Mama’s Kitchen – Page 70 – Pollywog's Place Blog

Flooded Gardens and a New Hugelkultur Bed

Published on May 6, 2024April 15, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

We had some pretty bad storms roll through here a few weeks ago. We got a lot of rain and wind… our big patio umbrella got picked up and thrown through one of the hoop beds. Thankfully we had no major damage though but we did lose a some fruits off of some of the trees.

The rain caused a bit of flooding in the garden area but we are working on getting that remedied. One of the things we did was to dig some shallow trenches in front of a couple of the planting areas to let some of the water drain away and go to the plants… win, win!

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Chicken Salad Tostadas

Published on May 1, 2024April 17, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

This recipe came about during a pantry challenge night… we were using up some leftovers and things that needed to be eaten from the pantry. I have incorporated several of these pantry challenges into our Perpetual Meal Plans to help us use up things in the fridge so they don’t go to waste!

We had made some chicken salad from some leftover baked chicken for lunch and still had plenty left over. There were also some soft avocados, refried beans, and some old corn tortillas that needed to be used up. (I had bought them for a different recipe and never made it.)

Mr. Awesome just kept layering things on his tostada and it was so GOOD that we will definitely be repeating these! Tostadas can be made with so many different things so don’t be afraid to get creative and make your own version!

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Apple Dapple Cake

Published on April 29, 2024March 25, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog4 Comments

We have this recipe listed with our St. Patrick’s Day meal but this is good at any time of the year. Although it isn’t a traditional Irish Apple Cake I think that St. Patrick would’ve enjoyed this just as much!

We like to use Granny Smith apples for this cake but any kind of apple would work.

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Our 2024-2025 Homeschool Curriculum, Schedule Plans, Resource Links, and Daily Routine – Lots of FREE resources!

Published on April 26, 2024November 18, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

It’s that time of year again for us… time to get the next school year planned out. We finished up our 2023-2024 school year before Easter and I’ve been busy gathering supplies and making schedules as I coordinate with everyone for vacations, holidays, and special trips that we have planned.

It is always SO TEMPTING to take a few months off to just focus on this house but I know from past experience that this doesn’t go well and that it takes FOREVER to get a couple of the kids back into the school routine. You can read more about last year’s curriculum and routines HERE.

We switched to more of a Charlotte Mason-style approach and it was GREAT for the most part. We still have a couple of kids who just hate anything to do with math so that’s been a little challenging but we’re making progress. We’ve also really enjoyed using some of the FREE courses with Under the Home Homeschool.

FREE Homeschool Planning Scratchpad

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All-In-One Homeschool Portfolio Notebook Printable- Updates and Time Saving Hacks

Published on April 24, 2024September 5, 2026 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog11 Comments

I recently shared about the way I planned out our new homeschool year and included some FREE printables to go along with it… they have made life a little neater around here! Now I will share about the Homeschool Notebooks. We did use a similar system many years ago but I couldn’t find the post where I had shared them before so I decided to make a new post with some updates and some new printables.

You do not need to print these out but you can use them as a template for putting together your own notebooks or you can print them out and use them in binders… whatever works for you. We have done both of these in the past and I will try to post some pics of what our current notebooks look like once we get them put together.