Around The Homestead

We still don't have a lot of color yet, but the dogwood are beginning to turn.

Not much new to tell. Mostly, we're working on seasonal chores, such as spot planting the pastures with a cool weather seed mix. Dan got the winter wheat planted and a little of that is starting to come up. Few of our fall plantings are doing much sprouting, however, because of our long dry spell. 

Dan has also begun thinning the flocks and continues to work on the greenhouse. I'll have a separate post about that soon.

Outdoors, I've been cleaning up the summer garden beds for their winter rest. We're still getting cherry tomatoes and green beans, so between those and our fall turnips, daikons, and kale, we've got some good eating from the garden. The chickens are moulting, but we still get an occasional egg.

Indoors, canning is about done, except for what I have waiting in the freezer. I think my old Excalibur dehydrator has reached end-of-life, so I'm contemplating replacing it. 

I'm getting the last of my cheese making done.

paneer

I start with mozzarella, then work on feta, halloumi, and paneer in whatever order we need them. These are our staple cheeses, all of which I can store in the freezer or in olive oil. I make ricotta from the whey, and with what we don't eat immediately, I make gnocchi (which also freezes well).

I've started working on organizing our office. When we created my studio/ sewing room, we used one end of the sun room for that, and left the other end for the office. I hadn't done anything with it because there is still work to be done on that side of the room, starting with installing a door to the greenhouse. 

Future project: the unfinished side of my studio/sewing room. The greenhouse
door will replace the left window. My computer desk is in the other corner.

What motivated me to make a start, was that the set-up for my table loom wasn't at a comfortable height for weaving. My worktable was too high, so I started looking for alternatives. My old computer desk was a possibility.

Actually a student desk, so lower than a standard table.

But it meant I needed a new desk for my computer. Happily, I had already bought one, but was waiting until that end of the room was finished before assembling it.

My new computer desk.

My old computer desk works very well for the table loom. 

New home for the table loom, which works well with the stool.

After that, one thing led to another and I've been working on finding and organizing our office stuff: paper, envelopes, pens, pencils, etc., plus bills, bank, and budget stuff. This is actually a relief, because I was tired of not being able to find what I needed (funny how you think you'll remember which box something is in, but quickly forget).

Weather wise, we're finally getting some much needed rain, but the temps haven't been cool enough to have our first fire yet. Even so, the house cools off enough at night so that we've appreciated our season's first soup. 

The base for this soup is a jar of frozen summer leftovers and
a pint of bone broth. Plus whatever leftovers are in the fridge.

Any that we don't eat becomes the start of the next batch.

This is our favorite cool weather lunch. I never know what's going to be in the jar, so it's different every day and always delicious. 

We're still in the midst of spider season, and I have a new type to report.

I haven't identified these yet, 

These are particularly fascinating because of their webs. They build a large, intricate maze (like you see at the top of the photo) and then build a more traditional looking web it the middle of that. Then they park themselves in the middle and wait. We have three or four of them around, so I suspect we'll see them next year too. 

I think that catches everything up. Next month will start breeding season for the goats (which they're ll ready for.) Other than that, it's just one day at a time.

Around The Homestead © October 2023

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com