I always get emails and messages asking what my days look like. While it’s true that my days do tend to look a little differently here in our off grid home than they did in a regular home, I still do most things any typical homemaker/homesteader would do.
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But each season is a little bit different and so today I thought I’d take you along with me on a morning in my life before 9 am.
I’m going to preface this by saying that not every day here looks the same. Some days I’m baking, some days I’m tired because the baby was up all night, some days we have to go to town…all of those things mean that my morning might look different.
Also know that I am in no way posting this to brag or pretend like I get more done in a day than anyone else. I do try to have a very productive morning since the rest of my day is spent caring for my children, but as I said, it doesn’t always happen perfectly. I post this only to share encouragement and inspiration for those looking to have a more productive day, and just to give you a glimpse into my life.
I start this day by pulling Betty out of the fridge. Betty is my sourdough starter and she lives in the fridge but comes out every other day to get added to for our baked goods. I like to warm her up a bit for about an hour or so before I add to her for baking.
Next, I put whole milk on the stove to start heating it up for yogurt. I use either the Cultures for Health Yogurt starter or a jar of yogurt that I’ve made from that starter to make a new batch of yogurt. But all I need to do right now is heat the milk and start it cooling down.
I had some beans soaking through the night that I need for meals today, so I take a minute to check on those. They need a little bit of water, so I add some warm water to finish up their soaking before I use them in food.
On another burner on the stove, I start softening up some pumpkin rinds that are leftover from canning pumpkin this past week. I do this so that the ducks can eat them. I just add some water to cover the rinds and cook them until soft. Once it’s soft, I drain and place in the duck scrap bucket and set it outside to cool so the kids can feed it to the ducks during morning chores.
Once things are out and settled in the kitchen, I stoke the fire and build it up again for the morning. It’s a bit of a mess in this picture but this is real life and what it looks like after a night of burning. I also have my laundry hanging around the fire on the baby protection gate for it to dry overnight. I have some fabric hanging next to the fire on one of my Amish drying racks that I got from the thrift store and just finished washing. It needs to be folded and put away today.
After the fire is going, I remove all the laundry from the drying racks we have set up in the living room and set it on the table to fold in just a little bit after I shower and get ready.
Next, I pop open the door to the school room/office now that the fire is roaring again. This room was an addition that the previous owners put on the house, and it’s very poorly insulated (if at all). We close the door at night to keep the house warmer and warm up the room in the morning to use it during the day.
While my milk for yogurt is cooling down to the right temp to add the starter culture, I get showered and ready for the day. I also put the laundry in the washer so it’s ready for a load later this afternoon/evening.
Now that it’s winter and I can’t hang laundry outside (not because of the cold but because of the smoke from the chimney), I wash my laundry at night to hang it by the fire to dry while we are sleeping. It works great in our little house because then our drying racks don’t take up space while we are up during the day and it’s usually dry by morning.
Oh, and yes, I do have a regular washer like a normal house. I might be off-grid, but still have modern conveniences, thankfully!
Now that I’m done getting ready, my milk is at the perfect temp to add my yogurt starter culture and get in my yogurt maker. I have this EuroCuisine Yogurt Incubator, which works great for us. I’ve made yogurt many different ways in the past, but they all use things I don’t have now or too much wattage. This is a good, simple solution for us and enough yogurt for a meal or two.
The yogurt will sit here in it’s little incubator all day until after supper when I will put it in the fridge and it will be ready for breakfast tomorrow. Right now I’ve been making yogurt about once every 3 days or so. I do not add anything else besides whole milk and yogurt starter. No sugar. We eat it with homemade granola.
Now, I get lunch ready and put it in my “slow cooker” until noon. Today I used those beans that I soaked overnight and made a simple Navy Bean Soup since I had a ham bone leftover from a ham that I cut up yesterday and put in the freezer (after Thanksgiving clearance!). I make the soup and get it boiling on the regular stovetop in my dutch oven before moving it to the fireplace to finish cooking until lunchtime.
Now I look over my list for the day to see what else I can do. I make these lists for both me and one for each of the kids before bedtime, so we can be reminded of our chores and our projects for the day. The kids like having a checklist so they can mark off when they get things done and I need a checklist or I won’t remember what I hope to do!
I also use my sit-down time to work on the kids’ school plans for the day, if needed, or look over anything that I might need to go over with them from the day before. If I have more time before they get up, I also work on my blog or on other online jobs that I have. Some days (like this one), I don’t have much extra time for this, so that kind of work waits until nap time.
The kids are almost ready to get up, so I pour myself my glass of coconut water for the day (mixed with a little cranberry juice) and get started on putting together breakfast. This gives me a good little electrolyte boost in the morning (and I don’t drink coffee), plus the cranberry is good for health.
This morning we are having toast and yogurt for breakfast. Yesterday I baked up this yummy apple cinnamon maple sourdough loaf. We ate half of it yesterday for part of breakfast, and I will toast the other half today. I served this with my homemade yogurt that was topped with homemade granola and some sliced bananas. Carbs + protein + fruit is the breakfast model that I try to use right now to give everyone the energy that they need to start the day. I also like to have something fermented (in this case, the sourdough and the yogurt). If we don’t have something fermented for breakfast, I serve kombucha for lunch.
Normally, this is when I would grab a picture of the sunrise, but on this day, it was very snowy and overcast. So here is a picture of the sunrise the day before. The sunrises here are short and not until about 7:30 or so right now, but they are almost always amazing!
After the kids get up, I can make a little more noise, so I got supper started. I needed to get some chicken out of the freezer for supper, and it’s loud to dig in my chest freezer so I waited until they were up. Tonight we are having chicken tacos made with a lime cilantro shredded chicken. I put that in my other Dutch oven on the other side of the stove to cook slowly through the day so it would be perfectly tender for supper.
By this time, everyone is down eating breakfast, getting ready for the day, starting on chores, and another day in our home begins. I love this time in the morning when I can accomplish a lot and get ready to keep my family both physically and mentally healthy. By getting these things done early, I’m able to spend the rest of the day being hands-on with my children and doing the things we need to together.
What about you? What do your mornings look like?
Merissa Alink
Merissa has been blogging about and living the simple and frugal life on Little House Living since 2009 and has internationally published 2 books on the topic. You can read about Merissa’s journey from penniless to freedom on the About Page. You can send her a message any time from the Contact Page.
This blog post about What My Morning Looks Like was originally posted on Little House Living in December 2025.
