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I've not commented before but I love your blog. I thought of you this week because I visited the World of James Herriot museum - I know you have been watching All Creatures Great and Small, and the museum is housed in the author's own home and vets practice. It was so good to see the rooms laid out in 1940s style - it reminded me of your pictures! I thought you might like to see some photos.

Grandma Donna wrote, Jenni B, thank you for sharing these photos, I am so happy that you were able to go there to see this place in person.  I know they have these things all scattered about so people can see the aprons and games.  I believe Mrs. Hall would have been more tidy. )  Fascinating items there in the scullery!  I am so happy that you commented in the forum!  We are happy to have you here.  Donna

My husband and I are in our early 70’s and take care of our 2 year old grandson every day from about 7-4. I try to cook enough on the weekend to eat for supper for the week and rotate menus every 3 weeks. I do enjoy your posts

Grandma Donna Wrote, Diana, you do not need to go to a gym to work out at least for the next two years. Lol  Very wise to cook enough on the weekend for your supper all week.  You are also saving on electricity or fuel, whatever type of stove you use.  Thank you for commenting.  Now I need a nap thinking about chasing a two year old around the house!  Lol  However you may have been doing this since his birth, so maybe you got practice ready for these next two years.  Whew!  :)

We have begun a thorough clean out of the garage and are letting go of many items that we do not need.  I gave away 4 vintage sewing machines, 3 to people who want to learn to sew!  In the past year I have felt a big shift and no longer want to own duplicate items that aren’t being used.  I still have a modern machine and a vintage Singer, and can also sew and mend by hand.  I did the same with excess kitchen appliances.  This after cleaning out the pantry last month!

The main focus through the end of the year is creating a home that serves us rather than one that requires significant time and effort to keep up.  We are thinking about the future and aging in place, which makes me thankful we chose a single story home 25 years ago, although we do have porch steps.  Going through the garage this time I had a goal to not keep anything that was “just in case” or being kept because I couldn’t decide, and I am doing the same in the house.  The next time the men decide the garage needs to be cleaned out I know that all of my items (just a couple of bins) are things that I am keeping.  I am clearing unused items from the buffet so I have room to store a year’s worth of beeswax tapers alongside the linens.  I donated all of the thrifted silverplate trays because they require polishing, and instead kept a thrifted crystal tray alongside some cherished milk glass trays.  I didn’t need so many trays anyway!

I’m glad to have been raised with a make it do and figure it out kind of attitude.  When our patio umbrella broke I decided to simply move the table under the carport, as we don’t park a car there.  It has been a full year since our clothes dryer stopped working and wasn’t repairable, and we have hung all of the laundry, through the damp and cold months, and even all of the bedding.  So I feel very good about that change to go “back in time” as it were.  In our home the laundry room was never intended for a clothes dryer and it is much nicer in that small space now, with space to store cleaning supplies and tools on a repurposed bookcase.

As for the timeless character we are seeking for our old home, we do not keep a television in our living room.  There is a record player and a radio.  The television is in our adult son’s room and if we wish to watch TV we do that with him — all three of us enjoy All Creatures Great and Small very much!  I used to feel like we had failed at something because our young adult children live with us, but it is just the way of things now, as it was back in the 1930s and 1940s (before the baby boom, anyway).  I am very much looking forward to cooler weather and knitting beside the fire while we listen the radio or my husband and son make music with guitars.  It’s slower and calmer

I so long for simpler times! I'm a minority in my household, though. I love reading Back to Generations Before Us and getting ideas. A question for Grandma Donna- you mention you soak your whole wheat and then grind it because you and your husband have a sensitivity. Is that correct? I do not have an allergy to wheat or gluten but a sensitivity to it and it would be so much simpler if I could do the same- soak my wheat and grind it. Long before I developed a sensitivity, I used to grind my wheat and make my bread.

Jennie B. 

Thanks for sharing! I would love to visit there sometime! Boy, what I wouldn't give to look through the books on the shelves.

Grandma Donna Wrote, Kimberly F, You are making good progress going forward to go back to a more sensible time.   Too bad that we didn't know what we know now before we bought all of the things we never really needed.  I have learned something very important from doing this budget based on the 1940s budget.  They had some expenses that we do not have now but now we have many expenses that they never had.  There are many adult children living at home now and doing this budget made me realize how difficult that it is for young adults to get started.  I have never seen it like this in history.  

