Busy Days With Nothing To Write About

Nothing especially noteworthy is going on, just a bunch of events and circumstances piled on top of one another. 

The garden. Food first. You all know the drill: bed prep, planting, keeping up with the weeds, especially with all the rain we've been getting. Mulching, picking, and preservation take up at least half of every day.

Milk is still abundant, although not like before. But still enough so that every other day requires cheese making. I've finished with my hard cheeses and I've got my feta done. I'll start on halloumi next and then mozzarella. We have plenty of kefir, cottage cheese, ricotta, and fresh cheese to enjoy as well. 

The pantry. The cheese cave adventure got me started on re-doing the pantry. I needed to wash dusty jars, check seals and dates, and rotate as needed anyway. Clearing out the space for the now-gone cheese cave helped me figure out how to add new shelving, which has meant some a lot of re-arranging. So everything is getting reorganized, which I needed to do anyway. I should be able to store empty jars in the pantry now too, along with kitchen equipment, so this is a welcome project. I'm figuring out how to make better use of the space. I just get stumped on where to put things now with the new shelving. I have an opportunity to organize better, but it's been slow.

My step-mother's passing. It was unexpected but considering her age not surprising. It's meant dismantling her and my dad's home in preparation for selling the house. I've inherited family furniture that belonged to my great-grandparents, some of my dad's books (which I showed you in this blog post), my stepmother's sewing and crafting supplies, and several big boxes of old family photos and records, plus the genealogical research my dad had done. Those are especially interesting as I've begun to go through and sort them. 

Replacing appliances. I'm in the process of replacing my old fridge and washing machine. The fridge is about 15 years old and all the plastic is either broken or cracked. And it leaks. Every other day I have to take out the crisper drawers to mop up the water before it leaks out onto the floor. Dan has tried a number of repairs and parts replacement, but it still leaks. I researched durability and repair frequency and ended up getting another top-freezer model. This one by LG which had top marks in those categories by both consumers and repairmen. Cleaning out the old one was another big project, but I was glad to do it and especially clean the walls and floor behind the fridge. They needed it.

Replacing the washing machine is also on the list. My old one is 40 years old! It's only still running because of Dan's mechanical ministrations. Now, though, it only fills a little over halfway and I must fill the rest with a bucket. Plus it does a terrible job cleaning. My choice for a new one is a Speed Queen. Yes, they are expensive, but with a documented service life of 20 to 25 years, it's worth it. Plus, I could get one entirely mechanical - not "smart!" I didn't even opt for the digital controls. The problem is that there is a long waiting list for these. I asked the salesman if the economy is doing so badly, then why are people buying expensive washing machines? He said folks are tired of stuff that breaks down after only a couple of years. Me too!  

The front room is still a work in progress! It's kind of taken a back seat due to all of the above, but I'm getting a project on the loom, which gives me a creative break every day. I still have some boxes to find homes for and want to put pictures on the walls, but otherwise it's mostly functional.

The sewing room is our temporary storage room. Between everything moved in there from the front room, plus the boxes from my stepmom's, it's another space that needs to be sorted and put back to it's former usefulness. 

So I have a very long to-do list. All necessary but nothing terribly interesting. Eventually I'll have some before-and-after pics to show you, but it won't be any time soon. 

Busy Days With Nothing To Write About © May 2026

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

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

Homestead Summer in Photographs

I can't believe it's August! Seems like Juneteenth was only the other day. 

Detail from my Christmas gift from my daughter-in-law

Here's our summer so far in photographs.

Summer squash blossom with pollinators

Fresh goat milk mozzarella

Hopniss vines on the hoop house

Rose of Sharon

Kudzu vines to dry for goat hay

Ricotta cheese from the mozarella whey

Cover crop for soil biomass

Mosul in his anti-mating apron (so he could stay with the girls longer)

more dill pickles

the last of this summer's blueberries

sweet potato flower

Jenny B and her 3-month-old poults

Sewing room progress: homes for weaving yarns and books

Greenhouse progress: trim for the first door

Newest additions: second batch of late July ducklings (five, total)

How's everyone else's summer coming along?

Homestead Summer in Photographs © Aug 2023

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

Around the Homestead

April, from my cross-stitch calendar Christmas present. :)

April is a significant month on the homestead. Our last projected frost date is mid-month, so we can start planting the summer garden. It's the month when the trees wake up from their winter sleep and put out new leaves. Warmer days and nights also mean that April is the month of our last fire in the woodstove. If we're lucky, mild days will continue and it won't get too hot, too soon!

