible. This natural bug repellent will keep you safe from toxins and unwanted critters. Using powerful citronella, this safe and effective bug repellent can be used on everyone in your family. With mild winters, most unwanted pests haven't been killed off.
Now is the perfect time to get started on putting together this natural bug repellent, since it takes a few weeks to steep the citronella. You can also make your own citronella candle.
While there are a good bit of recipe cards in this blog, I love a recipe that is so straight forward that you don't need one. People lean so heavily on being told exactly what to do any how to do it, but do we actually learn that way? This recipe for natural bug is vague on purpose. This is "recipe" is very forgiving and is effective if it doesn't "set" perfectly into a balm.
Let's Make It
To begin, you'll need enough fresh citronella clippings to fill a quart jar. Dry them using a dehydrator, oven, or leave them out in the open air until dried through. Don't use fresh citronella, as the oil can go rancid.
Top the jar off with fractioned coconut oil. Let it steep for 5-6 weeks. Using a cheesecloth over a glass bowl, strain the citronella out.
Noting the amount of liquid you were left with, mix the coconut oil with equal parts beeswax and shea butter.
Melt and stir mixture over a double boiler until beeswax is melted and everything is incorporated.
Very carefully pour hot liquid into jelly jars or balm tins.
The Easy Button
You can also purchase Young Living's citronella essential oil or cedarwood essential oil to use as your own bug repellent. Be mindful that when applying essential oils to the skin, you should use a carrier oil. Typically, I'll take a teaspoon of coconut oil in my palm and add a few drops of essential oil then rub it together and apply it around my ankles, arms, and waistband to prevent bugs, especially ticks
The FarmHand Club Sign Up
DETAILS
Schedule
Two pick ups per month
Pick up on the 1st + 3rd Sunday of each month
Two pick up location options: Farm Shop + Vint Hill
Once you sign up, your first pick up is the following 1st Sunday.
For example, if you sign up on any day in May, your first pick up will be the 1st Sunday in June.
Billing
Members are billed on the 15th of every month. This is payment for the following month.
For example, you will be billed on May 15th for June's pick ups.
If you sign up on the 16th or later, you will be billed immediately. For the following months, you will be billed on the 15th.
The Perks
10% off online orders of individual cuts
Cancel at anytime by emailing us
Exclusive members-only cuts
One "pass" item
Hayfield Farm cooler bag
The Rules
Pick up at your location and time frame is required
Alternative options for pick up available if arrangements are made in advance
Missed pick ups are forfeited
If your payment is not made by the last day of the month, your membership will be cancelled.
For example, you are billed on May 15th and do not pay by 11:59pm on May 31st, your membership is then cancelled.
Once payment is made, there are no refunds.
MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS
The Cow Poke
$150.00 per month, plus tax
4 lbs ground meat
1 roast
$75+ in specialty cuts
The Top Hand
$275.00 per month, plus tax
8 lbs ground meat
2 roasts
$150+ in specialty cuts
Cut Types
Ground Meat: ground beef, ground chuck, ground brisket, loose sausage, ground pork
Roasts: chuck roast, round roast, boston butt, loin roast, ribs, whole chicken
Specialty Cuts: steaks, bacon, chops, shaved beef, breakfast sausages, stew meat, sausage grillers, chicken breasts, thighs, + wings
Examples of One Pick Up
Please remember, this is only an example and there are two pick ups per month.
The cuts included in each pick up will vary to provide members a variety each pick up.
Cow Poke
Two packs ground beef, one pack ground pork, one pack sage sausage, one bone-in chuck roast,
two NY strips, one pack bacon, two chicken breasts, two pork chops, one pack pork belly bites
Top Hand
Two packs ground beef, two packs ground pork, one pack ground chuck, one pack ground brisket, one pack sage sausage,
one pack sweet italian sausage, one bone-in chuck roast, one whole chicken, two NY strips, two ribeyes, two packs bacon,
two chicken breasts, two pork chops, two chicken thighs, two packs sausage brats
SIGN UP!
How to Make Beef Tallow for Skincare
How to Make Beef Tallow for Skincare
Use this recipe for the purest render of beef tallow with no odor. This is the best for my nourishing whipped tallow balm recipe.
Beef tallow is well-known for its incredible skin healing properties. With loads of bio-available nutrients that your skin will drink up. Nourishing beef tallow contains similar oils to our own skin and is a remedy for dry skin, diaper rash, chapped lips, scars, sunburn, and so much more. I've even used it as a make up remover.