The housing is out the ceiling and prices of things now, a young person starting off or an older person trying to retire without a pension, I don't know how anyone can do it.  I have priced houses around the country and houses with broken down, ceilings out of houses sell for over $100,000.00  Cabins and mobile homes are too expensive as well.  Maybe if they start off with an engineering degree or a degree with a high paying job, they can do it but the middle class are struggling. Charles family in 1940 had three generations living in his Great Grandmothers house. The great depression had taken it's toll and it took many years for many to get to where they could get out on their own again. I am glad that you have the knowledge of why you are doing what you are doing. Thank you for Commenting.  Donna

Grandma Donna Wrote, Misty K,  I soak the whole wheat after it is ground or I purchased whole wheat flour from the store, which I use for the pancakes.  I soak the flour.  

I have never soaked wheat berries, I soak the flour. 

For the soak the night before making pancakes. 

I add to a large bowl 2 cups of whole wheat flour, 2 cups of filtered water, and 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. I stir that around a bit and cover and let it sit overnight up to 12 hours.  There is normally a liquid on top the next morning I call hooch because with sourdough the film they call it hooch.  Anyway it forms a liquid film that I skim off with a spoon. I skim it off because the batter for the pancakes would be too thin if I did not.  Then I add the other ingredients that next morning after I have skimmed of the top film, liquid. 

For pancakes I will add 

2 large eggs or 3 regular or small eggs depending on the size.  (beaten Eggs)

1 tablespoon heavy cream ( I use whipping cream that comes in a carton)

1 tablespoon honey

5 tablespoons gently melted butter

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Those were the liquid ingredients that were put in the soaked flour

Now add the dry ingredients

1 tablespoon baking powder 

1/2 teaspoon salt

and last add 1 teaspoon baking soda.  

After you add the soda and start stirring it will lift up because the soda reacts with the baking powder and the liquids.  Then cook your pancakes with this batter like you would normally cook pancakes. Make sure to oil or butter your skillet.  Shaye Elliott has a recipe on google for bread using soaked flour. Just type in google search, Shaye Elliott, soaked whole wheat bread.  I hope this helps, Donna

Jenni B.  As I'm currently re reading All Creatures Great and Small I was thrilled to see the rooms. I observed how comfortable and homely they are . 

On topic... I hear regularly now women saying they want to stay home, make their homes the centre of their lives and homely and welcoming. They want to be away from the world as it is today.

Thank you Donna for another uplifting post.

Jenni B I love these photos! Thank you for sharing. They are very homey and inviting!

I'm actually working on ridding my cupboards of lead.... ACK! I went through and pretty much removed plastics last year over the course of a year, but now it's lead in dishes, or cups and purchasing healthy cookware.  I'm glad my dishes didn't have lead, but I did have some old pyrex that contained a lot of lead and I wasn't using them.  I was cleaning out my cupboards and decided to let them go and not use them for show.    But these posts are so peaceful. I just love them, Grandma D. I really need to work on my grocery bill and meal planning.  It is my nemesis.  Some people can't do "paper", I can't do this.  I am the worst at it. LOL.  I can organize, file, keep paperwork, keep a clean house, and not be behind in housework, but food and planning. Nope, nope. nope. :(

Grandma Donna wrote, Karen S, Thank you Karen, I am happy that you enjoyed the post.

Ann E, Meal planning was not easy for me either.  It was the last thing I have finished and it was the most difficult.  Just start with one week and keep it simple and repeat that the next week and the next.  This way you will find there is a meal that you might not want that often or a meal that you could eat over and over and then you just start tweaking it.  Think of meals that do not require a lot of ingredients and think Meat and two vegetables to start if you eat meat.  Just go one week at a time.  But try and make those meals to where you can use your food up so there is no waste.  

Doing this we found we love loaded potato and brussels sprouts.  We started off that we were going to have a baked potato and stuff it with some cheese and bacon and onions.  But then we thought, why don't we make it easy and boil the potatoes and not heat up the house with the oven.  So we found we like the potato cubed and boiled and we shred cheese and spring onion and crumbled bacon.  A side of vegetables which turned out to be brussels sprouts for us.  Never give up!  (Heart)

Thank you, Grandma Donna! I have never heard of soaking the flour. I will try this and the recipe but will have to use dairy free milk as I’m allergic to cow’s milk. I’ll report back on it

I, too, am having trouble with meal planning.  I think it's because i/we have become used to having such a large variety of food available all year long that we don't have to repeat meals very often.  There are so many tasty-sounding recipes floating around that I'm always saying,  "Oh, that looks good!".  "I'd really like to try that!".  It is difficult for me to narrow it down to a few basic, healthy, tasty options but I'm working on it.  I'm planning on having my budget and meal plan ready by the first of September.  Thank you so much, Donna for the posts and thanks to all the commenter's.  I learn so much

It is wonderful that your older dog is receiving such good care. My dog died two weeks ago. It is still hard. Every day when I do different things I think of her. If something stuck to the bottom of a pan she would come running as soon as she heard me scraping the pan. It seems like so many things remind me of her. 

