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Speaker 1:
[00:00] So it's been a little over six years ago now that I have been podcasting every single week on this show. I've enjoyed it. I've had some really awesome conversations. And so I'm gonna share a little bit in this episode why I've decided to stop this show and also what you can expect for the future because of course, I'm not getting off the internet. My name is Lisa, mother of nine and creator of the blog and YouTube channel, Farmhouse on Boone. On this podcast, I like to talk about simplifying your life so you can live out your priorities. I help you learn how to cook from scratch and decorate on a budget through this podcast and my courses Simple Sourdough and the Simple Sewing series. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes and description box below. Now let's get into the show. As you can likely tell from the title, this is going to be the last episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Now, I never say never, because you never know when seasons may change. And even though we are sun setting this, the sun may rise again. I actually heard another podcaster say that when they announced that they were ending their podcast. But it is true, for now at least, and for the foreseeable future, I have decided to sunset the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. You all may have noticed that we went down to two episodes a week for the last couple months. I wanted to phase this out very gently. I know a lot of you have been listeners from the very beginning. I actually started this podcast back in 2020. So it's been a little over six years ago now that I've been podcasting every single week on this show. I've enjoyed it. I've had so many awesome guest interviews. I've had some really awesome conversations. I know a lot of you have learned a lot from the guest that we've had on the show. Some of you, this is your weekly routine. I know because I have had lots of messages from people who say, hey, you went down to two episodes a week. And so I'm going to share a little bit in this episode why I've decided to stop this show and also what you can expect for the future. Because of course, I'm not getting off the Internet. We make our living here on the Internet, through the blog, through the YouTube channel, my main channel, Farmhouse on Boone. And so I'll be creating content as usual in those spaces. But I have decided to just get rid of this one aspect of my business for a lot of reasons. And then I also plan to do one last Q&A here. So I'm going to head over to the Google Sheet and go through some of the questions and answer some questions like I do on a normal solo episode. So first of all, why I decided to end this show, there's really a lot of reasons. Right now in my business, I am in a season of cutting back and really focusing on the things that have been proven to work with the least amount of time so I can spend more time investing in my family. So over the last, let's see here now, I've had this business for 10.5 years. I started my website a little over 10 years ago, then I added on Instagram, then I added on YouTube, and then in 2020, I added on this podcast. So about four years into my business, I also did some courses. So I had my YouTube Success Academy, I had my Create Your Blog Dream for so many years. And then I have my homestead courses like the sewing course, the freshly milled grains, the sourdough course, the fermented vegetables course or the ferments course. So it's been a season in the last decade of trying all kinds of things, putting a lot of effort into a lot of different places, seeing what works best for our life, for our schedule, for our family. And over the years, I've learned the ways in which I prefer to communicate, to create content, which types of content mediums I prefer. And that's what the last decade has been about. It has been about, as a business owner, trying things, growing things, learning what fits best. And then the last couple of years has been about pruning. So taking away the parts that don't really fit. It's difficult in business to let things go, because one, you spent a lot of time building them up, so you don't want it to seem like time wasted. And really honestly, with this podcast, I don't feel like that at all, because I feel like there's been a lot of lives touched by a lot of great guests, a lot of great conversations and encouragement. So that is something that I decided, you know, that's not a factor. This has not been a waste of time. Same thing when it comes to my courses. So in this season of pruning, the first thing that I cut was a little over a year ago, we decided to close the doors to Create Your Blog Dream. That was a course that I started in 2018. It had a really long run. A lot of you were able to start successful blogs with it. But again, with our life and trying to figure out what fits into our family, there just was not the bandwidth for me to sit at the computer trying to stay up to date with everything when it comes to teaching new bloggers how to blog. So in January of 2025, decided to close that portion of the business, which was a difficult decision because it was a course that was still doing well. In the first many years of the course, that was part of my regular work, was to sit down and to update that course. It just became clear that it was no longer going to be something that I was going to be able to devote time to. As our kids get older, as we have more children, there's just less and less time. As kids get older, they have more things that they want to do that require a lot of you. You'll hear a lot of moms of older kids say this, like you feel like you