That Homestead Life

I'll be sharing my semi-homesteading life on here. There will be everything from recipes, kids, to farm life posts. I'd love for you all to follow along as we figure it all out.

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Prep for the winter. 25 cups of zucchini in the freezer and some coriander hanging to dry!

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It’s growing!!!

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Choices.

It seems to have been one of those summers where you go out to do one chore and quickly discover a more urgent chore that keeps you from doing the original chore. Today, for example, I went out to work on chopping wood for the winter. The goal is to start chopping a large pile of rounds little by little and getting it stacked for winter. I go out this morning, to avoid the heat of the day, and discover a spigot has been leaking, making a puddle around the spigot. This particular spigot we dug up last year for the same reason, my husband fixed it and we put it back in the ground. It worked for the last year but decided it had no life left in it. Pretty much all of this to say I ended up covered in mud, got the dang thing dug up and now need to go buy a new one. No wood got chopped. No other chores I had on my list got done. And this is just how it goes I guess. Tackle one problem at a time and play catch up after it’s sorted. It used to really upset me when these sort of things happened. Now I just roll my eyes, dig in, and get dirty. Rolling with it, brushing it off, getting it done and then busting my butt to catch up. I don’t really mind any more. It’s always one of those you have two choices things: joy or anger. Sure I didn’t get the original plan done, but I took care of stuff, had a little fun (sending texts of my muddy self to my family claiming I had a spa day 😂) and now I’ll be able to turn my water back on and I’ll still burn through my list in one way or other.

I’ve spent too much of my life getting upset and anxious over things truly not in my control. This was a choice and I chose joy. To be fair, there are the occasional random crap that happens that I come unglued and the probably easy solution to the problem escapes me and I don’t choose joy. I choose for a time to wallow in self pity. Maybe it’s the sunshine lately, but Life is too short to get so worked up over trivial things. I pray that I will continue to get better at rolling with life’s curveballs. Find your joy even in the crap storms. It makes all the difference.

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Just a girl and her fat blue healer taking a break.

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We are amped for summer around here.

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A day full of picking tansy and chopping down thistle as a family. The hubs isn’t a fan on being in front of the camera, but likes to snap the pictures for me.

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Why haven’t I been writing?

I’ve been pondering this question over and over for the last few months. Why haven’t I been writing?

Winter was brutal. On the farm and personally. A long winter and a severe lack of vitamin D took its toll on me this year. Every year, if I’m being honest. Which is really the point of this here homesteading blog. It’s not all sunshine and roses and cute animals. After the long winter was finally over, spring came and rose my spirits and brought the farm back to life....then I hurt my hip and even the simplest of farm chores became out of the question. The garden I had just planted was ravaged by birds and chickens and weeds as I watched from the window in the house as I toiled through physical therapy exercises. The garden didn’t make it.....well most of it any way. After weeks of physical therapy, my pain is gone and I’ve been working on the garden again, not allowing myself to throw in the towel. It’s looking better, slowly but surely.

So again, why haven’t I been writing? I think it’s because I felt like I failed this year....over and over and over again. What knowledge or helpful tidbits could I offer up after having such a rough go? But here I am again, plugging along and not quitting. That’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it? Not quitting. Not throwing in the towel when all you want to do is scream, sell everything and live in a bus with your family and travel the states. (I may have thought this one through before.) Getting yourself back outside and reviewing the perhaps dismal situation, changing plans, and rolling with it. Perseverance. Determination. Things that don’t always come easy after a long, hard winter.

So what is it that I have to offer up? My failures, my hardships, my determination, my successes. Whether they are helpful to you or not, they have all been part of my process of delving into the homestead life. They are what will continue to shape how this farm works, or doesn’t. They will determine what direction I adjust to and move forward with. What works? What doesn’t? What did? What no longer does? It’s all part of making this farm work for us. It’s all part of growing myself into something that works for this farm. Work hard, play hard, repeat. Start over. Learn. Grow. Fail. Succeed. Learn. Grow again. This homestead is not my life, I am so much more than just the farm, but I’m learning to enjoy the parts of me that are continually challenged to grow through this life. To enjoy the fruits of our labor, to be cliche. To enjoy the gratification of growing our own food and providing something from our soil to our family. To raise up our own meat. To raise our children with a fundamental understanding and appreciation for life, hard work, and fresh food.

So why haven’t I been writing? Because I felt like I had it all wrong, maybe I did. But maybe that’s what makes it all beautiful in the end. It’s okay for me to fail. As long as I get back up and try again....and again.