I spent YEARS fighting acne, all through my teen years and through my 20's. I tried anything and everything to get rid of it - from prescriptions to water and everything in between. Nothing ever worked. Then I switched to goat milk soap and tallow balm, that's it. My skin has been better than ever for over a year now.
Ditch your toxic skin care products that are making your skin worse and swap them for nourishing beef tallow.
How to Make Beef Tallow for Skincare
Ingredients
- 5lbs cold beef fat, cut into small pieces
- 4 cups water
- 2 tablespoons salt
- Crockpot
- Strainer
- Mixing bowl
Instructions
- Place cut beef fat into the food proccessor
- Mix water and salt, until dissolved
- Put tallow and salt water into crockpot
- Simmer on low for 6-8 hours until most of the fat has liquified
- Let cool for several minutes
- Place cheesecloth in strainer over the mixing bowl and strain liquid to separate solids. Liquid will appear cloudy at this stage.
- Remove cheesecloth and strainer and place bowl into fridge until tallow solidifies and separates from the water
- Once tallow is completely solid, this may take several hours depending on the size/depth of your bowl. Remove the tallow cake from the bowl and scrape off any bits of impurities from the bottom.
- Place tallow cake back into your crockpot and repeat the process two more times for the purest tallow.
- Your tallow is now ready to be made into a nourishing balm.
Keeping Chickens: Growing Fodder
Growing Fodder for Chicken Feed
Fodder is a nutrient-dense, inexpensive food source for livestock throughout the winter months. Growing fodder is incredibly easy in small spaces and it has a great conversion rate of one pound of seed creates four pounds of fodder.
Feed fodder to your chickens, rabbits, pigs, cows, and goats throughout the winter months where fresh, nutrient rich, green grasses are hard to come by. Let it grow longer for larger animals, or keep in short for your smaller livestock like chickens and rabbits.
Growing Fodder is Easy
Growing fodder is an incredibly easy way to grow livestock feed. It is done by soaking and sprouting grains. By letting the sprouts mature for a few days, greens will develop. Letting it get a few inches in length will develop a nice, thick layer of vegetation for your livestock.
Similarly to how growers produce microgreens, growing fodder needs no soil, no fertilizer, and no light. And it only takes seven days!
What You Need
- Grab any container with drain holes. This could be an old tupperware containers, a seedling flat, or anything large and shallow that you can poke some holes into. It doesn't matter what it is! As long as it drains. We use a 20" x 10" seedling flat.
- Get some whole seeds, like barley, oats, wheat, or rye.
- A medium bucket or large bowl
- An area with access to water
- Another tray to catch drainage or an area where trays can drain.
- A grow light or sunny window, optional. Great way to get nice green growth.
What To Do
To make one tray of fodder...
- Scoop out four cups of your seeds, place them in a bucket or large bowl. Cover with water for 24 hours.
- Strain soaked seeds and pour them into one tray. Spread evenly.
- Gently water twice per day. No needs to shake them around or otherwise disturb them.
- Once grains begin to sprout and get about a half inch long, put them in a sunny window or under grow light if you'd like nice green growth.
- Once the greens are a couple inches tall, pull the fodder from the tray and cut it into smaller squares to toss to your flock.
- Sanitize your tray and reuse!
Check out more chicken keeping tips!
Homemade Elderberry Syrup
Homemade Elderberry Syrup
Cue the angels singing. Elderberry syrup has skyrocketed in popularity over the last several years as more folks are turning toward home healing and learning what they can do on their own to support their family's bodies. This homemade elderberry syrup is very easy to put together and can last for up to three months.
We take elderberry syrup during sick season and if we've been exposed to someone who was sick as a standard does of 1-2 teaspoons for kids and 1 tablespoon for adults, once a day. If we are sick, we take the same dose every 2-3 hours until symptoms disappear.
Elderberry Benefits
Elderberry has traditionally been considered a medicinal plant. It can support a strong immune system and may even alleviate respiratory conditions such as cold and cough. High in flavonoids, elderberries are thought to reduce the risk of heart disease and are beneficial in lowering blood pressure and managing diabetes. Add in my homemade fire cider and have the double whammy of natural immune support - there's even a kid-friendly fire cider version!
It is recommended that children under one year of age avoid honey due to the risk of infant botulism. Be sure to do your own research, discover the actual risk, and make an informed decision if it's right for your family. As always, this is not medical advice. 