have no time when they're little, but actually you have a lot more time when they're little. I'm so glad that I did start the businesses I started when I did, but I just have less and less time these days to devote, especially when it comes to time to just sit at the computer. That's something that has been increasingly more difficult. A little over a year ago, I closed Create Your Blog Dream, and then this last January, closed YouTube Success Academy, which was my other course where I taught people how to start a YouTube channel from scratch. A lot of you took that course and were able to start YouTube channels from it. Again, in this pruning process, that was something that I felt like this is doing well, but it's not something I want to spend a lot of time doing. Sitting at the computer, figuring out how to update courses, keep them current, stay up to date on the education when it comes to starting successful blogs and YouTube channels. That is where that had to go. In that same process of just going through each aspect of the business and trying to figure out, okay, where do I want to zero in? Where do I want to focus? I decided that the next thing that needed to go was the podcast. I'd been thinking about it for a while. I was telling some people in a YouTube Live, or not a YouTube Live, a Facebook Live that I did in one of my courses, that eventually I was probably going to be needing to close the podcast. There's several reasons, but it's one of the only parts of my business where I have to have a certain time. Obviously, when I'm interviewing guests, we have to get something on the schedule. And there's been a lot of times where something will come up, whether it's an appointment for one of the kids or some kind of activity they need to do, where I need to make sure to set the hours for my schedule. Not that that's a huge deal, but that was one of the factors. It's the least flexible part of the business because I have to be at a certain place at a certain time when doing guest interviews. Not a huge deal. Another is it's just difficult to do with children around. With my YouTube channel, I can record voiceovers anytime of the day or night, and I can do them in small chunks if needed, and then I can mostly just silence the videos. It's difficult to get a full uninterrupted hour where I sit down and talk. That's a challenge with a large family. But as a person who has created content in all of those forms, I just felt like I'm just kind of mentally exhausted with podcasting. I feel like I talk about the same things over and over, and I know a lot of you will say, that's okay, we like hearing the same things. I actually have podcasts I listen to that talk about the same things over and over again, and I love it. And I love it when they're vulnerable, and when they share exactly what's going on in their life. I love that. I'm just personally tired of doing it. And maybe there'll be a time where I don't feel like that anymore. I am in a sort of exhausted, exhausting period of my life right now. We're coming to the end of our house build, which is so incredibly exciting. Like we'll be moving in the next two weeks for sure, because we have renters that are moving into this house. So I'm really glad that we're almost done with that, but it's been such an exhausting period of life, having a new baby, living in a home that we meant to be very, very temporary. So we never really set it up to work for us as well as we would have had we known we were gonna be here for 18 months. Not that that's that long. And I am grateful because it is a great house. It's been just what we needed through this time. We just hoped that it was a little bit less time. So living in that situation, working on building a house, so so much mental energy, going to that and then also having our ninth baby in this last year. She's seven months old now. Our oldest is 17. It just feels like a time of life where stuff needs to go. And the older my kids get, the more I realize that. So for all of those reasons, I felt that it was time to do what I felt like I should have done probably a long time ago and cut certain parts of the business. And when I look at our businesses, the YouTube portion, the blogging portion, the way I have our team set up, the way that I create content for those, it actually fits into my life very easily. It doesn't require, it doesn't even require more than like 10 office hours a week to get all of that done, really less when we take out the podcast. And that's just what we need right now. We need something extremely flexible, where I can film clips here and there throughout the week and test recipes. That's something I want to be doing a lot more of. I want to devote more time to the blog. If I could actually take the time that I was working on the podcast, take that and devote it to recipe testing in the kitchen when the kids are all around and doing more blog posts, that I think would be better for our family and also better for the business because the blog is a more profitable part. It didn't just come down to like, what's the most profitable. It just came down to what fits in. And so that is where we are with the podcast. This is going to be the final episode. Now, I did imagine what if on my Farmhouse on Boone YouTube channel, if I did podcast style videos every once in a while, where I share maybe B-roll and then some of the Q&A type of questions, I could do that. So we'll see. It really all just depends. I know for right now that the podcast needs to end. I know that that is very clear. It's just whether or not I put more of this type of content over on my Farmhouse on Boone YouTube channel. It's just all too much to manage. My life needs to be a