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Sure you’re cute….I’m still gonna eat you.

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Good Moooorning.

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

The Good:

Spring is here and we’ve had the most beautiful warm weather....finally. Ha! After weeks of incessant and seemingly endless rain, the sun made its grand debut. And boy, it really has been spectacular. Garden was tilled, a wood chip path around it completed, a plan, and then the planting. I was able to finish planting it today and I am so excited to have it done. I mostly direct sow the seeds so a)I hope it doesn’t frost again and b)I will anxiously wait over the next week to start seeing some green poke hopefully out of the ground!

We bought a new calf, he is feisty and crazy and we named him Buck, as he bucks constantly around the field any time he sees fit. He is a jersey angus cross, though I feel strongly that he is more jersey than we were led to believe. So far he is adjusting well and we look forward to adding another calf this coming weekend.

The chickens have been laying like champs and are loving the sun as much as I am.

We finally fixed the farm truck after it blew a head gasket in December. It runs perfectly and after working on that truck every free minute we had this winter, that is reward enough for us.

The Bad:

Pig lice. It is gross. They are huge. And tough to get rid of. I have been using DE (diatomaceous earth) to rid them of these nasties. I believe the lice was in some straw that we bought. It’s taken weeks to rid them of the lice, though the pigs aren’t itchy as the DE continually kills the lice ones as soon as they hatch.

The Ugly:

We lost a steer. Patches always looked a little sickly and after a long hard winter, now matter how much hay was on hand, he continued to lose weight and literally dropped one night. I nearly threw in the towel on this Homestead Life. Winter was brutal this year. We lost two of our young piglets as well to the elements after they attempted to sleep on the outside of their house....sigh....I decided to push harder and take all of this as learning opportunities. No one really talks about how the learning curve of raising farm animals isn’t always pleasant and is often mysterious and unclear....until it becomes painfully clear. Our other steer, Unihorn, shortly after started looking sick as well. After some research I think he had a parasite. I fed him DE on his hay for one week along with some liquid vitamins in his water and he bounced back to his old self after just a couple of days. I have noticed today that he is a little sluggish again, not bad, but enough for me to get a jump on the DE again. I will do a two week course this time as it must be a longer living parasite than the average 7 day cycle I read about.

With all of the craziness of the homestead, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly...I need to remind myself to really see how good we have it here. To see the numerous blessings that sprinkle their way through my life. To remind myself to fall in love with the land, the home, the animals, the reasons we’ve chosen to raise animals, the product we get from raising them. I don’t know that I could bring myself to buying beef from a store after having beef raised by our family. The taste is unparalleled. Sometimes it just takes a little sunshine, some dirt and accomplishing a few goals to bring all the positives back into the light.

I’m certain I’ve forgotten or left out many things in each category, but these were some big ones. The ones that continually come to the forefront of my mind.

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Someone needs all the belly scratches today.

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Give Me All the Bread

Sandwich Bread

I’ve decided to make our sandwich bread since I like making bread and it’s indeed less expensive to make it myself. The first few times I made it with just white flour, it was amazing but lacked on the health factor. I tried all whole wheat, but the bread was dense and crumbled too easily for sandwiches. I’ve tried a few different ratios of white flour and whole wheat and have settle on this version. I will be adding flax meal to it next week and figure out the appropriate ratios for all three then. For now, this bread is soft, holds together for a sandwich, makes fantastic toast, and makes me feel a little bit better about what I’m feeding the monsters.

Ingredients:

6 cups all purpose white flour

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 tsp salt

1.5 tbsp yeast

1/4 cup honey

3.5 cups warm water

Directions:

-Mix warm water and honey until honey is dissolved.

-Mix in the yeast and let sit for a few minutes until it starts to get foamy on top.

-In a large bowl, mix together the flour and salt.

-Once yeast has foamed, add to flour.

-Mix by hand until it forms a rough ball.

-Dump onto a floured surface and knead for 5-10 minutes.

-place in a well oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

-put in a warm draft free place (I use my oven) and let double in size

-punch down dough and dump onto work surface, divide into two and shape into loafs

-put dough into oiled bread pans, let double in size again, no need to cover at this point

-preheat oven to 375

-once bread has risen, place in oven and bake for 23-25 minutes

-take out and brush liberally with oil

-put back in for 5-10 minutes until a deep brown has occurred.

