Category: Planning

Home Remedies, Planning, preparedness

What’s in my car first aid kit?

Lauren

With summer coming to a close and school starting back, I’m doing a reset of first aid kits around my house and in my car. In the summer my first aid kits tend to be equipped for scrapes, sunburns, rashes, bee stings, heat sickness, and dehydration. But when school goes back, I tend to add in an extra layer and prepare for sudden onset of stomach bugs, allergic reactions, headaches, and the bumps and bruises that happen in those recess dustups that my boys seem to be known for.

I’ll also add what I like to keep in my car for preparedness— because we naturally find ourselves at impromptu park dates and nature hikes as part of our homeschool adventures. You’ll see me keep a variety of crunchy and not-so-crunchy options here, and that’s because typically if I’m reaching for first aid, we need a quick-fix until we can get to the better option. We don’t need to pull from these items often, but when we do, I want things that I know will work and work quickly.

In my car:

I love to keep basic first aid:

  • Silverceuticals Nano-Gel for first aid ointement: this treats burns, scrapes, cuts, rashes, and any other irritation very quickly (use my code GENTLEMOMMY to save 25% off your order with Silverceuticals)
  • Silverceuticals Nanosilver liquid in a spray mister for disinfecting surfaces, skin, soothing irritated eyes and ears
  • Hydrogen peroxide: aside from cleaning wounds, it gets blood out of kids shirts and jeans and car upholstery (ask me how I know)
  • Variety of bandages, gauze pads, wraps, and scissors
  • A charcoal drawing paste (recipe is attached in the PDF) for treating bee stings
  • Comfrey tallow salve (recipe is attached) to stop bleeding and swelling
  • Essential oils like lavender, tea tree, and frankincense for soothing boo-boos and relieving nausea
  • Baby wipes

Then my step-up supplies:

  • Benadryl for urgent allergy reactions
  • Pepto-bismol chewables for upset tummies
  • Dramamine for bad carsickness
  • Advil for headaches (I keep ginger chewables for headaches and nausea too)
  • Glycerin suppositories for toddlers who are backed up and needing help away from home (I keep a few diapers in my trunk too)
  • Plastic grocery bags for upset tummies or bagging wet clothes
  • Electrolyte drink packets

And basic supplies I like to have in the car:

  • Jumper cables
  • Headlamps, a lantern, and one good flashlight
  • Trash bags
  • A good, sharp knife
  • A multi-tool with multiple screwdriver heads
  • A folding shovel and retractable saw for wintertime (great for helping if I get stuck in the snow)
  • A basic leash for our dog (or random dogs that find us on hikes and trails)
  • Beach towels (for drying off wet playground slides or cleaning up messes)
  • A few favorite light-hearted books and games in case we’re stuck in traffic (or snow, or mud)
  • Changes of clothes for littles who might have accidents

As the winter rolls in, I’ll add a few other things like warm, fuzzy socks (bc we always get wet socks on snow playdates), blankets, hand warmers, and extra fleece jackets and hats. Inevitably someone forgets theirs in our rush out the door (or loses them when we’re out and about) and it’s nice to have something in the car rather than have to go back home.

If you’re looking to pack your car with the things you’ll need in a pinch, take note of what you don’t have when you need it. It took me lots of miserable days at our co-op before I realized I should always have a change of clothes for my potty-trained but easily distracted younger kids. The list will change in different seasons, but it’s so helpful to revisit your kit and set yourself up for success.

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Breakfast Favorites, Planning, Sourdough

Meal planning: breakfast

Lauren

I’m a planner. As a mother of seven children, I have to be. And with Mike frequently traveling cross-country for work, the kids and I are typically responsible for all the farm chores before we start school each day during the week. Milking cows and goats, feeding 500+ lbs of hay to everyone, and refilling water troughs is just part of what we do, all before 8 am.

I know without a good plan we could easily drag the morning out and have very little accomplished before having to start evening chores. My goal is to have chores done by 8:00/8:30 and then have a nice hot breakfast together before starting our school lessons. Eating from the bounty of our farm means we eat pretty seasonally, but even with that in mind I can stick us to a pretty simple method: protein, fat, fruit or veggie, carb. With the days getting shorter and shorter, our hens are laying less and less. This means we can’t have eggs on the menu every morning.

Luckily we also plan our butchering for the fall- so our freezers are full of breakfast sausage and beef bacon. Our protein options rotate between beef or deer sausage or beef bacon, eggs, and greek yogurt. Then I typically build out the rest of our breakfast with a combination of sourdough or oatmeal with cultured butter and a fruit we’ve preserved- spiced peaches or apples, applesauce, or frozen berries.

Some of us like a more savory breakfast, so I’ll change things up and make a quiche loaded with veggies and herbs and cheese, or serve breakfast tacos with salsa and avocados in the summer, and breakfast potatoes with sausage and peppers in the winter.

Once I have solid ideas and options, I create a fill-in-the-blank style plan that looks like this:

Sunday: quiche with cut fruit;

Monday: yogurt with granola and chicken sausage;

Tuesday: buttered sourdough toast and jam with scrambled eggs;

Wednesday: beef bacon with roasted potatoes and sliced pears;

Thursday: sourdough waffles with applesauce and greek yogurt;

Friday: sausage bagels with frozen berries;

Saturday: pumpkin donuts with greek yogurt or breakfast burritos

I try to rotate through whatever seasonal items we have here on the farm and a combination of whatever is in our grocery store. The cost of groceries is so expensive now that I’ve been particularly choosy about only buying items I KNOW my crew will eat. Last year Mike bought me a set of donut pans from King Arthur Baking and they have made it so fun and simple for us to make sourdough discard donuts- I rotate on Saturdays between muffins and donuts and the kids love those. With eggs being in lower supply, baking something for everyone with a recipe that uses just one or two eggs is incredibly economical.

I also make our yogurt using my instant pot- which is an enormous savings for us and lets us eat yogurt several times a week for breakfasts. Cora (my 14 year old) makes our granola each week on Sundays, and my boys take turns helping me with the sourdough. If the plan is written out a week in advance, it’s easy to identify what we need to buy, what we need to thaw, and what we need to prep ahead– and that means smooth sailing for breakfasts in the mornings.

What about you? Do you plan breakfasts? I’ll be sharing our lunch and dinner meal plans as well- because I can do a lot of things, but winging it isn’t one of them.

xoxo~

Lauren