little more simplified, a little bit more bandwidth, less things to think about. And I really think from listening to a lot of other people who are in business, that's a season in business. There's this growth season where you try everything, you get good at a lot of things, and then you pare down once you figure out what works for you, what fits in, what you prefer, what you actually enjoy, what's profitable, all those factors considered. I think that's just where I am in business right now, over a decade into this. And so it's a weird phase of life because for so many years, it was all my goals were add this, add this, add this. And I actually had all this motivation. I could stay up late. I was building and it felt really good. And then we have the season of life, which it was several years where at the beginning of the year, the New Year's goals were just to maintain what I felt. And that lasted for a while. Just like, okay, I do this many blog posts, this many podcasts, this many YouTube videos, just to kind of maintain that no growth. And then these last couple of years, it's been, okay, what can we pair down on? How can we simplify this business even more and make it tailored to our family? Starting something new isn't just hard, it can be terrifying. I remember when I first started my business, there was just so much that I didn't know that I didn't know. So much work goes into this thing that you're not entirely sure will work out, and it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me, I know when I started this podcast, I wasn't even sure what I was doing. What if no one listens? What if I make a fool of myself? What if no one buys my products? Now I know that I was right in believing in myself in launching my business, despite all the fears and hesitations. It also helps when you have a partner like Shopify on your side to help. Get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. Accelerate your efficiency whether you're uploading new products or trying to improve existing ones. Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. Best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com/farmhouse. Go to shopify.com/farmhouse. That's shopify.com/farmhouse. I've been doing a little spring reset with my closet lately, focusing more on quality over quantity. Just building a wardrobe of pieces that are well-made, versatile and easy to reach for every day. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. The fabrics feel elevated, the fits are thoughtful, and the pricing actually makes sense. Quince makes beautiful everyday pieces using premium materials like 100% European linen, organic cotton, and super soft denim with styles starting around $50. Their spring pieces are lightweight, breathable and effortless. The kind of things you can throw on and instantly look put together. And that same focus on materials carries over into their accessories, like their leather bags, which are made from 100% hand-woven Italian leather, and honestly look way more expensive than they are. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. I just recently picked up the Napa Leather Double Buckle Slide. So excited to have those to slip on all season long. Also, I have a few Quince linen dresses that I plan to wear all throughout the summer. The fabric feels substantial, but still easy to wear. And they don't cost what I thought quality linen would. Refresh your spring wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com/farmhouse for free shipping and 365 day returns, now available in Canada too. Go to quince.com/farmhouse for free shipping and 365 day returns, quince.com/farmhouse. Let's dive in to a few of the Q and A's. I guess I'll tell you a bit about before jumping in to some of these questions. What's happening over at the house? There are just so many loose ends that we're tying up, but it's almost there. The trim is almost completely done. Luke was going to start painting. Actually, he did already start painting some of the trim. But then I was like, Luke, what if we get somebody in here to give us a bid on what it would cost? Paint every last bit of trim in this house. When we got the bid back, we were like, yes, let's do this. And so we're actually going to even get maybe most of the trim painted before we even move it in. Like I said, we have a deadline because somebody's moving in here and I want a deadline. We are just, we're going to move, even though there'll be painting around us, we really think it's worth it. So no matter what we're moving, but hopefully a lot of the trim will already be painted. This week, and once this podcast comes out, it's already happened. Someone's coming out to hook up our range, our refrigerator and freezer. We already have all the flooring done, the cabinetry in, they're templating this week for the countertops, so that will be in before we move in. The one thing that won't be completed is our stairs. We're waiting on some parts still, so we're going to have to live with the roughed-in stairs. And I know a lot of people said, don't do it, don't move in before that's done. But we're going to need to because we just need to. Like even if renters weren't moving in, we need to move to our farm for so many reasons. Working on projects while there, I'm always thinking, oh, I could work on this. And then I'm like, ah, I need a measurement. And then I'll go out there. But since we don't have it all set up yet for us, like all our stuff's not there, I'll be out there for like 30 minutes and kids are either hungry or cold. Sometimes I remember to pack snacks. Sometimes I pack extra clothes, but they get wet and then we don't have clothes. So it's just a challenge because our stuff's not