The Dailey Homestead

The Dailey Homestead Our homestead focuses on sustainability, raising/growing healthy food, and giving back to the land ☀️ Carlisle, KY

Trying to rehydrate a dehydrated sourdough starter gifted to me from my aunt back in 2023. It’s been wayyyy too long sin...
05/31/2026

Trying to rehydrate a dehydrated sourdough starter gifted to me from my aunt back in 2023. It’s been wayyyy too long since the smell of fresh bread has filled this house 😌

•Making your own herbal salve•First pick, rinse, and set your plant out to dry. It doesn’t need to be fully dried, but w...
05/31/2026

•Making your own herbal salve•

First pick, rinse, and set your plant out to dry. It doesn’t need to be fully dried, but without lots of water. Then, you’ll infuse your plant in oil. You’ll later add beeswax to this oil to create your salve.

✨Infusing Herbs In oil✨
You can use whichever oil you prefer for infusing your herbs. My favorites are organic coconut or olive oil. Just remember, your skin is your biggest organ so the higher quality, the better. 🙂
- If using dry plant matter, fill jar 1/2 with plant and top with oil
- if using fresh plant matter or bulky dried plants, fill the jar 3/4 of the way full and top with oil

There are two ways to proceed:
-Solar infusing (must be done with fully dried plant matter) and entails placing your jar on a window sill to let the sun pull the nutrients out of the plants. Shake/stir every couple of days. Leave for 4-6 weeks

-Crockpot infusing (my go to because it can be done without drying your pants first and is a lot quicker.)
Place a towel in the bottom of a crockpot and set jars on top. Leave lids *OFF* of jars to let out moisture (this is very important).
Fill the crockpot with water and leave dried herbs 4-6 hours and fresh herbs 12-24 hours.

After this you have infused your oil with your herbs and they can be strained out through a cheese cloth. You can then set the oil aside and either save it for later, put it into a bottle to apply directly, or transform it into something else. My favorites are soaps or salves!

✨To make a salve✨
A basic salve recipe is for every 8 ounces of oil, add 1/4 cup of beeswax. This makes for a very smooth and soft salve. For a stiffer salve, add more beeswax.

Add the mixture to a double boiler, or any glass bowl in boiling water. Heat the mixture up until all the beeswax is melted. Once it is, pour into containers.

And to think that there was once a thought in my mind that my kids may not love the outdoors, the gardens, the chickens…...
05/29/2026

And to think that there was once a thought in my mind that my kids may not love the outdoors, the gardens, the chickens… I’m so thankful that I get to raise them this way and that they enjoy it as much as I do. 🥰

🌱 PLANTAIN 🌱 A common ‘weed’ that’s found in most yards, pastures, ditch lines, etc. There is both a broad leaf and narr...
05/29/2026

🌱 PLANTAIN 🌱

A common ‘weed’ that’s found in most yards, pastures, ditch lines, etc. There is both a broad leaf and narrow leaf plantain, and they are pretty much interchangeable. Narrow leaf is known to be slightly more potent and more bitter.

One of the easiest ways to ID the plant is to look for the deep reddish/purple center and when you break off a leaf, you have to break through these strands that end up sticking out like hairs. Give it a try and you’ll instantly feel exactly what I’m talking about!

Plantain is known for being exceptional at reducing the sting and itch of insect bites and calming irritated skin. If bit and you see plantain, the quickest way to use is to chew up the plantain leaf and apply it directly to the bite or sting.

In salve form, it is great for applying to the skin to help reduce redness, itching, and is antibacterial. It helps promote tissue repair so it’s great for scuffs or skin irritation.

As a tea, it works great to break up mucus and clear congestion. If you gargle a very concentrated tea, it’s said to help reduce the inflammation and pain of a soar throat.

Its seeds are a mild laxative when consumed. I actually learned this one accidentally while letting my oldest wander around the yard and nibble on all the edible herbs growing in the yard. I knew it was safe, but didn’t expect it to work so quick and effectively 😅

It’s safe to say that even though plantain is known as an ‘ordinary weed’ and can be found pretty much anywhere, it’s worth taking the time to locate, responsibly harvest, and create into a salve or drink as a tea. 🌿

We finally had a little time to pick some plantain today 🌱 We’ll infuse it in oil tonight or tomorrow and then turn it i...
05/27/2026

We finally had a little time to pick some plantain today 🌱 We’ll infuse it in oil tonight or tomorrow and then turn it into salves.

A couple black copper maran eggs on this overcast morning 🌥️
05/27/2026

A couple black copper maran eggs on this overcast morning 🌥️

Mushrooms are popping up everywhere after all this rain! Mushrooms seem to pop up out of nowhere because the part we see...
05/27/2026

Mushrooms are popping up everywhere after all this rain!

