The Weekly #3

I’m back for my weekly homesteading series. I’m sorry I’ve been a little MIA on this space! It’s been a little hectic in our lives lately. Here is a quick little recap of the past (few) weeks.

Bee House

Our spring here in the PNW started out with a lot of rain, then a week long heat wave, and now the past couple week’s weather has been wonderful!

The kids are officially on summer break, and we couldn’t be more happy! Things should slow down for us, a little anyway. We’ve had so much going on lately with school schedules, animals and projects around the homestead. There’s not enough time in the day to accomplish everything, and I have a problem with continuing to add more to my load.

No Clean Freaks Here

Our property and home is no place for a clean freak, the amount of dirt I have to clean up on the daily. Ugh! And some of it doesn’t even come from us, it gets blown over from the neighbors pig farm. We run an air purifier almost all day long to help.

I’ve been trying to keep on a schedule to help maintain everything around here. It’s, ugh, going.

I’m loving how my projects are turning out though, the herbs & flowers along the house are getting so big and beautiful.

Before & After….(one year later)

Like I’ve mentioned, my husband works a lot, so I keep very busy here on the property. Thankfully my dad was over for a few days, and helped patch up the grass, and he built a small retaining wall. It looks great, and it’ll stop the erosion.

Update On The Garden

I love gardening, and growing things! We’ve foraged stinging nettle, I’m a little bummed I didn’t get out and forage more spring plants. Oh well, next year. My herb plants have been growing great, they are my favorite things to grow. Wish everyone knew how easy, and convenient they are to grow.

We’ve harvested a few strawberries, and lettuce so far. Between the weather, bunnies, slugs, and not managing the weeds very well. I’m not trying to get my hopes up for the garden this year. Some plants like the tomatoes, potatoes, and zucchini plants are doing great. The bunnies have devoured almost everyone of my sunflowers though. It is what it is!

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

Chicken Update

We’ve had some ups, and downs in our chicken family. We had to deal with our first chicken sickness, and sadly we lost her. She got poultry lice, and I just didn’t catch it quickly enough. You’re always learning on a homestead. We had a little funeral, and buried her in our animal graveyard. RIP Baby, you’ll be missed!

Our six babies we got this spring are doing great, and getting so big. They’ve been with the older ladies for the past two weeks. Thankfully, that went smoother than I was expecting. They are all so friendly, and cuddly. One of them did end up being a cockerel(rooster), the lavender orpington. He’s so pretty, and very friendly. Our Gemmy! And the pullets are; Mable, Honey, Ruby, Rose & Brownie.

We are up to 14 chickens now.

Homecooked

I love to be in the kitchen! But sometimes life gets away from you, and you find yourself eating out way too much. Well, I’m happy to say we are breaking the habit, and have cut it down to about once a week(the food bill is very hard to digest). I’ve just made sure I meal plan, prep things before hand as much as possible, and then another one that’s really helped is have foods on hand that we’d get from take out, or that are quick. Nuggets, fries, burgers, pizza fixings, tacos, spaghetti.

What’s your go-to dinner ideas?

Taking Care of Ourselves

Piper and I used to do a weekly spa time on Sunday’s, pamper and unwind ourselves from the week. Face mask, nails, bath, foot soak, whatever we were feeling that week. We started those back up yesterday, and it was so nice! Great quality time with your kids, or yourself.

See you all next week…