there. And I'll want to take a bunch of measurements, but we're not really set up for everybody there yet. So I think it makes sense to move. My younger sister, they just built and they moved in many months before their stairs were done and it worked out for them. Now what they did do and what we have done also is put up a temporary railing, just like a junky, like scrap wood, nailed together type of thing that will protect kids from falling. So we're gonna make sure it's safe, but we are definitely willing to move in before it's fully done. Let's see what else has to be done. Most of the doors are already hung. They will be fully hung before we get in. I know my sister and their family moved in before the doors were even hung, which was a bit of a challenge, she said, but still they found it worth it to get out of their house in town in order to be on their farm and to finish the house while there. And so I think that that's going to be the case for us as well. I think it's really going to be better. But with it taking so much longer and there's certain things that we don't have done that we need done, a lot of things that I thought wouldn't be done when we moved in are actually going to be done when we move in. Like the house is painted, the trim is not all 100% painted, but the walls are, the floors are completely refinished. We have, I think we're going to be pretty set up as long as we have one working bathroom, which as of right now, we have three installed toilets, two installed showers. So that's fine. Even if we have to go upstairs to shower in the kids' bathrooms, that's fine. I ordered all the rest of the plumbing parts and there's a few things on backorder, so we might not be able to fully install the bathtub in our bathroom. But again, as long as we can shower somewhere and go to the bathroom somewhere and have a kitchen sink, even if the pantry sink's not done, we're totally going to move in. So that's where we are with that. We are going to move in soon just because we need to move on from the space of life. There will be projects, but we are happy to do that. Okay, let's see here. Hi Lisa, I absolutely love your content on YouTube and podcast. I'm a new wife and homemaker. My husband and I are living in an RV. Do you have any advice for cooking from scratch and making fermented foods in such a small space? Also, which foods would you prioritize to make from home? And I probably can't do it all. I do. I know an RV is a much smaller space. I have a really small kitchen right now, which I do, but I know an RV is a much smaller space than that. But certain things you just don't need a lot of space for. So, for example, fermented foods. If you're going to make some fermented carrots or sauerkraut or fermented jalapenos, all you really need is mason jars, couple of glass or ceramic weights, the little pickle top, just silicone tops, and the lids to the mason jar. So you don't really need any space for that. I could do that here on this desk in my bedroom if needed. Also, I would get a grain mill. I really think that that's a great place to start making from scratch bread with freshly milled grains. They don't take up a ton of space, especially if you get like a, I don't know if you'd call it a freestanding one, but mock mill makes one, nutrimill makes one where you just use a bowl. It's not like this huge unit that has a built in bowl. You use your own bowl. That would be great for space saving. I would not worry about getting a mixer. For me personally, I do all of my baking with stretch and folds now. So that would be a really great space saver. As long as you have just like a small grain mill and a few mason jars, you can ferment food and make freshly milled bread. And that's where I would personally start. If you want to simplify that, I'd say start with sauerkraut because it's easy. Just takes salt and cabbage and those basic tools I mentioned. And then I think once you get the hang of it, making a whole grain sourdough bread is pretty simple. It's fairly space-saving, especially if you do sandwich loaves, so you're not worrying about having those big cast iron Dutch ovens, which maybe your RV doesn't even have an oven that would fit that. So I would say start with some stainless steel bread pans and make sandwich bread. And I think you could fit all of that. I could, if I just had like a tiny oven in here, I could do all of that in water. Water would be important for that as well. As long as you have an outlet, water and a small oven, you can do what I just said. Do you have any tips for starting and working with sourdough without a warm home? We live in a really old house which has to be heated with wood, so it's only warm for a few hours. Overnight, it gets really cold. So when I tried to make sourdough starter, it didn't work. Well, I would say start it this summer, and then it will, you should be able to maintain it all throughout the winter in your colder home. Because we've definitely, well, I was going to say we live in colder homes. But here's the thing. Our kitchen in our current house, where we've been for almost 18 months now, the kitchen has no heat vents at all. And so even if you keep the house on like 68 degrees in winter time, the kitchen itself is freezing. Like your feet against the floor, you have to wear socks. I don't have a thermostat in there, but I bet you it is definitely in the 50s in there in the morning on like a really cold night. But my starter still does well. Now I will say it takes forever for bread to rise in there. So it actually really develops the flavor because it's somewhere in between like a fridge rise and a room temperature rise when it rises in there. So I just let it go a whole lot longer