With shifting priorities, my winter projects are mostly set aside. My clean and purge project went fairly well, and I made a lot of progress. I still want to organize my boxes of fabrics and sewing supplies; they've needed to all be in one place for several years now.

Goats

Of the goats, Caroline's udder is much better. The congestion is mostly resolved, although that side still doesn't produce as much milk as the unaffected side. I still offer bottles to her little girls, even though they eat grass, grain, and hay now too.

Caroline's girls have names now. The black is Jessamine, the brown is Charlotte.

Usually it's Charlotte, the brown doeling, who wants it. They each have their own side when they nurse, and she's the one who ended up with the side that was congested, so she's getting less milk than her sister. Goat mamas typically let their kids nurse anywhere from between four to six months. 

All three bucklings are sold and will be heading to new homes soon. They turned out really well. 

Mosul and his mom, River.

Orion

Originally Buster Brown, but 'Jupiter' for his registration papers.

The little bucks need to go first because they get, well, bucky by the time they are two months old. I like to give them at least 10 weeks of mom's milk, and then off they go. It's so much more peaceful to wean them by sending them to new homes, than having to separate them from their mothers. I still have to make some decisions about the little does, but I have more time for them.

Eggs

Chickens and ducks are laying well, but we have yet to get egg one from the turkeys. The other day, Dan found this tiny duck egg.

Crepe myrtle

Does anyone remember the crepe myrtle Dan dug up and dragged down to the woods? It was blocking sun on the greenhouse and needed to be removed.

Picture from Greenhouse Progress: A Side Project, Actually
There are more pictures at the link, for anyone who is curious.

We didn't know if it would survive, but guess what.

I don't think the log sections will tolerate kids jumping on them, so
I may encircle this with more clump grass to hopefully secure them.

The leaves around the base of the trunk are crepe myrtle sprouts. The leaves growing out the top are honeysuckle vines that were embedded in the the soil. 

Crepe myrtle and honeysuckle growing

Considering most of the feeder roots were chopped off when it was dug up, this is a surprise. If it can establish it's root system downwards, it will probably do well. Time will tell.

Firewood

Firewood for next winter curing

Ongoing Fence Maintenance

Willow inspects Dan's new fence bracing. The
old wood corner post had pretty much rotted away.

Plus

I want to mention that Permies' Master Gardener Program is finally finished and available. It may seem a little pricey, but it's 35 hours worth of Helen Atthowe's extensive better-than-organic video instruction, including veganic pest and disease management, and soil microscopy. If you've ever wanted to do a program like this and have anything left in your gardening budget, this is an excellent investment!

Around the Homestead © April 2023

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

Around The Homestead

This blog post started off as a winters project list update, but that wouldn't make for much of a post. It's been either too cold or too wet to tackle our outdoor projects, which make up the bulk of interesting things to blog about. Our project lists are never written in stone, anyway, and mostly used to prioritize. And that allows us a lot of flexibility to address whatever presents itself. 

One non-list project that took priority recently, was a cracked runoff debris clean-out tube, frozen and broken from our big winter freeze. 

Clean-out plug for the 1550-gallon tank catching rainwater off the goat barn.

We were quite fortunate that this was the only water pipe problem we had. Many others in the area had plumbing damage with their houses, but of our house and five rainwater collection tanks, this was the only breakage. Happily, Dan had another section of the right size pipe to replace it.

Of the winter project list, it's been too wet to work in the garden, but we've gotten a few nice days and  made a little progress on the greenhouse.

Hardi backer board was used as sheathing for the pony wall

The other item on the outdoor project list is fence maintenance and repair. Dan tends to tree thinning and limb trimming first, because these often create peril for existing fences.  

Tree thinning makes  a start on next year's firewood.

Branches and sticks end up in the wood chip piles.

On cold rainy days I've been tackling mending, which I've combined with my winter learning project. I've found numerous interesting videos on visible mending, and I'm especially impressed with Japanese mending, particularly boro and shashiko. These two techniques combine two of my favorite needlework arts—quilting and embroidery—with the utilitarian skill of mending. Here's an example.

Visible mending techniques are very fun because they add
a creative aspect to something needful. More on this soon.

