October 2024 On The Homestead
Well, we’re on the last stretch of the year. Anyone else feel like this year has flown by? We had a great October; prepping for winter, beginning of baking season, and all the school activities. Below you’ll find October 2024 on the homestead!
FYI these homestead recaps tend to be photo heavy, and may contain affiliate links.
CLEAN UP & PROJECTS
It was a month of putting things to bed for winter. One last mow for the season, pruning/trimming plants, pulling plants, and mulching.
Removed all the plastic fencing around the garden, and prepped a new row for spring, by putting down some landscape fabric to cover the grass. I’ll also just do cardboard and woodchips.
IN THE GARDEN
It was nice we still harvested quite a bit in October. Squash, strawberries, calendula flowers, kale, beets, carrots, and herbs. We also harvested the rest of the tomatoes plants and let them ripen on the counter.
My daughter and I are very excited to expand the garden this year.
Our one little sugar pumpkin that grew. We’re going to work on producing more next year, and larger pumpkins as well. Piper was proud of her little pumpkin!
One thing I was so thrilled about this year was one of the granny smith apple trees produced 24 apples for us! They were very good, the chickens got to enjoy a couple and we baked an apple pie.
More dahlias’ blooming in the food forest!
There have been so many mushrooms popping up everywhere this fall. It’s been cool to see them, and identify some. We’ve spotted; puff balls, shaggy manes, oysters, turkey tails and so many more. I love seeing any kind of mushroom pop up, and know my soil is healthy.
ANIMALS ON THE HOMESTEAD
Animals are all good, a little upset that it’s the rainy season and can’t spend all day outside, but good.
The chickens are all good, finished molting and slowing down for the season. Our 5 young roosters are still around, but not for long. Shh, don’t tell my daughter, because she’s attached to them and they are to her. I’m in the process of finding someone to either process them for us, or donate them to the local food bank. They are just too expensive to feed, and getting noisy.
There’s been a deer coming around, I noticed it eating my fruit tree leaves, and then have seen it a few times since. I love seeing the wildlife around, besides when they’re trying to eat my plants or animals. Before spring comes, I’ll have to figure out a fence situation for the fruit trees.
IN THE KITCHEN
Baking season has also started, we made my delicious sugar cookies for Halloween. It’s also crockpot season, soups, comfort foods, and breads. As a foodie, it’s my favorite season!
We are excited to see the Wicked movie, so we tried making the Betty Crocker Wicked Cupcake Kit. The color surprise was fun, but other than that the cupcakes were not good. The only thing that made it somewhat edible was the whipped frosting. Don’t waste your money on it!
We also made the viral Tiktok brownies, with chocolate chip cookies, brownies and Oreos. They were delicious but sweet!
LIFE & WHAT I’M LOVING
October was another busy time outside of the homestead!
Halloween hadn’t even passed, and someone couldn’t wait to put up the Christmas tree. How could I argue with that, so we put spider webs all over and called it a Halloween tree.
We also had a lot of fun at the Scarecrow Festival in Gig Harbor! It was busy, lines were long, but worth it. I’ll just plan on bringing our lunch next year if or just Piper’s, if there won’t be a food truck she’ll eat. Because that grilled cheese kids meal served was disgusting.
We took advantage of a beautiful Sunday and hiked to Anderson Point Park with the dog.
School stuff kept us busy even for myself; I’m at my youngest’s school volunteering every morning at the drop off, and then at least once a week volunteering where’s needed. She also had school wide race the PE teacher puts on called the Pumpkin Race. Then there was the fall dance, and field trip to the pumpkin patch.
Of course we carved pumpkins, we didn’t end up going to a farm/pumpkin patch with the family. Maybe it’s because we just did the KP Farm Tour, and we live on a mini farm. Even Piper didn’t even bring it up.
We went to two classmates birthday parties, and celebrated my 40th birthday! I like to keep things low key, so we went out for Italian and had ice cream cake. Then had Mexican with my family the next day.
We ended the month trick or treating with some friends. It was a lot of fun, and like true PNW style – rainy! We’ve been fortunate the past couple years, it’s been beautiful dry weather, but this year called for boots, jackets and umbrellas. If it rains next year, need to remember to bring waterproof bags so the candy doesn’t get all wet.
Hope you had a good October as well, and enjoyed Autumn! I’ll try to be back in the beginning of December for the monthly recap. In the meantime, leave me a comment, I’d love to hear from you!