Let cool, take out of pans, cool further on a cooling rack and enjoy!

I enjoy making bread. It relaxes me and is a simple gesture I can do as a stay at home mama to make my family feel special. We all have our own thing we like to do, this is mine. If you do enjoy fresh bread, this one is pretty fantastic. My youngest is still at home during the days and has taken up helping me make the bread, all the bread. It’s a pretty awesome way to spend the morning. Bonus for our fam, my youngest had a stroke in utero and literally anything that encourages her to use her right side is a huge accomplishment and helps build that side up to function a little closer to normal.

Happy bread making!

[thathomesteadlife]

Winter is Here

At the tail end of winter, it finally hit. Snow, ice, stormy, windy, sunshine, rain, fog, and everything in between, often all in one day. It’s been a week filled with snow days and extra chores to help our critters stay happy, fed, watered and warm.

The kids:

Extra days home, playing in the snow, hot cocoa with mini marshmallows, card games and extra snuggles. It was a pretty fantastic week for my little monsters. Not too shabby for me either. I love being able to be home with them on these fun days. It makes the recent stomach bug epidemic that hit our home that wiped us all out one by one a distant memory, and allows all of us to take a breather from the daily grind.

The cows:

I had just moved them two weeks ago into the north field of our property. There was some significant new grass growth after a few weeks of warm weather. That field doesn’t have a large sheltering spot for them if the weather is too cold, but with the higher temps we weren’t concerned. Then the cold snap was forecasted, snow and ice on the way. So once again I moved them to the upper south field where we have a large row of very old growth junipers and ponderosa pines, there the cows can hunker down in the warm and dry undergrowth of the trees.

The pigs:

Bedding was checked regularly in their pig house and extra food and pellets given daily to help them get through the cold. Our little boy pigs aren’t growing very quickly and we knew that dry bedding and extra food would see them through.

The chickens:

They got some extra scratch and peck in the morning and some sunflower seeds on the afternoon. We still got plenty eggs from the ones who started laying again and they would find the sunny spots to warm their little bodies.

The goats:

They got some extra hay and frequently stole the chicken feed, cause their kind of jerks. Jerks that I love. What is it about goats that I find so endearing?! Thankfully they hadn’t started shedding their winter coat yet and have plenty of dry places to be during the storms.

The property:

No downed limbs and nothing frozen beyond reason. We placed a small heater in our pump house to keep the well running smoothly. It was gorgeous in the snow, but as it all melted every day, the mud is becoming unruly, as it tends to every year at this time. The farm truck is out of commission right now, but hopefully will be fixed soon so we can go pick up some hog fuel for the paths to and from the animals.

Overall, we made the most out of the craziness that is a pnw winter. It’s nice when thing work smoothly, when we prepare and plan and it actually works out! Really things on the farm often surprise me, but I am beyond thankful that this last week went off without a hitch. Now I’m more ready than ever for spring to come! Bring on the warm weather.

[thathomesteadlife]

Pigs Have Hair?

Over the last couple of weeks we have had a large number of cars pull to the side of the road, get out of their cars, and come pet our pigs through the fence. (Insert me shaking my head.) Just, why? What makes someone feel like they can impede traffic (there is no shoulder) come on to my property, and pet my pigs? It’s so strange to me. We even had a few people ask, which we appreciated, if they could come take pictures and pet them. Three things I’ve realized through this: My little agh/kune kune pigs are cute. A large portion of people don’t realize pigs have hair, or come in different colors. And just because it’s on your property, someone’s curiosity will win out over their respect of said property. None of these people meant any harm and were truly just curious. What they don’t realize is pigs will bite, because they’re pigs and want to make sure you aren’t food. They also don’t realize that when they push their arms through my fence, those sweet little pigs soon learn that they too can push through the fence and they really want to see what’s on the other side of the fence, or road, or neighbor’s field.

This week alone I’ve had to wrangle my pigs more times than I can count, usually in the pouring rain and embarrassingly enough, in my pajamas and muck boots. It was actually pretty funny. I’m certain I looked like a crazy lady calling her pigs with kissy noises and pleading with them and cursing them under my breath. My hair all a mess, getting rained on, ripped a hole in my pants from one of the many fences I hopped, a wild look of desperation in my eyes and 4 pigs following me along in my neighbor’s field...then again in the road. Once time allowed, I moved them to another field that we’ve used for the pigs before. With the rain for months, the ground had softened and they promptly found the weak spots in the fence. Off I’m chasing them again, luckily on my own property. But again in a huge storm of hail and wind. And again, me cursing them under my breath while I corral them and mend fence. And proceeding to slip down a hill in the mud and landing square on my butt. Haha, oh boy. What a week.

