I really try to get a walk in around the homestead, every day. Sometimes it doesn’t happen. Life. But I always feel grounded and blessed when I do make the time and do so. I love seeing all the animals and just having a little time to relax and enjoy all we’ve worked hard for.
The last week has been hard, we’ve all been sick with a nasty summer cold. Just beat the heck out of us. We are all still just a little wonky, a few coughs, runny nose. It hit me very hard in my eyes! Itchy, tired, dry, just feeling ugh. Just didn’t get out a whole lot this week.
Maggie does the day to day chore feeding out back. Jess and I take care of the babies and she takes care of bunnies and I milk Buttercup. Sometimes I help with haying and such, especially if I know that Maggie was up really late and all. We help each other to make it easy. Right now we’re getting ready for our nephew Wesley to come for a few days and be a farm boy! I know he’s excited and so are we! We plan to take it easy and enjoy his visit of a few days. We are going to be finally rebuilding our fire pit and I am so excited! It’s something we really enjoy, sitting around the fire on summer evenings and visiting with friends! It’s marvelous.
The sheep boys are doing great, growing like weeds! They are just about big enough to join the big flock… just as soon as Huldur can’t squeeze through the fencing! (Yes, he still can if he tries hard but soon… nope!) Henrick can’t anymore, but he’s a little bigger.
The garden is doing nicely, not super abundant but you know, better than past years even with the flood. I know once the growing is all done and I still have decent enough weather to work in, I’m going to be making a few more permanent raised beds where the low areas flooded. It just has to be if I want to garden there. The beds that I made this year of just piled materials and compost were all overcome by the flood waters and most of the plants died. Everything in boxes and raised beds? Fine. The highest mark of flooding was about a foot, to eighteen inches. And so, two foot seems to be the perfect height for any low laying beds. All my strawberries were wiped out. I am so sad about that.
However, on the higher part of the garden, those piled mound beds are thriving. Amazing what just 25 feet can do! It’s all good. My garden is not really meant to sustain us all year long or anything. My dream garden would be a nice, easy, garden with a lot of perennial fruits and such and easy to maintain veggies and space. I can’t wait to get to a point that I don’t have to do much mowing in there… in fact, none would be just fine with me! And that I have a space to work and enjoy the space as well. I want to build a little greenhouse out of old windows! Just maybe 10 foot by 10 foot or something. Enough space that I can put a comfy chair and a little work desk out there, and then some shelves or benches so that I can start some veggies in the early spring. Flowers, too! And really enjoy the sunshine on those blustery cold days. That would be my dream garden! Might take me a few more years, but every year is closer. I’m happy.
The new Angora goats are doing fine and our new sheep as well! (Next post…) Five of our spring piglets have gone on to their new homes! Kind of sad, but it’s part of the whole experience. We really can’t keep 14 hogs! We have six piglets left. They are for sale, but I haven’t really pushed them all over yet. I did a little advertising on our Facebook pages and all, but I hope to get them up on Craigslist soon. That usually works out nicely. If they don’t sell, that’s fine with us. We will raise them up for the freezer and any possible sales later on. So far, aside from Cheyenne, the one piglets we kept to become a breeding sow for us, we have sold or traded every one of our first three litters. Pigs have been very good for us. They earn their keep and some! I’m pretty sure that we have three boys and three girls left. The boys might end up in the freezer at Christmas and then we’ll raise the girls up for either breeders as yearlings or for the freezer in the late spring. I’m fairly certain that we have two more litters due in November. It’s all good! The best thing about hogs is that they just don’t loose their value. No one turns their noses up to fresh gourmet bacon and pork. If not for feeder piglets, or breeding stock as young pigs, they sell just fine as adults for the freezer.
Well, so far, this has been a pretty nice summer/growing season. We’ve seen our livestock flourish, and we’ve accomplished a few major projects! Expanding the pig pen… awesome! They love the new space and are finally staying put! Enforcing and expanding the paddock… wonderful! No one has escaped for months now! Love that! And now we about to finish up our firepit re-do! Not too bad. The flood really put a damper on the garden expansion plans, but I don’t think we would have had much of a budget to really consider those anyway. It’s all good! I will keep at those garden dreams until it’s just too cold to work outside. And then we will work on the inside of the house! It seems to be our yearly rhythm. Works for us!
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– Sadia
