End of April Homestead Update

Before I get started on anything about us, I want to share with you something that happened.  As many of you may know, I am co-founder to an organization in Uganda called Aim Born Champions Children Africa.  Several years ago, I met Joseph, the founder (along with his grandfather), and we began working together in a program that helped sponsor children to provide a better education as well as a healthier life.  A few days ago, his family was involved in an accident which left his wife with spinal injuries and chest injuries.  They transported her to the capital city of Kampala to receive care from a specialist, but they will not perform surgery without half of the funds.  I am leaving a link for the Donorsee fundraiser and ask that you please see what you can do to help out.  Donorsee

How does time go by so quickly?  It seems I posted something just a few weeks ago.  Perhaps it was just my imagination - or simply wishing there was more to share. 

It has been a busy month.  I ended up in Kentucky for a week to help my parents pack up their belongings for a move to Arizona.  We were able to get a lot done, and I came home with a full van of smaller things they no longer needed.  I made the trip was made with Caleb, and the girls stayed home and milked the goats, cooked meals, and kept the house running as close to normal as they could.  They did a fabulous job of keeping the goats milked and cared for. 

Since my return, Al and I were able to put up an electric fence in the back yard.  We brought some of the trouble maker goats over to keep them out of the way when we try to get the milkers from the dry lot.  We also brought over two of our first fresheners who do not provide enough milk to put them on the stand.  By putting them in the back, we feed them high quality forage, and we cut back on the area Al needs to mow.  

Last week we were able to begin processing our chickens.  We managed to tackle a dozen of them, leaving another 23.   Since Andrew wasn't here to help out, it meant the younger kids had to do more.  They all did a pretty good job at what they chose.  

This time of year brings a bit of anxiety as we wait for various food "crops" to pop up, shortly after which, providing our family with a little nourishment.  We have been able to get a small handful of asparagus as well as a few nights of roasted radishes.  

I've been able to plant more seeds as well as potatoes, but still I wait to put tomatoes and peppers in the ground.  

The random sowing of sunflowers has proved to be a success.  I just took seed from a few flowers I saved last year, and tossed them all around the old garden area.  Lo and behold, I have several dozen sunflowers up and growing.  Just this afternoon, I noticed some zinnias are also popping up where seed dropped last year.

I want to do the same with sorghum: gently broadcast the few handfuls of Mennonite Sorghum I harvested last year from two plants, so I can keep a perpetual plot of feed for the animals.  

I do want to plant some sweet corn, or pop corn in the old garden area, just to see how it all grows.  I haven't had much past reaping when it comes to corn.  Well, honestly, the last time I had any corn to harvest was about four years ago when I harvested a great amount of dried corn for cornmeal.  Would you believe I still have some in the form of cornmeal?  It is absolutely delicious!

I decided to plant watermelon and cantaloupe in the front perennial bed rather than wildflowers and herbs.  The seed starts for the herbs didn't grow.  I am totally okay with that, too.  There are a few starts to transplant, but not nearly as many as I had hoped I would have.  (I have tried to upload a picture, but just can't get it to send to my drive.)

My sweet potatoes are still growing slips.  Initially, I ordered some purple "seed" potato from a friend, but most of those potatoes rotted.  Then I was super blessed to find I had saved some from last years garden and they were in great condition, especially for sprouting more slips for this year.  (We ended up eating a lot of them, too.)   Now to find a good spot to plant them.

As I mentioned before, potatoes have been planted.  These from the seed I collected from our own garden last year.  I have more seed, but this was potatoes I didn't eat in time.  So, I think I will be planting a second planting this spring/summer.  

Bugs are ever present in the gardens, but not nearly as bad as they can be.   The garlic is huge, perhaps on account of planting it sooner than I should have?  Who knows.  My pole beans are beginning their journey toward the trellis.  Cucumbers are slow to come up, but perhaps because our weather has been off and on, like an oven.  One bed of carrots just doesn't seem to want to do well, but the larger bed is progressing nicely.  My broccoli and cabbage beds are sort of wonky, but considering they are alive - I will count that a blessing.  Peas are producing a small amount and I think tomorrow we may be able to grab a handful or two and snack on them.  As for onions, I can't grow them for the life of me.  

The Green Stalks are looking good, but for some reason, there are certain pockets in which things don't grow, or they die.  I just replant with something else and hope it grows.  

Green Stalk one has a bunch of bush beans.  I replanted the other day, filling in any empty spots.  

