One of the perks of living in the country is that we’re not limited by city regulations. This includes burning trash and debris on our property. We’re old pros at it. We’ve been burning brush on our property since 1986. Our burn piles have gotten smaller since getting goats and …
I put off milking my goats for a long time. At first, I told myself, well, we only have Boers and they’re not known for milk production. Then we moved into Nubians, and my first argument fell flat. This is the first year my Nubians kidded. I let them wean …
I have this theory. I think many human beings live only long enough to see dreams completed and then they give up. If that’s true there’s a chance I might live forever. Six months ago I might’ve said that the homestead was nearly completed to my satisfaction, and now it …
Once a year we binge on Downton Abbey. It was a hard sell for Greg the first time we watched this, but after the first couple of episodes he was hooked. This is our third year of binging it and we’re familiar enough with it to give us a chance …
I didn’t think I’d be doing a State of the Homestead report this early in the year, but we hit the ground running in January. Goats: Welcome to our new goat babies! Toffee (one of the Nubians) gave us two kids, a boy and a girl, but she picked the …
Life slowed down just in time for Nana, the border collie, to get hurt. We stopped all our other outdoor activities on the homestead and have spent the last two weeks keeping Her Royal Border Collie company while binge-watching Babylon 5 from start to finish. The first week was a …
The garden is pretty much spent. Only the okra continues to bloom and produce. Some of my Roma tomato plants are producing, but that’s about it. It’s time to scale back and put most of the garden to bed. I’ll probably plant a few broccoli, spinach, and Swiss chard but …
Time for another State of the Homestead report. We’re in the dog days of summer where everything struggles to keep from wilting–including me! The weather has been weird. Our winter was so mild I could’ve started the garden in February if I wanted. We’ve also had more rain than usual–a …
Nothing makes me sadder than to find food rotting in the fridge. It makes me feel like a failure. It doesn’t happen too often now–unless it’s something Greg bought for himself and never finished eating–but even then, I’ve found ways to salvage a bad situation. • Make Soup • Freeze …
Jury duty starts tomorrow, so I’m catching up on all the things that need doing today. I don’t want you to think I’ve abandoned you, so I’ll leave you with a few pictures of Tilly, aka, Bacon. She has gotten huge almost overnight. We thought we’d be putting her in …
If you live in the South, you should already have planted your garden. Northerners can wait until June for more cold sensitive plants. The Plan • This is the fun part. Think about what you like to eat or flowers you like to see on your table. What fruits and …
It’s been a busy Spring but I got most of my outdoor jobs (or as I like to call them, my exercises in futility) done. 🙂 In the past month, I relocated hundreds of irises, started a dozen pots of new herbs, and landscaped the front of Greg’s shop. All …
There is nothing more traumatic than disbudding a baby goat only a few days old. I dreaded it all during Pan’s pregnancy because I knew if she had a daughter, we’d be keeping her. And if we kept her, she’d have to be disbudded. For the uninitiated, disbudding is the …
We heard a woodpecker hammering away at a tree and Greg says: That’s the Machine Gun Kelly of the bird world. I laughed so hard, I had to make a meme for it. It really did sound like a machine gun going off. At least he wasn’t on on my …
It’s that time of year again. Time to bruise shins, fraggle fingers, and blister hands. The knees aren’t doing too good either. Ah, Spring, you destroyer of ligaments and punisher of muscles. You lure us with promises of fresh strawberries and plump snap peas, but we always forget the price …
This is a year of transition. We’re simplifying and streamlining. We should’ve had a few more weeks of ‘winter’, but it looks like that one day in January was it. We’ve started turning over my raised beds and fixing or adding drip irrigation. For the last two weeks, I’ve been …
Our latest arrival is this little buckling. He’s a pure bred Nubian, future mate for my Nubian girls. We call him Captain Jack (named after Jack Harkness for Dr Who fans). Jack’s sire was named Captain America, so I thought it only fitting that Jack be a captain too. Poor …
Other than my Sunday menu posts, this will be my last regular post of the year. I generally take off and recoup between Christmas and New Year’s Day. 2016 was a fairly good year. Greg was home. We got lots of homestead projects done. Made a little money with the …
You wouldn’t think I’d have much to report being November, but we’ve had a very mild fall. Winter for us is usually January and February. December is cold, but it’s the kind of cold that makes Northerners laugh at us. Garden: After numerous deer attacks on my garden, I’ve …
On the Homestead: We sold our two bachelor bucks last week. They went pretty fast, but people hammer you for the first few hours after the ad comes out, asking the very same questions I already answered inside the ad. We had intended on holding back “Freezer Meat” for the …