It’s times like these that I question why we do this. Why did we decide to be homesteaders? What made us decide this was a good idea? We had no idea what we were doing or really what we had gotten ourselves into. And that brings me full circle to the people stopping on the side of the road to pet our hairy pigs. Because so many people have no idea where food comes from or what it even looks like. They actually don’t believe our pigs are pigs. I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want our kids to grow up so removed from the world that they don’t know what a pig looks like. I want my kids to learn how to work hard. How to problem solve. How to push through when times are hard. How to be self sufficient. This Homestead Life is how we do that. Sometimes I need to remind myself of that. The times when I’m stuck in the storm and have to push through. It’s hard to see on the other side of your current predicament, but as a homesteader I think you have to keep your eye on the end game or you’d throw in the towel again and again.

And yes, pigs have hair.

[thathomesteadlife]

Back To Work

Sickness struck our home over Christmas and it has taken weeks to feel up to working hard outside. Finally, we have our energy back and the work is getting done. Winter, or the muddy season, is upon us and it is unusually warm this week. Windy, rainy, muddy. That pretty much sums up this time of year. The animals are all doing well and I noticed the pigs are putting on weight. The chickens still scavenge for everything and have even started laying eggs again. The cows seem a bit put out having to actually work to get their food, so we started giving them some hay to supplement. The goats are their usual happy selves and always look so fluffy and cute with their thick winter coats on.

We have been very fortunate to come into a bunch of wood through Allen’s father. I’m hoping to get it all chopped and stacked throughout this winter and early spring. On the to-do projects list is a wood shed to store it all. Assuming we get all that accomplished, letting it dry through the summer and fall will be perfect and set us up nicely for the following winter.

This past weekend was yet another clean up day. It’s amazing what the animals can do to the shop yard along with the winter wind storms. Not just the animals, the children too. Good gravy they make a mess out of, well, everything. We all bundled up and braved the rain and wind this weekend to get it all cleaned up. Granted, none of us really wanted to. Every time we put it off and when we get out there working hard and getting things done, it feels so great and we wonder why we didn’t get out there sooner.

Yesterday I finally had all my energy back and got out to chop wood. There is something insanely rewarding about chopping wood and I hope it’s a skill I never stop using. Allen taught me how to do it this past summer and I am thrilled to know how. Getting outside on the homestead somedays is all it takes to brighten my mood. The days are short this time of year and the sun rarely makes an appearance. As much as I’d rather be in the woods than in the house, my littlest monster gets pretty cold, pretty fast on rainy days, and maybe I do too. And I suppose the housework needs done any way. As the temps keep rising outside, I have a feeling I’ll be outside a lot more often gearing up for spring. We have big garden plans this year and a substantial amount of work needs done to prep the area.

We made a new to-do list this weekend and for probably the first time, it wasn’t daunting. It’s all very manageable. Not just manageable, kind of exciting. We’re finally, after 3 years, getting to a place where we are no longer creating new systems and new projects fill the list, it’s mostly maintenance. Maintenance is my comfort zone. Maintenance is where I thrive. It’s predictable. It’s always something we’ve done before and have grown comfortable with. It’s something we have a realistic plan for with accurate time requirements. It allows for us to mix in work and play and leaves the stress out of it. Assuming we remember to work and not just play. That’s the hard part. I love the little life we have here. The things we are learning, teaching our kiddos, experiencing together. But I also love to play. We all do. My family is pretty rad and we have some pretty rad friends too, who we like to spend time with, regularly. Balance is the name of the game this year. Balancing work and play so we do not overwhelm ourselves with endless work days, or transversely get so far behind with ample days of fun. We have a better grasp this year of how to manage it all. I feel confident that this year will be a great year here on the homestead.

[thathomesteadlife]

I’d bake that.

English Muffins and English Muffin Bread

5 1/2 cups warm water

6 3/4 tsp yeast

2 Tbsp salt

3 Tbsp honey or sugar

11 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

Add honey or sugar to warm water, mix until dissolved. Add in yeast and set aside for 5 minutes or so until yeast blooms/foams. In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients. Make a Well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix well until forms a rough ball. Turn out onto floured work surface and knead for a few minutes. This is a very wet dough so all you are really doing is getting it into a manageable ball, it will be quite sticky and that’s okay! Let rise until double in size. 1-2 hrs depending on how warm the room is or if you utilize the warm oven trick I mentioned in my pretzel post.