The second Green Stalk was where my strawberries were planted, but only three plants survived the winter.  I am starting to wonder if it is because they reached the end of their life cycle and there were no "offspring" to continue.  So I decided to buy 25 more planted from MIGardener, and plant them in a raised bed this week.   At any rate, I pulled out all the old, dead plants, and sowed more things like radishes, peas, Tiny Tim tomatoes, beets, and spinach.  

Tower three has the greens I initially planted with a few spots I replanted.  We have spinach, kale, bok choy, and chard.  The chard this year just does NOT seem to be doing well.  Normally it grows really well, but I am not sure why it stays stunted.  

Finally, tower four has a second planting in the top layer.  I put in Perpetual Spinach Chard.  Then the lower three sections are lettuces.  

The yellow bucket is a planting of loofah gourd.  I am sure these take FOREVER to come up.  I vaguely recall digging in gently the other day and seeing the seedling begin to emerge.  

My perennial garden out front is looking like it will be a "whatever I want to plant" garden.  As I mentioned, I put in some melon.  I plan to put some weed cloth down, perhaps even some wood chips on top.  This will prevent weeds from growing up, but allow an area for the plants to vine out.  I just need to train the vines outward.  

Most of my transplants from last year, died.  My newer fig trees died as well as my black berries: all of which were in pots through the winter.  One mint plant came up, but Caleb and I transplanted more from the old garden.  We also brought some bee balm over and put that in.  I had planted some seeds for flowers, but very few of them seem to have germinated.  This little garden is a work in progress, but I am not sweating it.   

I'm learning things don't need to be beautiful.  Beauty only lasts a few days, then life happens.  Or, in the case of the gardens, nature happens.  

Like finding these little sweethearts in a shallow nest, right next to my raised bed.  Caleb, while weed eating, ripped into the nest, terrifying these sweet little kits.  They screamed and scattered.  We rushed to catch them all and put them back into their nest.  We covered them as best we could.  Unfortunately, momma never came back.  The girls, more specifically Abigail, spent several hours coaxing milk into them, as we waited to get them to a licensed wildlife rehabilitation person (sorry, not sure the term).  The girls wanted to keep them, but it was not going to happen no matter how cute they were. 

I got tired of writing on Saturday, so I picked it up today, Sunday.  I have attempted to get a few photos transferred over, but it didn't work.

We had originally planned to process 11 more chickens this morning, but the weather didn't look too promising and we had to put it off until next Sunday.  

So Al and Andrew went to do some car maintenance, and clean the car up.  Afterwards, they headed out to the woods to get wood chips for me to use in the garden.  Then they returned to chip more branches from the woods.  

Meanwhile, I did loads of laundry, baked bread, cleaned up a bit in the house, planted my strawberries, and worked in the garden a little. I also used a chainsaw to cut a very large branch apart that fell in the last round of storms.  Al had used the tractor to lift it over to the goats so they could eat the leaves.  I wanted to get it out of the pen, so decided to cut it into small pieces and toss them over.  

Well, I guess we will have to wait until the next post to share updated photos of some things.  I am tired and have some driving to do tomorrow. 

Blessings!

 

Growing Season is Upon Us

It appears the growing season has come sooner than usual.  Don't be deceived!  There is still threat of frost.  It is so easy to jump the gun and start planting, but experience says "Wait!" 

So here I am anxiously waiting, but planting things that are safe to plant, foiling all my written plans, and rethinking how BEST to use the little space I have. 

I did purchase another Green Stalk to grow vertically.  These were all moved to the back deck during the last few days.  That was a lot of walking!  The stone colored one is the newer one because they don't sell the terra cotta color any longer.  This is the only one NOT planted in yet.  I plan to plant bush beans in this one.  The instructions say you can put three seeds in each pocket.  At that rate, I can have 90 plants in one tower that takes only 4 square feet of space.  

The second tower has the strawberries I planted in 2022.  They don't look good, but the plants are only just now waking up.  At this point, I am not sure I will buy more to fill the tower.  I may just fill it in with something else.  I also have some Yellow Wonder Alpine strawberries that can fill in the gaps.  

The third tower has the kale, chard, spinach, and baby bok choy.  These all came up already and yesterday I planted in the gaps that had seeds that didn't germinate.  

The fourth tower are lettuces.  Each tier has a different type of lettuce; three tiers have already sprouted.  

I also have plans to fill some large buckets with compost and plant some trailing plants at the base of the deck.  

The small white flower boxes are onions/chives.  I sowed the seeds heavily since most are older seeds.  

