Serenity Hill Homestead

10/20/2026

It doesn’t take much to get me excited…a new cookbook will do it! 🍂📖

Most of my Gooseberry Patch cookbooks have come from discount book sites…lots with dog ears and comments…so having a brand-new one is a little treat. I think I picked up a couple new ones a few years ago, but this one—Autumn Recipes from the Farmhouse—has me pretty stoked. My favorite season, farmhouse cooking…how could I resist? 😂

While hubby watches a little TV tonight, I’ll be indulging in one of my favorite pastimes: poring over a cookbook. Any cookbook, really. Reading recipes, imagining meals, finding something new to share…it’s a little secret passion of mine. ❤️

Anyone else read cookbooks like other people read novels?

10/19/2026

10/19/2026

Scuppernong today! 🍂🥾 Ron and I got 3.75 miles in and went on a little wild goose chase after a…well, do you see it in the picture?? 👀

What a fun surprise! We felt like Elmer Fudd…“Be vewy, vewy quiet…we’re hunting wabbits!” 😂

And that wind was fierce! We started out freezing, worked up a sweat, then got chilled all over again. Apparently we needed three different outfits for one hike! 🌬️😂

We packed our lunch and enjoyed a quiet meal after our hike. Just time together, fresh air, and nowhere we needed to rush off to.

We talked about how much we’re enjoying unplugging and getting out to explore. We’re already planning our next excursion…and now he’s talking about a camper. 😬😬😬

We’ll see where the wind blows us, but exploring the parks of Wisconsin feels like a pretty good place to start. ❤️

10/18/2026

It all starts with a dream 🍂🎃🔥 and a good bowl of chili.

We all have a thing…mine is autumn. 🍂 Back when I was a young woman, I dreamed of hosting an annual autumn bonfire: hay bales, crisp autumn breezes, and a heartwarming meal. I’ve always decorated our home with seasonal vibrancy. Autumn has always been my favorite season, and Halloween just happens to fall right in the middle of it. The colors, the sounds, the scents…so many things I hold dear come alive this time of year.

I’ve always loved entertaining—a Martha Stewart wannabe. If you’ve followed along for any length of time, you probably already know that. Feeding people, welcoming them into our home, and making room for them around our table has always been one of my ways of showing love.

When we moved here, we finally started that bonfire tradition. Now we’re seven years in, and each year just keeps getting better. ❤️

It all starts with a big batch of chili—a recipe I’ve tweaked over the years, and I think we finally got it just right! Luckily, I wrote everything down so it’s reproducible…well, you know me…a little this, a little that. 🤷‍♀️😂

There were pumpkins to carve, people to feed, and plenty of visiting. I think fun was had by young and old…even if us older ones keep getting older, and somehow the younger ones do, too! Sitting around the fire 🔥 at the end of the day, reminiscing and enjoying the season together, is still my favorite part.

This year, we also added a vintage autumn playlist, and it was great! The music created the perfect backdrop for the evening and made everything feel even more festive and nostalgic. 🎶🍂

We also added a new tradition. Ron and I went to Legends & Lore at Old World Wisconsin on Friday night and brought home The Spooky Express Wisconsin. Cat graciously read it aloud to all of us, and it was such a fun addition to the evening. Now I get to hunt for more family-friendly spooky stories to share around the fire each year. 📖🔥

And yes, we came home Friday after our Old World experience with a few ideas for next year’s bonfire, too. Bigger and better? Quite possibly. Ron has a whole year to prepare for my ideas. 😂

If you couldn’t make it this year, tuck October 16, 2027, into your calendar for our annual bonfire and pumpkin carving. We’d love to have you join us for warm welcomes, good food, and even better company.

Bring a chair to sit alongside the fire and a pumpkin to carve, if you choose.

Seven years ago, we started making room for a dream. Now we get to fill it with people we love. ❤️…

10/17/2026

Spooky Fun 👻🎃👻

10/16/2026

Halloween 👻 🍁🍂👻🎃🎃

10/14/2026

Enjoy the Seasons 🍁🍂🍁🧡💛🍂🍁🧡

10/14/2026

Hump day Musings
DISCLAIMER ‼️‼️‼️‼️-not my image, not my home….BUT…just an image fueling my dream of a cookstove. ❤️🔥

I once had a patient with a beautiful sitting area flanked by bookshelves and rocking chairs. We’d sit and visit, enjoying the warmth of the stove. Hers was imported…it was boxed deep into a floor ceiling stone facade….it was beautiful 🤩 I was immediately smitten, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

The rational side of me says, “No, that’s impossible. You don’t have the right setup.” You have a 1990’s ranch home…But who decides what the “right” setup is? Could we create it? Why dismiss something we want before we’ve even explored the possibilities?

I hear “enjoy your mortgage” all the time. Well, that’s exactly what Ron and I are doing. This house is our haven, and we’re filling it with things that make us happy. I’m not making every decision around what some future owner might want anymore. When our time here is done, they can dismantle our dreams if those dreams don’t serve them.

Until then, we live here. We pay the bills. And this is our one and only life—so we are going to make it feel like ours.

Throw Pinterest-perfect out the window! Honestly, it’s the houses with soul and character that invite the best lives 🧡 imperfectly, perfect. Give me a hot cup of coffee, nestled beside a warm, crackling fire, over perfectly paired couch pillows and drapes any day….now I love matcha match but as I age I’m exploring my warmer more tree hugging self.

I’ve said it over and over: live with full intention. Fill your days with moments of joy. Make room for what you love and the dreams that won’t leave you alone.

So I’m working on quieting the “shoulds” and questioning my own automatic “no.” That cookstove dream keeps coming back…and I think it deserves a chance. ❤️🔥…Ron said yeah…we will see what happens 🤷‍♀️

10/14/2026

Well… looks like we have barn chickens again 😒

While finishing chores tonight, we noticed the young chickens in the lean-to acting very unlike themselves. They kept huddling tighter and tighter, each one trying to tuck underneath the others. They seemed absolutely terrified.

After losing three birds in an attack a couple nights ago, we don’t know whether something has been lurking nearby again or they’re still frightened from what happened. They weren’t even eating their food 😣

Watching them tonight, we knew we needed to bring them inside.

We hadn’t planned on having chickens in the barn again. We didn’t want chickens in the barn again…

These particular birds were brought home as pets, and we don’t want to blend them into the rest of the flock, they’re not the brightest birds, but they’re awfully sweet and the other caveat is they have long feathers on their feet which, if they were out in the poultry yard, I can’t imagine their feathers were just freeze in the snow so we’ll be doing some shifting around 🤷‍♀️We have a couple of ideas.

Life has a way of rearranging your plans. Ultimately, we do our best to listen to what our animals are telling us—meeting their needs and tonight, bringing them into the barn with the goats, Push Pop and Binx felt like the right thing to do. ❤️