I've taken notes and am gradually organizing them into a blog post (which I'll hopefully publish later this month). 

Not on the project list was an early start with spring cleaning. This came about because of the beautiful cross-stitch my wonderful daughter-in-law made me for Christmas.

You'll see this often in my upcoming kitchen photo blog posts.

I had to have it where I can admire it every day, and decided that my one free kitchen wall was the perfect spot. That meant taking down everything I had hanging there, and that meant that the wall needed washing, and one thing led to another, and so spring cleaning has begun. This, combined with my winter purge project is getting me off to a good start to an more organized, cleaner house. Once spring planting season hits, about all I can manage for housework is a lick and a promise until after the harvest is picked and preserved.

In critter news, I have four does all due in March.

Because the pasture was winter-killed last month, there is less grazing for the goats. So I try to take them down to the woods more often. 

The turkeys are now full grown, and unfortunately, all appear to be male.

I reckon we'll be looking to keep one and get a female for him.

I think that pretty much brings everything up to date. January looks like it will be relatively mild, so if we get a lot of sun to dry the ground out, we'll be able to tackle more on our winter project list.

Around The Homestead © January 2023

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

A Look Back at 2021

December, January, and February are the winter months of my agrarian year. Winter is a good time for analyzing our goals, reflection, research, and then listing and prioritizing the upcoming year's plans and projects. A look back at what we've accomplished in the last annual cycle is the foundation for looking ahead and planning for the upcoming one.

January

The '20-'21 winter project was building a new buck barn. By January, Dan was working on the roof and walls. My projects were indoor types, as I focused on mending socks and gloves, and learning about haybox cooking.

February

Kidding commenced in February. First, Miracle had twin does, then River had a baby boy. We were fortunate to get mild days, but I also decided that the weather is too iffy in February. This fall I postponed breeding to have due dates during warmer weather. The other thing that kept me busy was spring cleaning.

March

March is the beginning of spring and also my get-busy-with-the-garden month. My fall and winter plantings kicked into growing gear with the longer days and warmer temperatures. Between that and spring foraging, we ate well. In preparation for summer, I got my tomatoes started. Dan made progress on the buck barn by getting rain catchment installed.

April

This is the month I start to plant warm weather veggies. In preparation, I added several more ollas to various garden beds and containers and then got busy planting. My two biggest problems in April were slugs and a late frost!

May

In May, we finally put our chicken tractor to use. We used it to house our two remaining Dominique hens while we raised six Speckled Sussex chicks in the chicken coop. We started on plans to build a summer kitchen in the carport.

June

June was the month of garden experiments. One was wicking pots. These seemed like a great way to beat our hot, dry spells, so I was anxious to give it a try. The other was learning about landrace seeds. I decided to experiment and started with cucumbers. Click here, for how I'm doing it.

July

July is the month of blazing sun here, so shade is on our minds. One project Dan completed in July, was the first of two pergolas to shade the afternoon sun facing windows on the house. My shade project, was to experiment with living shade on my hoop house. To keep cool, we worked in the shade as much as possible threashing and winnowing our winter wheat harvest.

August

We finally got a driveway gate installed! It was accompanied by a huge sense of relief. I tied a small piece of cattle panel to the bottom of the trellis next to it, so our yard is no longer accessible by dogs. There's a small gap on top of the railroad ties that the cats use. After that, Dan got started on a cookstove for our outdoor kitchen, and I researched forest gardens.

September

September was the month we finally got a new rooster. As you can see from the above photo, he's grown into quite a handsome fellow. Dan made progress on the outdoor cookstove, and we started putting some of the things we were learning from our permaculture videos into practice.

October

Dan got a lot done on the outdoor kitchen cookstove, He finished the firebox and installed the tops, while I started assessing for our first forest garden.

November

A busy month. Dan installed three more 300-gallon totes behind the carport to catch rainwater from the carport roof. We learned how to make biochar, we got Muscovy ducks, and had our first fall kids. Dan finished the outdoor cookstove and we tested it out.

December

Dan worked on fence repair throughout autumn and finished it in December. It had been trashed by falling trees and needed major repair and a new gates.

After that, we started working on our first swale, which I'll share more about in an upcoming post. Also notable, we finally won a battle we have every year with mice! And without the help of the cats. Speaking of cats . . .

Parting Shot

Sam

How about you? Are you preparing for another new year?

A Look Back at 2021 © December 2021

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