and it slowly develops the flavor. I actually really love it. But if I'm in a hurry for something, I will take that bowl and go put it in a different room of my house since that's the only cold room. I can see you don't have a room like that. So that might be a bit more of a challenge. But what I would do if I were you is manipulate it to where it happens during the day. So put a chair not too close but somewhat close to your wood stove, and then rotate the bowl throughout the day so that way there's always the warm side. Actually, I need to go do that right now. I just remembered that I have something I'm trying to accelerate. Sitting on my stovetop, so I actually have the oven going. Sometimes I manipulate things with heat, but you want to rotate the bowl so it doesn't dry out and kind of cook on that one side. And do same day sourdough. So basically, you'll start it in the morning, set it next to your wood stove so it rises really fast, maybe like four hours for the bulk rise, and then two hours for the second rise in the pan or the band-aid, whatever that may be, and then bake it all in that same day. So that way you're not really relying on it to do anything overnight. And maybe the next day when you're not baking, you could put the starter in front of that wood stove and get it nice and bubbly. So just try to utilize the time when you have heat. I'm always manipulating my sourdough. I either want it to last a really long time, and so I'll put it somewhere cooler, or I want to speed up the process because I want it at a certain time, and so I'll put it somewhere really, really warm. Like for example, this morning I started some buns. I want them for dinner, and so I'm putting them in the warmest place that I can find all throughout the day so that they will be ready tonight by dinner time. I won't have to, you know, they're not going to happen tomorrow. They're happening today. But if I was making buns for tomorrow, I would want them somewhere a little bit cooler, so that way I can stretch the process out. Hi Lisa, would love to hear your thoughts on speech development as a mom to many. Do you actively try and teach your children to speak, or do you let them develop at their own pace? Have you had late talkers or notice your children to be very different in terms of how early they start talking? I love to hear your take on all things speech. So, we don't do anything special. We do have a large family, and so everybody does interact with the child. And I think there is a wide range of normal that could have nothing to do with what you do. This is just my observation from having nine children. Now of course, my youngest doesn't talk yet, so I don't know where she's gonna fall on this line, but I have had a very wide range, like a year and a half. I would say most kids start really talking putting together sentences around age two, but I have had them almost like six months to a year before that, and I've had almost six months to a year after that. And the ones that were really late are older now and completely fine and talk perfectly well, no issues whatsoever. You would never know they talked earlier or later based on when they started talking. And so with that perspective, it's not something that I really worry about at all because I feel like it's just some people talk earlier. And I've heard, I don't know if this is true. You can correct me if this is not true. But I've heard that some of the more physically, what's the word I'm looking for? I want to say advanced kids talk later. And when I think back, the one that talked really late, I have one outlier who talked really late, is probably the most athletic, strong, like he can do so many pull ups kid. And so I don't know if that's true, but I will say now at the age that he is right now, he talks perfectly fine. He doesn't have any like speech issues whatsoever. So I just would say, and you know, I don't want to say ignore things because there could be something you could do if you have a child who it really is going to have an issue. So I don't know. But in my experience with what we've had, there hasn't been any things that we've needed to do. We've never done like any speech therapy. And there has been a wide range of normal. And it's different than what Google tells you because Google will tell you if they're not saying a certain number of words by a certain age, that they definitely need to go to speech therapy. Well, that might be true, but this kid did not need to, and he did not have that many words by that certain age. And I've heard lots of other anecdotal, you know, like anecdotes, stories from other people who have a similar experience with their own children. And so, there's a lot of things that I have discovered throughout my years of motherhood that Google just isn't right about, even the AI overview. And I think a lot of times it's just like stuff that will try to scare you basically. Now, there is good advice too. I don't want to say like, there's never any problems. Nobody ever has speech problems. That's probably not true. But for us personally, there's been a really wide range without there being an issue. This time of year, it's getting really nice outside. We are spending more time on the go, meeting up with friends at the creek, at parks. I want to make sure that I'm prepared to feed my children healthy when we are out and about. One way that I've been able to do that for so many years, I've been a member of Thrive Market. Now, because it's getting warm outside, some of the things in my recent order, avocado oil fried chips. I love the ones by C8A, Purely Elizabeth granola, some high quality bars and snacks. I also loaded up on sourdough pasta and blue land dishwasher