Homemade Elderberry Syrup
Ingredients
Instructions
Notes
Sourcing quality ingredients: Be sure that you are sourcing quality elderberries. Ideally, your honey should come from close to home for you in order to receive the seasonal allergy relief that local honey offers.
Be sure to never eat raw dried elderberries, as they are toxic when dried.
Homemade Garlic Powder
Homemade Garlic Powder
Who knew homemade garlic powder could be so easy? If you're anything like me, when a recipe calls for garlic, you use twice the amount - okay, three times. Making your own homemade garlic powder is not only incredibly simple but it tastes wildly better than store-bought.
Want to take it a step further? Grow your own garlic. Garlic is easy to grow and store. There are many varieties available for any zone. Garlic is a staple to the homestead and has many medicinal uses, even topical uses.
Homemade Garlic Powder
Ingredients
Instructions
Chicken Keeping: Broody Hen
Broody Hen
A broody hen is a hen that has started to set on eggs to hatch. She will gather eggs of her own, and others, and spread out over top of them. A broody hen may only get up from the nest once or twice a day to eat, sleep, and poop. Here's what no one will tell you about keeping chickens, a broody hen style.
Why Do Hens Go Broody?
Hens will go broody in order to hatch out chicks. They will sit on top of eggs and protect them, rarely leaving. Typically, hens will go broody in the spring and summer, an ideal time for raising chicks.
How to Know if your Hen is Broody
When you see your hen setting on her eggs, she may seem very spread out. Some hens will set on 12-14 eggs at a time. If you leave and come back after an hour or so and she is still there, it is likely that she is broody and is set on the eggs, instead of just laying an egg.
When you go to reach for her, she will puff up, similar to a dog raising is hackles. If you continue to try to move her, she will likely raise a fuss, shriek, and try to peck you. If you get her to the ground, she will remain puffed up and make a low clucking sound. Continue to keep an eye on her, as she may try to attack you.
A broody hen may also remove her breast feathers to add to her nest and won't roost with the rest of the flock.
What to Do if a Hen Goes Broody?
You Want Chicks
If you have a rooster, you want chicks, and your hen is in a spot where chicks would be able to safely get in and out - leave the hen where she is. In 21 days or so, she will hatch out some chicks!
If you don't have a rooster and you want chicks, purchase some hatching eggs and swap them for the eggs under your hen.
Caring for Mama Hen and Future Chicks
If your hen decided to go broody in an elevated nest box or an otherwise unsafe place for chicks, consider moving her to a better location. Keep in mind that this may break her broodiness. If it has only been a day or two, the chicks haven't started to form. If her broodiness breaks following the move, it won't be such a loss.
If it's been over seven days, you have a decision to make. Personally, I would risk breaking her broodiness to move her to a safe space rather than have her hatch out chicks in an unsafe space.
When (and if) you move the broody hen to a new location, she will need food and water close by. Feel free to add electrolytes to the water since she will be spending 23 hours a day on the nest.
You Don't Want Chicks
If you don't want chicks, you can try a few steps below to "break" the hen's broodiness. If you succeed in either method below, you will notice within 24 hours that the hen's broodiness has broken.
- Go to the coop and remove the hen from the nest any chance you get. You will likely need to do this to multiple days. Watch out, she will like raise a fuss and peck you.
- If that doesn't work, try to remove the hen to a separate space. Ideally, this would be somewhere without a nest box. Typically, a dog crate or separate hoop/mobile coop would work well.
Breeds for Broodiness
Like cattle, some hens are naturally good mothers. Here are some breeds that would be great to add to your flock if you want a hen to hatch out some chicks.
- Orpingtons
- Cochins
- Silkies
Breeds that Don't Go Broody
Through breeding, hatcheries have been able to reduce the instinctual broodiness. Here are some breeds that are known to be less broody than the rest.
- Leghorns
- Sussex
- Sexlinks
Preventing Broodiness From the Beginning
To prevent broodiness, there are a few things you can do.
- Collect eggs every day. During broody season, spring and summer, you could even collect twice a day.
- Pay attention to the timing of your hen's laying schedule. When they are done laying for the day, you can block off the nest boxes. Since you likely won't wake up and get out there before they start laying, you can remove the blocks when you shut your chickens up for the night.
- Keeping only young hens. I know this isn't ideal or desirable for everyone, but it is a way to prevent having broody hens. Older hens are typically the culprits for broodiness, so keeping young hens through their first or second laying season will decrease your chances of dealing with a broody.
