September 2024 On The Homestead
The month of September seriously flew by! It was a productive month on our homestead; we’ve had a lot of things going on, and have done. Below you’ll find September 2024 on the homestead!
FYI these homestead recaps tend to be photo heavy, and may contain affiliate links.
CLEAN UP & PROJECTS
Last month I worked on general clean up, and preparing the homestead for winter. Hours of harvesting, mowing, weed-whacking, pruning, and cleaning up summer’s mess. We’ve had some beautiful weather, perfect for working outside. Also, got the lower coop ready for the new chicks.
IN THE GARDEN
If you were around last month, I talked about how well the garden did this year. It continued to thrive in September, and we got to pick a lot of fruits/veggies!
Just to name a few; tomatoes(lots), tomatillos, calendula flowers, strawberries, sunflowers, blackberries, carrots, green beans, beets, kohlrabi, and a few corn.
I’ve also been working on savings seeds when I can.
We were also able to harvest almost 3 lbs of grapes from our 3 vines. Concord grapes, we made our first batch of jelly. I didn’t have enough pectin, and too much water, but it still taste great.
Our granny smith apple tree on a fall day!
The dahlia’s I planted in the food forest are all blooming beautifully!
ANIMALS ON THE HOMESTEAD
We’ve had a lot of animal activity on the farm. We started the month off with possibly losing my daughter’s favorite chicken. A dog that lives on our street chased, and attacked one of our chickens. Thankfully she was able to get away.
And after fixing the landscape around the front house for the last time, I decided to no longer allow the chickens to free roam.
Free-ranging chickens just isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
They’ve got a large area to free-range still, just not the full acreage. I was sick of my landscape/garden being ruined, chicken poop everywhere, needing to watch our backs with the rooster, and the predators.
We also had 6 new chicks given to us, unfortunately one of them was killed by an owl. Turns out it was the only pullet/hen out of the bunch. Now we’ve got to either find homes for the 5 cockerels/roosters or learn how to cull/process them.
IN THE KITCHEN
It’s been a busy month in the kitchen. We’ve eaten a lot of tomatoes, made homemade spaghetti sauce – easy & delicious!
I’ve also been drinking a lot of tea with my own dried, and fresh herbs. Calendula, mint, borage, stinging nettle, raspberry leaves, sage.
My fire cider was finally ready, and boy, is it spicy!
We love a good pot roast!
Banana bread’s a favorite too!
LIFE & WHAT I’M LOVING
We packed a lot of stuff into September. We went to Spirit Halloween, checked out the decoration displays, and picked out costumes.
One of our fav face masks!
We’ve had a busy start to the school year, both kids are back in school, and the oldest has a job now.
My youngest participated in another cross-country race, and received an Eagle award at school for being a great student. She really is such an amazing person, and I’m so proud of her. The teachers frequently compliment how great she is!
And we ended the month, doing the Key Peninsula Farm Tour. It was so fun petting the animals, doing archery, checking out the garden spaces, and the haunted forest. We really appreciate taking a look into everyone’s spaces!
Hope your September went just as good, and you’ve been able to squeeze something Fall in already! I’ll be back in a couple weeks with an October recap, in the meantime I’d love to know in the comments with what you’ve been up to.