tabs. Love having those to clean up a mess quickly and on the go. Another thing that I stock up on Thrive Market is high quality chocolate chips. They have some that have very simple ingredients. My kids like to do a lot of baking like chocolate chip cookies and muffins. So I keep us stocked with all of those things. The best part is all of this comes right to my door. Orders over $49 shipped for free in the US. So it's just really easy and convenient for a busy mom like me to stock my pantry with high quality staples that make eating healthy easy. Thrive Market restricts over 1000 ingredients. So no stressing over labels or Googling every additive. Every product is curated, organic and non GMO brands vetted before they ever hit the site. An in-app barcode scanner finds a healthier swap for almost anything in your pantry right now. You'll find healthy dupes and brands you've never heard of or can't find at your local store. Ready to do your own spring reset? Join Thrive Market with my link, thrivemarket.com/farmhouse for $20 off your first three orders. Plus you'll get a free $60 gift. Hi Lisa, do you still use cloth diapers for your kids? If so, do you use them up to their potty training or just when they're newborns? I'm trying to look for ways to save money, so just curious. Okay, I used them for my first four kids. I never didn't use them. We'd go on vacation and I'd find a laundromat kind of thing. Never ever ever did disposables touch those four children, but I no longer do that. Pretty much five on. I haven't used cloth diapers in probably eight years at all. And it was for saving money and it did save money because there was these sales back then when I first got my first stash of cloth diapers, where they would have like this dollar sale at the headquarters, I think, of Bum Genius. That's one of the big brands, or at least it was at the time. I am so not up on cloth diapers today, but they are actually made in our area, are about an hour away. And they would have these $1 sales on the Velcro ones when they, I guess, lost a little bit of their stick. I don't know. But I'm sure at the time in history with cloth diapers, where you could get them really, really cheap because they've been in circulation for so long that people have bought them and are now getting rid of them. See, when I first started, that wasn't the case because I started with my daughter who's 17. And so I got them, I got a dozen of Bum Genius brand new from my baby shower. And then I bought them really cheap anytime I could, but I made it on those 12 for like her first year. I just had to wash constantly, but it did save money. I never had to buy diapers for the first four kids. But then now, of course, I just do. We're in a whole different season of life. And so I think that's important to remember. In our early years of marriage, we couldn't, I don't want to say we couldn't buy diapers, but it would have hurt our budget, whereas now it's not really a big thing to add on the diaper cost. And so for the convenience, time-saving little scale here, we just don't worry about it, but I'm sure it's healthier, it's better in so many ways. But no, we do not use cloth diapers and haven't for a long time. Somebody says, with all the bedroom shuffling you've mentioned, as more babies come and kids get older, will things be different now that you have another baby girl? Will Miriam share a room with the youngest boys for a few years, or with one of the older girls, or will she end up having her own room? You know, I have not even thought about that. I haven't thought about that at all. She will be in our room when we first move into our new farmhouse. And then, where she will go from there, I haven't even thought about. Honestly, I don't know. I imagine one of the boys will probably graduate to another boy's room, and she'll go in with them. Because I think when they're really little, the challenge that we're having right now that we are so excited, one of the many, many reasons we're so excited to move, is all six boys are in the same room. And when we first moved into this house, it was like a huge problem. It felt big, like this is crazy, what do we do? Every night's a big battle, it's hard. Well, at this point, we've gotten used to it, even though the younger kids stay up way too late now, because there's older kids that don't need to go to bed at that time, so people are in and out. And so in the new house, the big thing that we're super excited about is putting kids to bed by what time they need to go to bed. So they're sharing rooms with those who will go to bed at a similar time to them. And so I'm so excited to get my four-year-old out with the big, and my two-year-old, out of the room with the big kids. And so I imagine when Miriam is ready to go out of our room, the biggest objective I will have is making sure she's with kids who also want to go to bed around like seven o'clock, because I think that's good for toddler-age kids. And that's something we haven't been able to do for so long, and it's been so hard. And so you're probably right. She probably will go in with some boys for a while. The girls are 17 and 15 right now, and so they don't have a bedtime. I don't pay any attention to when they go to bed. And I think that kids can adapt to that, but there's such a large age span that I don't really know how it would work out to have a crib in their room. So anyways, I'm sure she'll go in with the younger boys until a certain age. And then by that point, who knows? Maybe some of the girls might be moved out. I don't know. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. But one thing I notice is there's a lot of things you try to think about in advance, and you almost just have to deal with the season that you're in right now, and then see how people are. Like for an example, Luke and I were just today talking about in the new house, which beds will go where? Because our two-year-old could still go in a toddler bed or a crib, and so could the four-year-old. But also, personality-wise, our two-year-old could go in a twin bed just fine. He's just that kind of kid. Whereas our four-year-old, he couldn't. At two, we needed to very much contain him. But this two-year-old is different. And when you put him to bed, he just stays there, which is so crazy. I haven't had a kid where that was not a fight, but this one is. And so he could go in a twin bed. He could go in with probably any brother and be fine. It's more the four-year-old that's kind of the issue right now. And so I think you can't predict, because you can't even predict what kind of kids you have and where they will best work out with what kids. Because even the room division that we're doing in the new house, it doesn't always go exactly by age. There are some ages, like I said, the younger kids that want to go to bed earlier together, they don't want to, but we want them to. That works out. And then I have some that it's not really by age, it's more by observation of personality and habits and what we think is going to work best, and so you can't always predict that. So that's a very long answer to say, I don't know. But one thing I know about our new house is it has a lot more space and a lot more options. So we will definitely figure something out. Hi, I'm a first time mom and I'd like to know how to tackle life and responsibilities when my baby is sick. Right now, I can drop everything and tend to her. But how do you balance it all with multiple kids and schedules and meals to make? Alongside that, I know baby wearing has been very helpful to you, but I struggle with it because my baby constantly wants to nurse as soon as she's wrapped. Then I need to unwrap and readjust, but I never feel like her head or neck are a comfortable angle, so I just give up. Any tips? Thank you. I love your channel and always put on one of your videos or podcast when I want to motivate myself to be productive. Well, thank you very much for supporting my channel by watching it. That's a huge help. As far as the baby wearing, one thing I do is I move the babies to my back when they're about five or six months old. Miriam is now almost exclusively on my back and she even, I don't think this is, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't say this because I'm like, well, maybe that's not recommended. Let's just say I put her on my back pretty much always, and it works out really well for us. That's something that I think is helpful because they can see everything a little bit better, and then also they might not need to nurse because they're not as close up here. That might help. It is a challenge. We've had a lot of sickness over this winter, and I have older kids now that can help me if we get into a predicament. So when you have only little kids, if you get yourself, not yourself, it's just if a predicament happens where you have a sick child, there might just have to be some compromises made when you don't have extra help. I have extra help. So just for an example, Miriam was recently sick, and I felt like I needed to steam, you know, do like a steaming type of treatment to really break up that congestion. And also, there's a remedy where you heat up onions in makeup poultice for the front and back of their chest to break up congestion. You can look it up. It's a thing. Basically, just warm onions that have like the juices released. So you put them in the oven for a while, then put them in like a tea towel. My sister and I even used to make little pockets on our kid shirts where you could slip the onions into the pockets on the front and back so they can have them on the go. Anyways, we came home from something the other night. It was like seven or eight o'clock, and it became clear that she was starting to get sick. She actually ended up developing a fever overnight. And so I told everybody on the way home, okay, when we get home, I need to deal only with her. Like there's a van full of stuff that needs to get unloaded. There's kids that need to be checked for ticks. We need to get everybody in their jammies. But I started handing out jobs, you know, my husband was there too. So we had, between the two of us and all the older kids, this kid, you know, check this child for ticks. This one helped this child get to bed. This kid empty out the van. And so I could go devote time just to Miriam. I went in the bathroom, I put on two humidifiers and really hot water. And so the room was just this steamy bathroom where she could breathe more freely. I got my onions in the oven, I made her a little poultice. But like you said, that was a job that really only I could do. And I couldn't really have the other kids because it would have been so challenging to do that. So had I gotten home that night and had, say like a four-year-old, a two-year-old and then Miriam, I think what I would have done is put her in the wrap, which I know you said that can be a challenge with her. Worst case scenario, set her in her car seat just in the house somewhere safe, quickly get the other kids in bed, tell them, hey, it's a no book night, I'm just going to check you for ticks. It's springtime in Missouri, so that's part of our routine. Get them in their jammies, get them in bed. She's probably crying in the car seat, but hey, you had to get the other kids in the bed. Leave all the stuff in the van for later, which if you only have three kids, you don't have near the stuff that we