Posted in Homestead Journal
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Merry Mote,
Good Gracious it has been so hectic here. Jay is still working in Louisiana. He will be remaining there and visiting home when he can. Looks like he will be starting training for electrician's helper in February through the IBEW training center in Baton Rouge.
The kids are both doing well. Morgan has begun potty training. Claire is excelling in school. They have adjusted well to having just mommy around though they both want their daddy. It has been an interesting time for me. We have done brief periods of seperation due to work before but this is going to be the longest stint yet.
I was swamped with orders for holiday baskets, baked goods and fudge. I have managed to get almost all my orders out. I have one more dress order to finish up and get out. And one more quilt to finish repairing for a customer.
I have almost completely re-organized the house. There are still a few things to tend to but they are getting done. The outside is really starting to come together. I am hoping to get some of my CSA customers to agree to come out and help with outside work in lieu of some of their cash payment. I will be getting free wood pallets from our local newspaper so that I can put in grow beds in the front and back. We have 1/4 acre or so in the back that needs clearing. I am hoping to use some of the pallets to make nice wooden board fencing around the property. If all goes well I may even have some goats this spring. We definitely are working on getting more chickens. I will not be doing farmer's market this year as it is hard to find day care for weird hours during the week and someone to watch on Saturdays. So we will be setting up the front yard and porch to have our own farm stand.
I am now officially part of the marketing board for the Food For Everyone Foundation. It is a volunteer position. I will be updating my farm website and my partner website High Tech Homestead to reflect this and the products offered for the foundation. All monies earned by the foundation go to fund mission projects to teach people how to grow their own food using a specific method, the Mittlieder Method.
I am making up my list now of produce and herbs that I want to grow next year. We just finished letting the last of the tomatoes ripen in a basket in the house. They have been dehydrated and put up. We had a surprise we though we lost the onions and leeks we had planted but now they too have been dehydrated and put up. There are still some lettuce volunteers popping and giving us some fresh lettuce for salads.
We will be breeding our rabbits in the early spring. We had such horribly hot weather that no one is taking at the moment. We will hopefully be able to replenish our herd of rex's and nz rex crosses this year. Right now however, they are providing our compost pile with a rich supply of manure.
Our compost pile right now consists of veggies scraps from the kitchen, rabbit bedding, rabbit manure, leaves, newsprint, coffee grounds, egg shells, tea bags. It is getting a very ripe odor to it. I didn't anything fancy, it is a pile off to the side of the yard. I turn it every couple of days. One of the other uses I will have for those wooden pallets will be to build up worm beds so I can just throw my compost stuff on top of them and let them to all the work.
My daughter has begun her own little crafty enterprise. I had obtained some used baby food jars. Well a ton of them actually. She is painting them with acrylic paints and sealing them. She has sold quite a few of them lately. I am using them for dried herbs. They make beautiful votive and tea light candle holders as well.
I learned a couple of lessons in the past week. One is very important. Do not put your dog's run out where you hang laundry, especially if you have a fairly steep slope to your back yard. Let's just EEEWWW gross. The other was more fun and will be very useful in the future. A new friend of mine gave me a drop spindle to use and gave me my first spinning lesson. Actually Claire came home from school just in time for this impromptu get together and learned as well. My friend Jody, who I met through the local freecycle yahoo group, had dropped by and we were sharing quilting work, sewing tips, general girl time chat and she brought out the spindle and some wool to work with.
Well, the house is quiet now, the children are fast asleep in their beds. The cats are coming in through the bedroom window and settling in for now. The dog has taken his spot up on my bed and is snoring softly with the occassional dispersal of a green cloud of fumes. He loves liver but it has awful side effects for the rest of us.
I am going to make up my to do list for tomorrow and a generalized list for the rest of week. Double check to make sure all clothes are laid out. Bookbag is packed and ready, snack for Claire is ready to go. Then I am going to soak in a hot tub of epsom salt, relax and take myself to bed.
Blessed be from the menagerie.
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
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