How To Leave The Homestead

I bet you're thinking WHAT? Leaving the homestead? Why? No, we are not actually leaving our attempt at homesteading, but everyone needs a vacation every now and then right?

Rosa (made by Lilly), hanging out with the Fieros at the car show in Carlisle, PA.

I'm talking about all of the work that goes into running a homestead. We just got back from spending the weekend in Pennsylvania for a car show. We left Friday afternoon, and returned Sunday afternoon. That means evening chores for Friday, morning and evening chores for Saturday, and morning chores for Sunday needed to be done by someone else. The lucky winner, my brother! My brother has no interest in homesteading, animal husbandry, gardening, or anything else related to that lifestyle really. That means we needed to prioritize and streamline the process as much as we could, as fast as we could.

--I ditched the garden. I barely pull weeds and water it, so there was no need for him to do it. It seems to have survived the neglect so far...

--All of my porch plants and indoor plants went to the front lawn. We had a lot of rain on Friday when we left, so having them someplace where nature can water them meant he didn't need to care for them.

--The turtles had an extra mound of food in their tank, and plenty of water. (They do well for a couple of days if need be anyway)

--We bought a 2.5 lb waterer and 10 lb feeder for Loki and Freya (indoor cats). With a freshly cleaned litterbox, they would have been able to survive more than likely 2 weeks without us before needing a refill.

--Our newest acquisition, the outdoor cat Sunny, was given a large mixing bowl of food and water on the front porch. She wasn't seen Friday or Saturday, but Sunday morning she popped in when he came over. I guess we have ourselves a permanent outdoor cat now!

Sunny!

 

--We installed a PVC waterer and feeder for the rabbits. The small garage protects the feeder from the rain, so the rabbits had no problems eating while we were gone.

--We made the same PVC waterer and feeder for the chickens. The heavy rain on Friday moistened some of the chicken feed in the pipe, so the chickens had some problems getting it out, but with 5 acres to forage, they didn't starve. My brother had to come up every morning and evening to open and close the coop door though.

The PVC feeder and waterer installed on the side of the chicken coop.

--The dog stayed at my parents. He did well, but he has a lot of anxiety, so he barely ate while we were gone.

--Last but not least are the ducks. Since the house and fence we have them in now are temporary, we had nothing set up for them. They completely relied on my brother to open and close the coop, and feed and water them each day.

The point of all of this, is that everyone survived! We had no problems besides the chicken feeder getting clogged, and once we make a small roof for it, that should keep the rain from getting into the pipe.

Next on our list besides a more permanent structure for the ducks are automated coop doors. That will reduce the need to have someone come over daily early and late. A midday visit to make sure everything looks ok will be all that is needed.

Random Thoughts

 I told myself to start blogging again, and it seems I have a million different things to write about in my head, but when I sit down...nothing. Not one topic jumps to the front and demands my attention. Instead of walking away, I've decided I'll just do a random stuff post. Maybe a weekly or monthly catch up, things we have going on, things we have done...whatever.

--We went to Space Day at The Wilderness Center today. I posted pictures on the Facebook page. The girls had a blast, especially Lilly, since she wants to be a scientist and astronaut. We identified constellations in the observatory, made rockets, moon-walked, took a tour of our solar system, and made star gazing charts. It really is an awesome place to go. I grew up visiting the place, and it's nice that they offer a wide variety of programs, even homeschool ones!

--Winter stinks! I am over it. This is our first full winter in the house (we officially moved in March 2016). We are on a hill, with lots of farm fields around. It's always windy, the windows leak, we don't have enough seasoned firewood to utilize the fireplace as much as we would like, propane gets expensive, and the mud in my hallway at the backdoor is caked to the floor. I can't wait until it warms up, but the mud in the hallway never goes away...

--Our reading goals. So far we haven't done so well. The older two girls have read some of their books, but we have yet to do family reading. Hoping we can get into the swing of things soon.

--Speaking of books, we are suckers for books. The Wilderness Center had a table of books they were selling for a $1 each. Lots of nature and science stuff, thankfully we only spend $9!

--Lowe's Build & Grow. Something we've gone to for the past several years when they have a kid's clinic. Unfortunately their website says that they have enjoyed providing it over the past 10 years, but they have currently stopped them. Home Depot still has theirs, but we've never attended one there, so it's something I will look into. Unfortunately the only one they list is for next Saturday, which is Muggle's Day for Girl Scouts.

--On the subject of Girl Scouts, we just handed in our initial orders for selling cookies. All 4 girls are in scouts this year, so we had a goal of 200 boxes per girl. Initially we sold just a touch over 300, but I ordered the full amount of our goal and we will sell them at cookie booths. It's tricky this way, because we are financially responsible for those cookies since we ordered them and not the troop. I am hoping we sell them all and sell most of them the first weekend of cookie booths at the end of February. We have 515 boxes of cookies to get rid of. We did close to that last year (we only had 3 girls to hit goals, so we did less booths). Honestly though, I'm sick of cookies already, and we don't even have them in hand. The girls want those prizes though, so we'll be standing out in this Ohio weather selling cookies!

--Now that my entire post sounds like a rant I needed to unload, I leave you with Freya. I think she wants one of my hens!!