did. This was Easter Sunday, and so we had just, I mean, we had wet shoes, wet clothes, dirty clothes, eggs, plastic eggs, candy, baskets, trash. I mean, it was destroyed, but you probably don't have that much if you only have three little kids. So that's one thing too, is you get more help because you get more older children, but there's also way more stuff. And so you do need the whole entire crew to pitch in because it's a lot. But in this scenario of the four, two and baby, I say leave it till tomorrow because it's not going anywhere. Tomorrow, you probably aren't going to do a whole lot anyway because you're going to be tending to a sick baby. So you can do that during naptime tomorrow. You can empty the van. So just get the baby inside. She might have to cry for a minute. That's okay. Quickly get the older two kids in bed. Focus on them. And then you have time to just deal exclusively with the sick baby. So there's definitely ways and it's not perfect. And it might mean that there's fussing and crying. And I think that's something I didn't realize when I was a younger mom. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. Like that's just, what else are you going to do? Now, I of course assume there was no husband in this scenario. If there's a husband, he can get the four-year-old and the two-year-old in bed and you can deal with the baby and maybe he'll empty the car or you'll do it the next day together. I don't know. But there's always some way to do it. It just might be very challenging or somebody might be crying. Might not be perfect, but I found that there's always a way. I actually was home for a week with my five youngest children because my oldest four and Luke went on a ski trip, which I really wanted them to do. They didn't just like ditch me. I was like, this would be great because the younger kids really can't do that. I think it'd be great. Well, it was challenging. It was very hard. We had a lot of hard situations happen while they were gone. And there was definitely times where I'm like, how do I do this? Like, I'm trying to nurse Miriam to sleep, and this child wants water. And this child got out of their bed, now I need to get back up, wake her back up. But I still made it. I guess that's the point is it won't be perfect. It will be nice when you have more help for sure. But there's still always a way, if that makes sense. There's still a way you kind of strategize differently in your head based on what resources you have available. If you don't have any help, yeah, you're going to have to put off cleaning out the van till tomorrow and that's going to have to be okay. You're going to have to be okay with a little bit of crying from the baby. Again, she probably cried the whole way home in her car seat anyway. What's the difference? It's just there's got to be some sacrifices, made some not perfect situations. Maybe another option would be to put on a show for the four-year-old, the two-year-old, deal with the baby, get her really happy, get her asleep in the wrap, and then put the four-year-old and two-year-old to bed. That's another option that could have worked in that scenario. There's ways, but yeah, you're not going to be able to... Right now, like you said, you have the ability to be able to just tend to the baby. When there's more kids, that won't be the case, but you'll still somehow make it through. All right. Well, I hope you all, I was going to say enjoy this episode, but enjoyed the last six years. If you didn't listen to the archives, they're back there. You can re-watch or listen to a lot of really great interviews. I'm going to be leaving up my website, simplefarmhouselifepodcast.com, so you can scroll through the archives that way. I also have all the episodes, obviously, on your favorite podcast player and on YouTube. You can re-listen to some of that. This podcast, I will miss it. You never know. There could be a time when I miss it so much, when I come back. More than likely, though, I would put content like this. If I miss making content like this or conversations like this, I could put them on my main channel. We'll see. I don't know. For now, because of how life feels, just like the scenario I just explained, I'm in a scenario right now where life feels kind of impossibly busy. I don't feel like I have time to do a lot of things. And there will be a time, probably, when that is no longer true, where I have just time I just currently don't. And so we'll see where life takes us. Follow along over on my main channel, Farmhouse on Boone. There will be tours of the brand new house because we're going to be moving in very soon. So you can watch for our moving video, our walkthrough, our tour of the completed house, all coming very soon on Farmhouse on Boone. Well, as always, thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for the last six years. I really appreciate all your support, your kind words, your questions in keeping this show going. Thank you so much. Thanks as always for listening to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. My husband Luke and I and our kids work together side by side on our farm in Missouri and use our blog, podcast, and YouTube channel to reach other homemakers, home cooks and homesteaders with practical recipes in daily family life. For everyday sourdough recipes, make sure to check out our blog farmhouseonboone.com. And to dig deeper, we do also offer a course called Simple Sourdough over at bit.ly forward slash farmhouse sourdough course all one word. We also teach people how to ferment vegetables and mill their own grains. Through our courses, fresh ferments and freshly milled grains, we will leave links for all of that down in the show notes below.