From opera houses to hen houses — welcome to Chickadee Farm! After years of performing on stages around the world, I traded gowns and arias for a homestead life in southeast Idaho. Here you'll find gardening, canning, DIY projects, and all the everyday lessons (and laughs) that come with building a homestead from scratch.
Along for the ride are David, (my husband and taste tester), plus our lively cast of farm characters:
🐾 Madeline & Boudreaux, our two Frenchies
🐱 Charlie, Chester & Mugsy—our trio of geriatric house cats, plus Petunia the garden kitty
🐔 "The Girls"—seven sassy chickens
🐴 Zara, our spirited Friesian filly
🫏 Opie, her wise 31-year-old mule companion
Every week, discover:
🌻 Garden-to-kitchen adventures & seasonal harvests
🥫 Canning, preserving, pantry inspiration
🐓 Homestead projects, animal antics, and real-life confessions
It's a little chaotic, often funny, always rewarding, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Subscribe and join the Chickadee Farm family!
Chickadee Farm
First chaos (meaning I’m not good at flower arranging 😆) bouquets of the season! The best thing about growing flowers is you always have a fresh bouquet to enjoy in the house too 🌻💐🌻
5 days ago | [YT] | 7
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Chickadee Farm
The cut flower garden just got a whole lot more real. 🌸
300 cubic feet of compost was delivered today, which means we are officially moving from the “wouldn’t this be fun?” stage into the “oh wow, I actually have to do this now” stage. 😆
I’ll be documenting the whole process of setting up the flower garden and following its progress as it grows over the summer — hopefully from giant piles of compost to armloads of flowers.
Sunflowers are my favorite, so you can bet they’ll be getting plenty of space… but I’d love to know:
What are your favorite flowers? And which ones would you love to see growing in the cut flower garden?
2 months ago | [YT] | 0
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Chickadee Farm
I don’t know about your Wendy’s drive-through but apparently mine has a hitching post too. 🤣🤣. #smalltown #ruralliving
3 months ago | [YT] | 3
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Chickadee Farm
So the last day of the all-week windstorms also produced HUGE dust clouds. I'd never seen something like that. Thankfully we only got the edges of it. Also no major damage even with 65 to 70 mph gusts. A toppled Green Stalk and one frantic trip out to the hoop house to secure plastic that had slipped it's wiggle wire was the worst of it.
3 months ago | [YT] | 4
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Chickadee Farm
Welcome to spring in SE Idaho. An entire week of a wind advisory. Winds 35-40 mph with 55 mph gusts. 😒 I don’t mind a day or two even once a week but an ENTIRE week. Ug!!
4 months ago | [YT] | 1
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Chickadee Farm
Seed starting has begun. I'm going to be doing a lot of seed starting in "snails" this year. I've used them in the past for transplanting and had amazing luck so this year going to try actually seed starting! These are my peppers - Snail #1 has 104 seeds planted, snail #2 has 79 but is not fully planted yet.
It saves a ton of room and uses significantly less soil. I'm using old feed bags that come perforated so water can go both directions through it and roots can breath.
Has anyone else tried seed/plant snails before? What did you think?
4 months ago | [YT] | 6
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Chickadee Farm
CONFESSION TIME: I hosted a garden party and forgot to unlock the door! 🤦♀️🔑
So, here is a behind-the-scenes reality check: I actually did the entire Garden Planning live stream last weekend... to an audience of ZERO. I accidentally had the setting on "Unlisted" the entire time! 😂
The good news? It was a fantastic practice run. The better news? We are doing it for REAL this time (and I promise to double-check the 'Public' button!).
Please come help me redeem myself and finish this garden plan! I have 90% of the layout done, but I still have "mystery gaps" and a crazy idea for a new flower bed that I need your vote on.
🗓 NEW DATE: THIS Friday @ 7:30 PM MT
🌱 AGENDA: Fixing my mistakes & planning the 2026 garden!
Set your reminder here so I’m not talking to myself again! 👇
youtube.com/live/Y19o_xjBKBs?feature=share
5 months ago | [YT] | 0
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Chickadee Farm
Weeellll...Clearly I am new at this whole going live thing. I just did the whole thing and realized at the very end, when no one had joined, that I had left it as unlisted. 😫 So we are going to try this again another day and I will let you know when that will be.
Goodness gracious. At least now I shouldn't be as nervous. 🤣 🤣
5 months ago | [YT] | 1
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Chickadee Farm
I need your help finishing the garden plan! 🌱
I’ve been staring at my seed stash and garden layout for days, and I officially have "decision fatigue." I’ve got the bones of the garden planned, but there are empty spots I just can't figure out.
I’m going LIVE this Saturday afternoon to show you what I have so far—and I want YOU to help decide what goes in the empty spots. We’re also going to discuss a new flower bed idea I’ve been dreaming up.
Come hang out, grab a coffee, and let’s plan this garden together!
See you Saturday @ 1:00 AM MST! 👇
rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2
5 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 3
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Chickadee Farm
Hey friends! 👋
Got leftover prime rib sitting in your fridge? I feel you.
A while back I made this video showing how I turned one roast into bone broth, stroganoff, AND enchiladas. It's an older video (definitely not my best camera work 😅) but the recipes still work perfectly!
If you're staring down holiday leftovers right now, this might help: https://youtu.be/lw_WkC3Fl3Y
What are YOU doing with your leftovers this year? 👇
6 months ago | [YT] | 1
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