February 2025 On The Homestead
I’m fairly behind on getting February’s recap out, I apologize. Better late than never! February was quite the chaotic month; we definitely had lots of winter weather, the kids literally only went to school 9 days in the month. Check out February 2025 on the homestead below.
FYI these homestead recaps tend to be photo heavy, and may contain affiliate links.
CLEAN UP & PROJECTS
We’ve spent many hours/weekends splitting and stacking wood, and we still have so much left to do. But I’m so thankful for the log splitter and also that we’ll be able to use the woodstove next year for our heat.
I’ve started some winter clean up, not anything to disturb the wildlife though. We had snow for a couple days and also a big wind storm that knocked out power in our area for a few days for some people – thankfully we were only out 15 hours, no power on a well is no fun!
I’ve also decided, I’d like to start selling stuff produced from our homestead/farm. My goal is to eventually either sell at the farmer’s market and/or a farmstand on the property. For now I plan on just selling online with local pickup, drop off and some products available for shipping. I’ve created a Facebook page and will be working on a website soon; Tabitha’s Farm.
For locals, I’ve got chicken eggs currently available right now for 6.00 a dozen and hopefully in the next couple weeks I’ll have some dried stinging nettle available. Send me a message if interested.
IN THE GARDEN
February was a busy month of getting seeds started and preparing garden beds. I’ve got a couple notebooks and I take notes about the garden each year. I’ve also got my planting zone calendar printed out to help guide me as well. Oddly enough my zone changed last year when USDA changed the zones, so I’ve been trying to go off my old zone and new one to help. I’m now in zone 9a.
We started a lot of our cool season crops, flowers, peppers, and tomatoes. During the season my dining room becomes plant station, with only a few outside in the greenhouse because it is not heated.
Here’s a few of our seed starting supplies we use;
I’m also going to be working on adding a few more plants around the yard and food forest this year. I planted two rhubarb plants in the food forest, and they are growing beautifully.
ANIMALS ON THE HOMESTEAD
We are getting so excited(& a little nervous) for honey bees this spring, they arrive in April! I’m trying to be as prepared as possible, I took a beginner beekeeping class in February, and have been reading Beekeeping for Dummies.
We’ve got most of our beekeeping equipment bought, except for disease prevention stuff and stuff to help them survive winter. I love that my 7 year old is as excited as me! Her and I have been slowly building our hives the past couple months, one is completely done and we just need to finish painting the other.
The chickens have slowly been emerging from the winter funk, more daylight hours and a little more sunshine. We’ve also been letting them free-range more. Which means we’ve been slowly getting more eggs, almost all of them are over 4 years old so they took the winter off from laying.
If you’re considering getting chickens this spring because egg prices are high, don’t let the below paragraph scare you but do keep in mind you’ll most likely have to deal with one of the below, if not all.
I’ve also had to do some first aid treatments on them, which I’m realizing it’s going to be every winter. No matter what we do the wild birds just come around their food sources in the winter and with that they bring lice, so I’ve had to treat them all with Elector PSP, since I spotted chicken lice on one of them. And in the PNW the winter brings a lot of rain, which leads to puddles and those puddles sometimes contains worms that the chickens ingest. So, I treated them with Aquasol Safeguard, because a few of them had dirty bottoms. I also had to soak and wash one of the ladies booty, because she was just having a rough time.
The dogs and cat have been happy for more dry days outside.
IN THE KITCHEN
We’ve been cooking a lot more at home, everything is just so expensive right now. We’ve had our typical Friday night pizza from Dominos though.
We’ve made many crockpot meals, sourdough recipes, and cookies – we’ve been on a peanut butter cookie kick lately.
LIFE & WHAT I’M LOVING
We started the month with a little more monkeyshine hunting, and found some rogues. If you’re wondering what that is, search Tacoma Monkeyshines Chinese New Year. Such a fun community tradition!
We finally saw snow in February, it was beautiful and fun but now we have a few school makeup days. We also had a pretty bad wind storm happen in our area, everyone lost power, and schools closed for 3 days. We were so thankful our house only lost power for 15 hours, right when we started getting the woodstove going for the night and make dinner it turned back on.
I’m officially ready for spring/summer!
We started attending our local libraries art events, and they’ve been so fun. Pictured below is my daughter’s beautiful fairy moss mirror she made.
We also had a few nights of eating out; went to Ranch House BBQ & Steakhouse in Olympia – they make delicious bbq meats! We also tried Family Thai Cuisine in Silverdale – it was amazing and my new favorite thai place!
Hope you had a great February as well, and ready to welcome spring soon! Let me know in the comments how your month was.