The Vet said I can pick up her ashes tomorrow. She was part dachshund too. I posted a picture of her before she got really old. A few articles ago you were talking about the price of dying. It cost $300 for my dog. He said it would be cheaper if I wanted to take her home and bury her but I was too upset to do that. At least I stayed with her until the very end. 

On Etsy, you can get a pillow or even a stuffed animal of your dog. You just send them a picture. I should be getting mine tomorrow or next week. I wish I had ordered it about a month before she died so I would have had it right away.

I love reading your blog so much and the comments are always wonderful. Pancakes are such a good idea. We make pikelets which are similar and when I was growing up my mother used to make them for us and once buttered sprinkle them with sugar and lemon juice. So delicious, and still my favourite way to eat them. My husband likes his with jam and whipped cream. (They are sturdy so you can pick them up and eat them with your hands).

Like yourselves, I find we are going back to eating the foods of our childhoods. Simple meals that are nutritious. Eggs or porridge for breakfast. Ham and tomato, corned beef and pickles or egg and lettuce sandwiches for lunch. Meat and vegetables or salad during the week, or jacket potatoes or a rice meal. On the weekend for supper we might have boiled eggs and toast or baked beans on toast. People seem to be very concerned now with eating carbohydrates but I think this is a fad in the same way that butter was out of fashion and people thought margarine was better for you. 

I am more mindful now of keeping enough non-perishables to see us through a prolonged natural disaster or crisis. I think that was one positive to come out of experiencing a pandemic. 

Jenni B, thank you for attaching those photos, I really enjoyed seeing them. 

Becky Sue K, I am sorry to hear about your dog. It is hard to lose a beloved  pet. 

Grandma Donna Wrote, Weaverbird, I think you are right that there is such a variety of food today that makes it difficult to meal plan.  I am glad that you have your budget and meal plan ready to start on the first of September.  I have already written in the month of September so I am ready and at the end of September we will know if we need to adjust and we do that before the first of October and start over.  I just love start overs. :)

Becky Sue K,  Awww, this is sad news to read that your dog died, she was so pretty.  Our Elizabeth is part Cocker and part Dachshund and looks much like your baby girl.  It is so difficult to go through a loss of a pet. You are in my heart and prayers as you grieve for her.  Thank you for sending her picture.

Grandma Donna wrote, Michelle K, I agree about how you feel about the carbohydrates, I keep thinking back in history, people would have starved without those carbs that filled the belly's of hungry people. How would we get through a crisis without these foods?  Everything in moderation, and healthy options when we can.  Thank you for commenting.  Donna

I’m so sorry to hear about your little dog Becky Sue K, my own little spaniel is 13+ years and suffering from Osteoarthritis of the spine so has mobility issues. She has always slept in her basket next to our bed but isn’t allowed to climb stairs these days so each evening my husband carries her up to bed and then again if she needs to go out for toilet during the night, he is a good dog daddy :-)

The change of summer into autumn always makes me feel like slowing down, the garden stops producing so much ( although the tomatoes are still going strong ) and it’s time to get food stores put down for the coming winter so I add a couple of tins and packets to the shopping list each week. The English hedgerows are full of free food such as Blackberries so time to make jam and rose hip syrup to fight off colds