Check out more articles like this, with practical applications on chicken keeping - especially our post "What No One Tells You About Keeping Chickens".
How to Make Garden Compost
How to Make Garden Compost
Did you know you can make your own garden compost from food scraps, leaves, and yard debris? Turn it in nutrient dense soil for your garden. Good for your garden and less waste!
You can compost any natural material; however, it's best to avoid composting meat, dairy, and smelly leftovers. You don't want to attract critters. Typically, I feed all kitchen scraps to the chickens and whatever is leftover goes to the garden compost bin.
What is it Made of?
Garden compost is an even mixture of two types of materials - green and brown. Green materials are high in nitrogen. Brown materials are high in carbon.
Green Materials
- Vegetable scraps
- Egg shells
- Fruit scraps
- Grass clippings
- Weeds
- Green leaves
Brown Materials
- Dried leaves
- Wood chips
- Sawdust
- Coffee grounds
- Tea bags
- Twigs
- Paper towels
- Paper bags
- Shredded newspaper
The Pile
Your garden compost pile is just that, a pile. There are many creative ways to contain a pile. My favorite is to drill pallets together. This way the pile can get air circulation but is also contained.
- Build your compost pile by layering an even amount of green and brown materials.
- The smaller the pieces the easier they will decompose
- As the materials begin to decompose, the pile will begin to get hot and steamy
- Turn it on occasion with a pitch fork to mix up the materials and oxygenate it.
- Once the materials are decomposed into somewhat of a dirt substance, it is the perfect nutrient-dense addition to your garden.
How to Get the Best Garden Soil
How to Get the Best Garden Soil
Having a nutrient-dense, well-draining soil is key to a successful garden. While having great soil won't guarantee that your plants thrive and your yields are large, poor soil can destroy the abundance you are seeking each harvest season.
Soil is where plants feed on oxygen for the processes they need in order to grow and produce. While nutrient-density is important, the characteristics of the soil should get equal attention. Having loose, soft, well-draining soil will allow the roots to spread, grow, and reach water, nutrients, and oxygen. Additionally, if you have potatoes, carrots, beets, radishes, or other root vegetables, they will be able to grow beautifully and unobstructed by hard packed soil or rocks.
Feed the Soil, Not the Plants
Knowing Your Soil
We are in zone 7a, so our soil tends to be like clay and very slow to drain. Other parts of the Mid-Atlantic region have very sandy soil. While many folks would recommend a soil test, that's often an extra step that your background gardener isn't going to make. Either way, you want your garden soil to be dark, loose, loamy, and have plenty of worms.
Whether your soil is super sandy or rock hard, adding organic matter is always a great option.
Adding Organic Matter
Compost and compost manure are the best options for making your garden soil a nutrient-power house. Adding some top soil to balance wouldn't hurt either.
Remember, compost and compost manure are different.
If you have a compost bin, you'll add things like:
- Food scraps (no meat, dairy, stinky food leftovers - stick to veg and fruit scraps)
- Leaves
- Grass clippings
- Egg shells
- Shredded newspaper
- Paper towels
- Tea bags
- Paper bags
- Wood chips
- Sawdust
- Twigs
- Coffee grounds
Compost manure is typically livestock poop and maybe some hay and shavings. We have an article that goes through what to look for when selecting compost manure and has some great tips - like making sure the compost manure is at least six months old, and other important things to know!
Adding a mixture of both compost bin materials and compost manure is the best way to add nutrients to your soil.
Top Soil
Bagged top soil is typically used for adding to garden beds as the bulk of your soil. You'll want to mix top soil and composts together. The composts will provide nutrient density and the soil will add the bulk.
Blood Meal and Plant Tone
Other organic, fertilizer-type options are blood meal, plant tones, and bonemeal. These are slow-release fertilizers made from animal products. You'll want to use these to side dress your plants as they grow as your fertilizer. Sprinkle them around the base of your plants and mix them into the soil. There are different plant tones for different types of plants, which have different combinations of nutrients. Be sure you are selecting the type for vegetables.
Worm Castings
Worm castings are worm poop which is incredibly nutrient dense and will make your garden thrive. But, it can be expensive. I usually spread out one bag of worm castings for four garden beds. This gets a good bit of nutrients added without breaking the bank.
Putting the work in with getting your soil where it needs to be will pay off in dividends. Poor soil will bring on a whole slew of issues that are difficult to fix once you have plants in the ground.