When you live on a farm and have lots of animals, occasionally experiencing the loss of one is inevitable. No matter what, the loss is always tough. It’s especially tough with you lose an extra special one, one that’s been around through the thick and thin, and all the ups and downs of life over the last several years. We lost Miley’s cat, Dusty. He was a good one.
Last year when we planned our garden, Miley told me she really wanted to try to grow carrots. I have tried growing them, without luck, once a long time ago and I don’t know why, but I never tried growing them again. So when Miley asked to grow carrots, I said, “Sure, why not!” Along with carrots, we also decided to grow radishes, spinach and lettuce.
I bought several bags each of compost and top soil, hoping that if we made a thick heaped row of it we wouldn’t have so many weeds. She and I worked hard dumping the dirt and forming it into a nice heaped up row. Then we planted our seeds and watered them in. The next day we went out to the garden and discovered our nicely mounded up row leveled and scattered everywhere. The chickens had gotten into the garden and totally ruined the whole thing. Miley was upset and I… well let’s just say those chickens were lucky they could out run me otherwise we would have had lots of chicken stew to eat… and I don’t butcher chickens… but that day I sure would have!
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Winter, it’s that slow time of the year around here. Especially this winter, it feels like it’s gone on forever. Since we downsized the number of animals a lot before this winter arrived, it’s gone especially slow. In a way it’s been nice to have a break, but I do have to admit I’ve gotten a little lazy… well more like a lot lazy. We started a new routine where Dylan opens the coop and lets the chickens out every morning before work. That way I can wait until later in the morning to go out to feed them their soaked grain and give them water. The hydrant is sometimes frozen shut early in the morning so it’s easier to water them later in the morning. Since I don’t have to go out early anymore, I’ve been taking advantage of that and sleeping in. Yeah, I’ve gotten pretty lazy but let me tell you, it’s been pretty nice.
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Family and bananas… I’m sure you’re probably wondering what those two things, or at least the bananas part of it, have to do with starting out the New Year. Well, the month of December was a pretty crazy one. Fun, but crazy… from going to a Christmas party… to having late night chats with my sister… to playing board games with the family… I went bananas staying up late and even took it to an extreme and pulled an all-nighter or two. It was really bananas because I almost got my days and nights mixed up, and at my age, it’s going to take me a while to recuperate from that. But it was fun, lots of good memories made, and it was totally worth it.
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Twas the day before Christmas at our little homestead
all the creatures were stirring, including plenty of mice.
The stockings were crafted for each of the pets,
and hung on the wall with extra special care,
in anticipation that St. Nicholas would soon be here.
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Whenever I hear there is snow in the forecast, I always cringe. It’s not that I particularly dislike snow; it’s more the inconvenience of it that I dislike. Chores always take longer and it’s more difficult to take care of the animals. Michael drives a truck, so I worry about him having to drive if the roads are bad. Plus, if we have a measurable amount, it almost always slows work down for him. Then, once the snow melts, there are the muddy roads to deal with. Snow just isn’t that much fun. The kids on the other hand, especially Miley, love snow. In fact, Miley’s been wishing for snow for a while now.
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The fifteenth of November has become a special day at our house. It’s a day we cook chili, gather around the table and remind ourselves how truly thankful and blessed we are. We reflect how far we’ve come in just the few years we’ve been here, and reminisce about the giddiness and excitement we felt on the day of November 15th, 2011 as we retell the story. The story never gets old, the excitement never dies and the chili always tastes extra good, just as it did on that night.
So, what exactly is so special about that day you ask? It’s the day we moved. But it wasn’t just any ordinary move; it was a very special move ….
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Well, I think winter had officially arrived. The wind is howling and it’s cold out… actually very cold out. We knew this yucky weather was coming so we spent the weekend getting some things done that needed to get done. Luckily we had beautiful, perfect weather over the weekend to do all those things.
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Last weekend we had all sorts of stuff going on. We planned to process chickens and turkeys but it was so cold and windy. When the wind is blowing it’s hard to keep the fire going under the pot of water that we use to scald the chickens, so we decided to wait one more week to process chickens. Since we skin the turkeys, we decided to go ahead and process them.
Michael and Brooke did the processing…
A bouquet of flowers freshly picked from the garden…
Humble Little Homestead 