In the main garden area, the beets, radishes, broccoli, cabbages, and peas have already come up.  Again, yesterday I filled in the gaps where nothing came up.  Carrots were planted earlier this week and take some time to germinate, so we will keep waiting for those.  I still have five empty beds to fill when frost threat is gone.  

And just look at all those edible weeds!  I have so much chickweed, hen bit, purple dead nettle, and dandelion it is insane!  If it wasn't a garden, I would bring my goats in!

In the expanded area, I have two rows of mounded compost and the rings.  It is hard to figure out what to focus on for growing.  There are so many things I want to grow, yet I just don't have the space.  

Finally, I have a perennial garden which has some fig trees.  Unfortunately, I think the fig trees have mostly died.  If this is true, I will not buy more and replant.  The plan for this space is to sow seeds for medicinal and culinary flowers and herbs that can self sow each year.  I am going to use stones to line the walkways so plants don't get trampled.  Unfortunately, I am not sure the space is big enough for all I want to do!  

I did put up this little garden area that I plan to put a hummingbird feeder above.  I have a hummingbird haven seed mix that we will plant in this one. It isn't a perfect little garden, but I am sure with all the pretty flowers, it will be beautiful anyway.  

I want to move the sheep to the dry lot so I can broadcast sow some sorghum, sunflowers, and other fun plants for our use as well as the animals. I only had two sorghum plants germinate last year, but ended up with a cup of seed for this year.  I saved some sunflower seeds from last year and have plenty of others.  I would love, LOVE, to have a flower garden just to encourage pollinators.  Oh...the dreams!  

I guess we will wait and see. 

~Rachel

Growth and Expansion

The homestead is changing.  There are a lot of plans in the works, but the first it so expand our pasture spaces. 

This means thinning the trees, clearing shrubs, and opening up the back in order to implement my idea to put the cows in the back.  

So Al has been super busy cutting down trees, hauling away branches to the local dump site, and chipping other branches for our garden.  

Large trunks are being set aside for firewood, and he chips the branches into several piles all over the place.  These piles will be relocated when he is finished. 

This is the view from the creek toward the house and shop.  The wooded sheep area is to the right.  

This is the view to the left. The creek is behind me. 

One of the reasons I felt this was a good spot for the cows was because there is a barn.  Did you know we had an old barn?  Yep.  So far it has been used to store farm equipment and hay.  This barn is not a good option for small livestock and chickens, but it is perfect for cows.  We only need to remove the loose door to make it a run in.  When it rains, water flows around the barn, so we will make sure the pathways are clear for water to flow around and down to the creek.  

So the point to cutting all these trees is to open up the area so grass and forage will grow.  It is there, but just needs more space to grow.  With fewer trees, this will be possible.  We will attach the sheep fence to the buck pasture fence line, thus creating a series of paddocks and pastures that connect. 

As for growth...

We have gained several goat kids and lambs over the last few months.  

Maizie had two little bucklings: Cap'n Crunch and Frosted Mini Wheats

Then Amber had a little doe: Honey Bunches of Oats.

Mocha gave us one huge buckling: Crispix.

Kahlua kidded twin doelings, which are the sweetest and friendliest little things! Their names are Cocoa Pebbles and Corn Pops.

And just the other day, Jersey gave us triplets: two does and one buck, named Apple Jacks (gray doe), Trix (black doe), and Chex (black buck with white ears).

For our sheep, we have a total of 7 remaining lambs after loosing little Bing-Oh. Just this morning, Thyme gave birth to the last two lambs of the season: Backgammon and Parcheesi. 

Before that, we had Rosemary lamb with Anise and Bing-Oh.

Then Basil birthed twin ewe lambs, Angelica and Chicory.

Sage gave us a ram and ewe, Skip-bo and Lovage.

We have decided not to sell any lambs this year, but raise all the rams for me at (including the two remaining from last year that were stunted in growth). The ewes will be used for breeding more lambs, so we can make it profitable next year.  Our mistake last years was selling all of our lambs, leaving us with nothing for meat. 

Next up, our cow Lilly, which we have not seen bred, but can't really know.  I guess only time will tell on that one!

 

All's Quiet on the Arkansas Front

It seems every time I think about updating, something pulls me away from it.  Not much to keep you all updated on, yet there is a lot of goings on around the place, too. 

The arrival of little lambs and kids has been the highlight of the last few weeks, but we also lost some animals.  Our Ivy Rose could not deliver her kids and as much as I tried to get them free, it didn't happen.  We ended up putting her down to end her agony.  I was so upset to lose her as well as her kids.  During the month of January, we ended up with a total of two lambs and four kids.  Nellie was also put down due to sickness and injury. 