Punch down the dough and turn out onto your well floured work surface. From here you can go a couple different ways. I typically divide dough into 4 equal parts. 2 I place into two well oiled bread pans to rise again. The other two portions I roll out until 1/4-1/2 into thick. Use a jar to make rounds like biscuits. (You’ll need ample flour to work with as this dough is very sticky) place cut rounds on parchment paper. Cover and let rise again. You can easily just do four loaves or all English muffins or any combination thereof.

Once dough has risen the second time bake your bread in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes. It will be crispy on the outside, and beautifully golden brown.

For the muffins you’ll need a cast iron or something heavy bottomed. Turn on to low-medium/low heat, dust bottoms of pan with corn meal. Cook English muffins 3-4 minutes on each side, they will become browned on each side. Place on cooling rack. You’ll want to have plenty of room in the pan to be able to flip the muffins, I typically can place four in a pan at a time or I use my large cast iron skillet.

These muffins and English muffin bread are incredibly soft and delicious. With the wet dough it really takes practice to make the muffins look nice, I’m still getting there, but from trial one, they’ve tasted amazing and you get yourself some amazing homemade English muffins!

I hope the holidays treated you all well and you were able to enjoy your friends and family to the fullest. Now that we’ve spent ample time relaxing and playing and enjoying game time and Christmas break, it’s back to the grind for our little homestead.

[thathomesteadlife]

Well, Well, Well

Well....it’s Christmas break for the monsters. I am, in all honesty, so excited to have them home. Their sweet faces and contagious joy are exactly what my mama heart needed. Of course all that joyous time is sprinkled with sibling fighting and general naughtiness, but the overall attitude and mood is really just joy. It’s joy because they are home. Joy because they got to help me finish getting gifts for our friends and family. Joy because I’ve made an effort to have more fun time into their break from school. Joy because they are children....and it’s Christmas time. They are learning how to be gracious and kind in their gift giving. To really look into someone else’s self and see what they would enjoy most, not just what their little hearts would enjoy. It’s been beautiful to watch and reminds me how to get back into the basics; be thoughtful, be kind, be gracious. I let them wrap the gifts they picked out for each other this year. As a person who loves wrapping presents and making them look just so, it was a little painful to watch. But they were so excited and worked so hard. As maybe you could imagine, letting four tiny humans have free reign over the wrapping paper, tape and bows started out as the most adorable and fun thing ever....and eventually transitioned into chaos and fighting over said bows. In the end, all the presents were wrapped and placed haphazardly under the tree and their little faces were lit up with the biggest smiles and sly smirks as they assured each other they’d love the gifts they got them. Memories. That’s what this was. Memories for me, watching them build skills and work together and smile and laugh. Memories for them about the first time Mom let them go crazy and wrap the presents. Life isn’t just a series of chores and to-dos until you die. It’s my delight as their mama to give them memories worth having and sharing. Memories, I hope, they will one day talk about amongst themselves and laugh at and cherish.

Well... the to-dos and chores are still there and still need done. In an effort to continue the play time as much as possible, I have made the kiddos help and pitch in for a couple hours a day. It frees me up to play more and reminds them that they are a part of this household too. It seems to me that the school aged kiddos think that because it’s their vacation, they shouldn’t need to do chores. They are wrong. So very wrong. Ha. Today we will all put in a little extra elbow grease in our chores so that by Friday we won’t have any chores or to-dos left until after Christmas.

Well.... our well is having issues. Something with the pump or the pressure tank or somewhere in between. I spent a good part of yesterday pouring over manuals and researching what I could online. My husband and I work hard to fix things ourselves, but this issue may indeed require an expert. In a house of 6 humans, water pressure is sort of a big deal. Never a dull moment here. Always some random thing to fix or improve, especially when we are already busy with other things. I imagine that is just how adulthood goes, that’s how it’s always gone for us. I don’t mind really, well mostly I don’t mind. It stresses me out, a lot. This morning I got up early and hit the stationary bike for a while to burn off the stress and crazy of the previous day. It’s amazing what that can do for your outlook. So with a clear head and a soothed heart, I will get off of here and get going on some more research and the rest of today’s to-dos. Merry Christmas everyone!!!