It's Been Awhile

It's been about a year since I've blogged, and about 8 months since I last updated the Facebook page. It's time to get back in the swing of things.

We have a lot of projects for this year! Some of them are...

-Cutting down trees for firewood
-Enlarging the chicken coop
-Making a new duck coop
-Making a new rabbit enclosure
-Finish painting some rooms
-Actually having kitchen cabinet doors
-Going through the rest of our boxes from storage
-Creating Athena's garden

Needless to say this year will be busy!

New Year's Resolutions 2016

With the new year inching upon us, we have quite a honey-do list around the homestead. I realize that we won't get everything we have plans for done, that this will be at least a decade long process to get the home completely finished, and have everything set up the way we want, but I'm a list person, so we will do the obligatory New Year's resolution blog post!

Homesteading Goals for 2016

1. Move in :)

2. Plan and plant a small garden

3. Build a chicken coop and get chickens

4. Start 2 bee hives

5. Fence in a pasture area for chickens

6. Start an orchard that we can add to

7. Install a clothes line

8. Mark Maple trees

The contractors should be done in early February, and we home to move in shortly after. We just finished moving everything out of our storage units into the smaller garage yesterday. I'm sure we could have quite the garden, but I have a bit of a brown thumb, so I'd like to start off small. We still have 2 chickens at the in-laws, and I hope to get more in March during chick days. We will need a bigger coop than what we currently have for that, and as much as I would love for them to free range completely, we have a lot of predators around, so building a fenced area will offer more protection. We are near some clover fields, plus we have 2 acres of woods, so beehives are a must for our homestead location. We'll start off with 2 and see how we handle the winter before thinking about adding more hives. We would also love to have a large variety of fruit trees and bushes, along with nut trees, so thinking long term, we need to start planting as soon as we can. Adding a few more trees each year will be the best financially for us. Having first floor laundry right by the backdoor is ideal for having a clothesline. We get plenty of wind coming across the fields, and plenty of sun (when it's not cloudy in Ohio). One thing we must do this year is figuring out the trees that are on the property. We will need to start drying some firewood, but I'd love to try my hand at making maple syrup, if only just a small amount, so identifying all of our trees is a must.

Personal Goals for 2016

1. Lose some weight (once I get this boot off my foot!)

2. Cook more, eat out less (make healthier choices)

3. Pay off Lexi's braces

4. Pay for Lilly's braces in full

5. Pay off our Paypal credit card

6. Pay cash for South Carolina wedding trip

7. Keep a $1,000 emergency fund in our savings account

8. Hang dry clothes at least 50% of the time

Losing weight is always on the list. I know I'm not nearly active enough, but hopefully these moon boots I've been wearing on my feet will help enough that I will actually be able to be more active without being in constant pain. I just spent 5 weeks with the boot on the left side, so I have about 4 weeks left to go on the right side. I've never claimed to be a cook, and we eat out far too often, so I'm hoping to take advantage of the kitchen and start making more meals at home. I think living out in the country will make that easier. I want to limit the amount we go running into town for something. We still have 7 months of paying on Lexi's braces, and Lilly will need them in the next 6 months, so not having those monthly payments would help out tremendously. Luke has a wedding in South Carolina the end of April, and we thought of making it a family trip. We need to run the numbers, but we also don't want to charge the extra it would cost for the whole family. Paying off a credit card is a given. I'd love to have them all paid off. We try to snowball, but right now braces are eating up almost any extra we have, which is why are savings isn't growing much either, so it's on the list too. As for number 8, well I actually would love to use the clothesline, and not just stare at it!!

Of course, everything listed here is coming from my head. If you were to ask Luke, I'm sure organizing the shop and fixing cars would be the primaries on his list, and I'm sure the girls would have a tree house and swingset on the list! In all reality, I'll just be happy to start living out there and making the 5 acres more manageable once the weather gets nice.

Happy New Year!!!

Moving Forward...

Our house is gone. We closed on October 13th, so we spent the weekend before clearing out the house, and cleaning. The night before we brought the girls back over to help with a little last minute cleaning, and for them to say good-bye. They took pictures of everything, and when our big camera died, I gave my cell phone to Lexi so she could keep taking pictures. She took this one of Lilly. It describes perfectly what our mood was that night. As glad as I am to be rid of that house, it was our home for the last 11 years, and the only one our girls have ever known.

Shortly after moving in, my grandma went into the hospital for surgery, and ended up with a blood infection that she couldn't recover from. It sucks to move so close, only to have her gone just 2 weeks later. I still don't think it has set in completely, but I hate that she'll never know whether or not we will get the rehab house we are looking at. At this rate I'm not sure we'll ever know either! We are currently waiting on the appraisal, which should have been in last Friday, but we've yet to see it.

Moving in to tiny barn hasn't been easy, but we've managed these past few weeks. We are currently fighting off a little sickness, which is hard when you live in less that 480 square feet with 6 people. There's no place to rest in the quiet, and when one is up coughing, everyone is up! We got through Halloween, although we had no inside decorations. We still have a lot of organizing to do in tiny barn. We'll probably have it done by the time we move out lol! If you can't tell, we were Doctor Who themed this year

And here's me with one of our chickens that are left. Whenever we move, building a bigger chicken coop is one of the first things on the list, so not only can we get our two remaining chickens back, but get more too!