Hi Gdonna,

I have been thinking it is time to concentrate more and more on my house for a few years now. Lately I have actually started feeling a bit sick to my stomach when I get on YouTube and/ or see some of the news. It seems everywhere I look it's all bad news or evil things happening.  I believe I've been fighting some baby blues also. Though I have been thoroughly enjoying my new baby. She's 5 months old now! Can't believe how time flies. The house is a bit of the mess and I can't even believe my husband attempted a garden this year. I didn't tend it much at all. Been too busy. Though I'm sure women in the past would have mustered the strength and willpower to do so. There is so much to be done around the house right now that it's daunting. Homeschooling started back up this week. We really homeschool year round with subject such as English and Math but the other subjects come back in play when public schools open again. I did find a 1940-1944 2nd grade childrens workbook at the Goodwill for $2! It only has a few pencil marks in it. I'm going to make copies and erase the pencil marks from the copies and then make more copies of them so that I can get an "unused" copy without erasing the history in the workbook. Whatever child made those marks is likely over 80 years old now. I hope to use this workbook for my daughter in a few years. I am also learning to sew now. I got a new machine last Christmas and am just learning how to thread it! It's been a while since my middleschool home economics class.  I am looking for vintage children's clothes patterns and hope to start growing my sewing talent with my daughter so that I can make her clothes and also teach her later how to make her clothes. But I do think focusing more on my house and shutting off the news and youtube will help me pull out of these baby blues. Your page is helping me refocus also. Thank you for posting! 

Grandma Donna Wrote, Lainey T, I remember as a child riding along with my mother as we would stop by the side of the road and pick most any kind of fruit where the trees and bushes grew wild.  That was our free food and everyone did this or it would go to waste.

Kieva A, your baby is growing so fast, it seems like you just gave birth to her.  It is very difficult to see the news and quite depressing, I feel our brains cannot handle this kind of nonsense. Since we cannot do anything about this, we can concentrate on what we can do. 

You are being very resourceful with your workbooks and you will be able to get your house back in order when you get stronger.  Long ago many women had more help because people lived close to family back then and neighbors even helped out.  I really miss those times. 

Here are some pictures from the 1940s children's workbook.

I follow a lady called Karen who has a page dedicated to making traditional British food with recipes going back to 1940’s and, following a recent visit to the Yorkshire Dales, she recently prepared an imagined Mrs Hall high tea. Link below if anyone is interested.

https://www.lavenderandlovage.com/2024/08/mrs-halls-yorkshire-dales-high-tea.html

Ha, I agree Mrs Hall would have been tidier! I also took a picture of an accounts book that was out on the table, it's like so many of the ones you post about. Thank you all for the warm welcome xx

Lainey T.

I was amazed the other day to see in my local NZ supermarket Yorkshire Tea and then to see it on the link you shared in Mrs Hall's Pantry staples.

There is a feeling of autumn in the air here in Staffordshire, England. I begin to feel the need to squirrel foods away for winter, and to get everything harvested and stored against the bad weather so nothing is wasted. 

We went out with our telescopic apple picker, such a useful gadget, to forage for apples in our usual places along the canal and lanes. We picked four shopping bags of assorted apples which will store quite well, stacked in mushroom trays in the cold garage. I will have to check through them every week and take a garden trug of the ones which need using first, into the kitchen. They are misshapen, blemished and some will have grubs, the hens enjoy those and the cores and peel. 

We will be having sliced apple, grated apple in muesli and in porridge with cinnamon, stewed apple with cream or yoghurt, and apple crumble, well into spring. Blessings on people who throw apple cores where they might grow. 

We are picking blackberries every day, and I have seen some scarlet crab apples for preserves, clear apple jelly, with rose hips or elderberries. 

I ration the amount of news to just the daily newspaper online, Kieva A. I like to do the crosswords and puzzles in The Times.

The 1940s edition has been reduced to 10 pages to save paper. The June and July pages were full of the news of Dunkirk, and the heroism of the Battalions at Calais, with long lists of names of the fallen and missing

Now the pages are filled with the names of the Royal Air Force men killed in the Battle of Britain. There is such a fear of invasion, and yet there are letters about whether the new Home Guard volunteers should wear ties with their uniform! 

Tea has just been rationed. Purchase Tax has been introduced. There are going to be shortages as every effort is being put into producing the necessities for war. The Ministry of Agriculture is demanding a huge increase in food production nationally, the Women’s Land Army have taken the place of many farm labourers who are in the forces, and people are being told to grow vegetables and fruit and to help with the harvest on farms. Our humour is helping us through.

Thanks to all who offered condolences on the loss of my dog. I found that on Etsy, as well as other places you can get a pillow or even a stuffed animal of your pet when you send them a picture of your pet. I got my pillow yesterday. It is nice to have it.

Donna.. when re reading this post for probably the 4th time :-) I noticed the cloth on the shelf underneath the lamp and jug. I presume you made it. I have gone to using fabrics on my shelves even in the kitchen cupboards eg unused bath mats but as I still have more to do I will be running to my  quilting fabric stash and sewing some up. A brilliant idea. :-)

I have been enjoying listening to a 1940s radio station. I thought others might want to check it out.

https://1940sukradio.co.uk/