Mushrooms seem to pop up out of nowhere because the part we see above ground is just a tiny part of the organism itself. Mycelium is the underground network that spreads far and wide throughout our soil and when the climate is right, they send the mushrooms up through the soil surface to release more mushroom spores.

What’s that perfect climate you might ask? Lots of moisture and humidity on top of soil that’s usually covered in lots of organic matter (decomposing leaves and sticks, compost, etc. ) or in our case, lots are popping up around where our mobile chicken coop used to be. We do however have lots in the yard too!

These mushrooms are a sign of very healthy soil with lots of life in it. I wish I was more confident in my mushroom foraging skills so that I could pick and eat them. But for now, I took pictures and will be researching them all. 🍄‍🟫📖

Hatching eggs available! Came back after being gone for a few days to these BEAUTIES! All Black Copper Maran Dozen, Mixe...
05/26/2026

Hatching eggs available! Came back after being gone for a few days to these BEAUTIES!

All Black Copper Maran Dozen, Mixed Rainbow Dozen, and Orpington x Black copper Marans Dozens

💲2️⃣5️⃣ for mixed dozen
💲4️⃣0️⃣ for BCM
💲1️⃣0️⃣ for Orpington crosses

Talking Tuesday 🗣️ •SOIL HEALTH• In just one teaspoon of soil there is over ✨10 billion organisms✨. Thats hard for me t...
05/26/2026

Talking Tuesday 🗣️ •SOIL HEALTH•

In just one teaspoon of soil there is over ✨10 billion organisms✨. Thats hard for me to even fathom. All of these organisms work together as their own ecosystem to keep things functioning and thriving. Soil quality dictates the quality of food that is grown and consumed, air and water quality, and although it’s often taken for granted in opinion, it plays a roll in almost every aspect of our life, even when we aren’t directly thinking about it.

Without healthy soil or soil that’s lacking life, nutrients aren’t available for plant uptake, soil structure is compromised, water retention isn’t optimal, and it’s easily eroded away.

❗️Things that decrease soil health-
- leaving soil bare and allowing the hot sun to bake down on it, killing the organisms in the upper layers
- Artificial fertilizers
- Pesticides
- Compaction
- Monoculture crops

🌟Things that improve soil health-
- organic fertilizers and specially manure and compost
- Keeping the ground covered using cardboard or other plants to shield from the hot sun
- Crop rotation and diversity
- things like pelletized gypsum and other additives to help improve soil structure

From a non agriculture perspective, some people (🙋🏼‍♀️) believe that if we walk barefoot the soil will communicate with the cells in our body and nervous system. A common term you may have heard would be Earthing or Grounding. There’s lots of science behind this practice but also, if we view the soil as the living and thriving ecosystem that it is, and remember that we are all so interconnected, there’s no question that both us and the soil would work together to help and understand each other in a way that we’re not even aware of most of the time.

Thanks for reading along if you’ve made it this far. This post was actually kind of hard for me because I’m kind of a soil nerd and took as many classes in college on soil as I could. There will probably be more info on this in later posts because every time I started on a topic as a new paragraph I realized that this would end up being pages long if I kept on 😅

So for now, I invite you to visit the idea that the soil below is is full of life and begin to think about ways that we are connected to it through food, water, or areas that you may not have even considered before. 👩🏼‍🌾

- Talking Tuesday 🗣️I thought we’d take the time to talk about cooking from scratch (due to popular request🙂) I think th...
05/20/2026

- Talking Tuesday 🗣️

I thought we’d take the time to talk about cooking from scratch (due to popular request🙂)

I think the the term cooking FROM SCRATCH can be a little intimidating. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. For some people, making bread from scratch may mean grinding their own wheat berries into the flour they will use for that bread. For others, it means just grabbing the generic brand of flour from the store and making bread. Neither is wrong. The main thing they have in common? Whichever you do, it’s way healthier for you than buying the bread from the store.

If cooking from scratch, or just cooking in general is new to you, start with the most simple thing you can think of. Cookies, green beans with some seasonings, bone broth, etc. Don’t ’swing for the fences’ before you are confident in what you already like to cook. It may just end up discouraging you from trying again. Or if you want to try something crazy and go for a complex recipe or something that takes days to produce, go for it! Just don’t let it hurt your ego if it doesn’t turn out. It’s all just an experiment and an experience that you get to try again over and over.

If I had to say the number one thing that makes anything better than store bought both for your body and your soul, it’s the fact that you made it yourself. There’s just something unexplainable about the intention, the love, the time, the excitement, and the anticipation of making something yourself. I believe that our bodies feel that and that’s what’s most important.

Let’s face it, a homemade cookie that might be misshapen, a little burnt, a little not quite right, is still better than having no cookie at all. 🙂

Attached is the recipe for some absolutely delicious pumpkin cookies that an Amish friend made for me the other day 🎃

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Carlisle, KY
40311

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