February should bring four more does to labor: Jersey, Juniper, Kahlua, and Serenade are all due this month.  Meanwhile, two ewes are also due to deliver soon: Sage and Basil.  

Problems seem to pop up here and there and you can believe me when I say it is extremely frustrating to have health issues pop up in livestock: especially livestock which are harder to catch and handle.  Our cow, Lilly, has an abscess under her ear on her parotid lymph node.  And just today I found a hard abscess on our little ram lamb's jaw.  A lamb is easy enough to get to a vet, but a cow that doesn't care to be handled is a bit more of a job.  And to add trouble to it all, none of the veterinarians seem to know what in the world a zebu is.  I try to explain that they are an ancient breed of cattle, but apparently all they can give me is another vet to take them to. 

Al has been keeping busy organizing his shop, adding gravel to the driveways and paths into pastures, and other little projects like chimney repair and finishing our coat closet.  He is still working for Innovatec, but has cut his hours by 20% in order to be around more for work.  We were able to pay off the loan for the house, and my name is being added to the title since it was not done a few years back.  So long as taxes and insurance are paid each month, the house remains ours. 

Andrew moved out early January and visits off and on to help out with things.  He seems to be very happy working for Toyota.  The kids miss him a lot and look forward to his visits.  

The last I heard from Rebekah, she informed me she would be moving to Maryland with her housemates at the end of the month.  She is looking to transfer from her job at Target, to another Target near where she will be moving to.  I hope it works out well considering how hard it is to start fresh with a new job search.   

Alexandra is trying to get used to the heavier load of schoolwork associated with highschool.  While I am not trying to mimic a public school, I am trying to work toward covering some basis that I think are important.  So, she is currently taking world geography, nutrition science, Arkansas state history, language arts, geometry, history, biology, and of course Bible.  Bible and history is done as a family unit.  She seems to enjoy what we are studying.  I also included the vintage Arkansas history textbook I bought last year, into her class work.  The idea is for her to regulate her own schedule for how many days a week she wants to do each subject.  She has to get them completed to move on.  Some subjects are supposed to be done every day.  

Abigail and Hannah are pushing through their work as well, most days they get it all done, but on occasion, Hannah will not do her math because she doesn't like it.  

Caleb's neuro-feedback seems to be working and we are seeing changes for the better.  He is quicker to apologize and seems to be more agreeable.  Most cases, we can talk to him and get him to think about what he did, or is doing, and change the behavior.  It doesn't mean that he doesn't have issues any more, he certainly still has his spells.  For the most part, his destructive behavior has dramatically been reduced.  The only destructive thing I can think of lately that he did was cut the strings on the blinds.  Funny part about his doctor visits is if he is angry, he tells me he is not going to his appointment.  He also tells me he thinks his back hurts and he needs another adjustment.  I have to tell him to wait until the next week.  

My days begin anywhere between six and 7:30.  I try to get out to milk the goats by 8:30, but have often had to wait until the bread is done baking.  Now I have to add bottle feeding a little ram lamb to the mix because he isn't getting enough milk from his mom.  The ewe lamb seems to be doing fine in comparison.  I switched Caleb's appointments to late morning so we can have an uninterrupted day of school.  Unfortunately, the change means kids need to change their way of doing things on a school day, and some don't want to.  I find myself pretty tired by the end of the day.  

I anticipate growing season, but am nervous as well.  I have so many plans yet know it isn't what I play, but the Father's plans that matter.  I would like to get some seeds in the ground soon for some cool weather crops.  I hope to get something growing for eating by spring or soon after.  It has been frustrating feeding this family of mine.  They are very picky eaters when it comes to veggies.  They say, "we like veggies raw".  I bring salad to the table and they only eat two mouthfuls!  They say, "Oh, I only like cabbage raw, but when I serve it along salad, the bowl of cabbage hasn't a dent in it!  Plus, the jars of green beans I canned last year turned out horribly disgusting and stringy.  I attribute this to the dry weather we had.  

At any rate, not much else to offer for updates.  I hope all is well with you.  I'll attach a few photos to make it more interesting, but some of you have probably seen them already.  

Blessings!

Homeschool Supplies for Sale

This was a test.  I tried repeatedly to post these pictures on FB, but it just wouldn't load them.  So I decided to post it to my blog and figure out if it would work.  If you need the description and price, please scroll down on the group page in order to know what the cost is. Sorry for the inconvenience.