Whew! Friends! Where does the time go? I’ve been spending most of my time lately in the garden. But now that that’s finished, I will have more time for other activities. I mean, the garden will definitely keep me busy, but I want to really start focusing on these things that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. And I’m ready!! But before we get into all that, let’s round up the past couple of weeks (or what I can remember of it anyway. haha).

Eggs

First up is eggs. Always, always eggs. For the week of 5/31-6/6/2021, I collected 42 eggs. And for 6/7-6/13/2021, I collected 39 eggs. Other than that, the chickens are doing really well. They haven’t been able to free range as much since we’ve had a lot of people and dogs around, but this coming week looks pretty quiet so they’ll get some time to be free birds!

In other chicken keeping news, I’ve put the chicken coop and run expansion back on the to-do list. We have a few more things to get done and then I can check it off completely! I have an updated list below, but basically it involves putting the metal roof on, finishing the barn quilt, and cutting another window. The end is in sight and I’m really excited to see it come together!

Garden

Oh boy! The garden. is. done. Well, mostly done. I do have a couple of little tasks left to tidy up (see the updated to-do list below). I won’t spend much time discussing the garden. You can see my complete update here. I will say that I spent time with my friend Diane yesterday (she of the ‘we need more plants’ friend) and guess what? We bought more plants. HAHA! Snapdragons and zinnias. I couldn’t resist. They were on sale too and you know how I like a good sale. Anyway, that’s the only garden update I have for you today. Oh. Wait! I need to mention that I finished the front flower beds! I think I mentioned it in my gardening round up post, but it bears repeating. I finished mulching, planting, and laying down landscape fabric and a rock border. Well, who am I kidding. I will never be finished planting. But it’s all set for now. hehe.

The Business End of Things

Things have slowed down a lot over the past two weeks and I’m not completely sad about it. I find that I do my best thinking and recreating when I have time to actually sit and think. And I’ve made some decisions on the future of my business. All good things. Another refocusing, if you will. I’ll explain in greater details at a later date. It’s really nothing earth shattering, but it makes sense to me and I’m surprised I haven’t thought of it before now. It’s a basically ‘tightening’ up of things and focusing on more localized programming. I’ve always dreamt of running classes on my homestead, but things have taken me away (all good things…classes, festivals, events, etc. etc.) but I want to start focusing on bringing people onto the homestead. I’m really happy and proud of the work I’ve put into the place this past year and I want to show others how it can be done. Anyway, that’s my current thought. I’ll still go out and about. I will always go out and about, but it’s about bringing things home for the next phase of Chicken Librarian.

In other news, I was just on the Evening Tickler program at a local radio station. Well. I guess it’s kind of local. It took me about an hour to get to the station but it was a beautiful trip around the Pepacton reservoir. But it’s a wonderful little community radio station. I had lots of fun and hope to make it back there soon. I’m still writing articles for the River Reporter (the next one comes out soon). I’m still at North Branch Inn. I just had a lovely meeting with the property manager there and we’re gearing up for some very exciting things.

Anyway. I’m excited about the future. I’m excited to have some down time to play around with some things and really dive back into all things homesteading. I just ordered a new cheese fridge so there will be lots of cheesemaking in my future (the old cheese fridge was my dorm fridge from college. It still works, but it has some kind of mold on the gasket around the door that I can’t seem to get off. And that’s not good for aging cheese in). I can go back to doing hard cheeses: parmesan, cheddars. Those kinds of cheeses. Then maybe I’ll take my cheesemaking to the next level and dive into mold cheeses and other hard cheeses that I haven’t tried before. The sky’s the limit friends.

So stay tuned for lots and lots more details about events on and off the homestead. I learned a lot this past couple of weeks and I’m ready for the next step! Before I move on, let me take a second to tell you about the needlepoint above. My friend Victoria, of Belmead Designs, designs the most beautiful needlepoints. She hand paints each canvas! Friends. You must check her out. She surprised me with this needlepoint canvas of one of the room keys here at the fishing lodge. I know what I’m doing this winter!!

The Rest of the Story

As for the rest of the story, the biggest thing I have to share is that I’ve been doing some major stockpiling. As you probably know, if you’ve followed along with me for any length of time, this is the time of year where we start looking at replenishing food (meat, spices, veg, canned goods, etc. etc.). We have a pig in the freezer and half of the ground beef that we’ll need for the year. We aren’t eating a lot of venison this time of the year and I don’t think we’ve even started eating last year’s deer at all. The garden is planted with hopes of high yields for the canner and freezer. I just ordered more pint and quart mason jars. I feel like we’re short on them so I ordered three cases of each.

Years ago I used to have a membership to Sam’s Club but let it lapse. I wasn’t shopping there as often so it didn’t make sense to continue the membership but the Mister needed a refrigerator for the guests of the fishing lodge and we found one at Sam’s Club. So he bought a membership and I figured since we have it I might as well use it. I tend to do two big stockpile runs per year-one in the spring and then again in the fall. I need to get better at taking pictures, but y’all. You should have seen me at Sam’s Club. You would have thought I hadn’t been shopping in years. And, honestly, I guess I haven’t. Not since before COVID last March. Anyway, I got everything I needed to replenish, with the exception of flour and butter. I thought the butter was a little pricey, but I’m going to do some cost comparisons to figure it out. I also got three rubber totes to store all my chicken and gardening stuff in (I need to do a pool house organization day and needed totes to store stuff in). I also got more bags of charcoal since this is just the beginning of cook out season and we’ve been grilling most of our dinners and eating out front. That’s been nice.

Anyway, stockpiling. It really helps me feel more secure knowing that all I have to do is go to the freezer or pantry and grab the ingredients that I need for most things. I made dinner a couple of weeks ago for all the guides and I didn’t have to run to the store for a single thing. That was nice. I also did a big Amazon order. I find that if I just keep a list of things or add things to my cart or make a ‘wishlist’ then I don’t shop as much. I take things out of my cart after taking the time to think about it. It kind of gives me satisfaction of just pretending to shop. The same with Poshmark. I like lots and lots of things so I can keep track of things I like or things I think are cute, but I rarely buy anything. I do like to go back and look at my ‘likes’ and I’ll share things so that other people can see the things (and hopefully help that ‘posher’ make a sale), but I will only buy something if it’s something that I’ve been looking for for a really long time.

Geez. That was quiet the twist and turn there! Haha. Back to stockpililng…one of my favorite subjects. Chicken prices have gone through the roof. I don’t think we’re going to add any chicken to the freezer for the foreseeable future. And we won’t raise meat birds because of the illness that ran through the flock (or ran through Winnie anyway). I would have to keep the birds completely separate from the egg layers and that add a whole other layer to raising chickens that I’m not prepared to tackle at the moment. So. No chicken stockpiling for the moment. If worse comes to worse, I’ll hatch out so eggs once Buddy gets big enough to perform his duties. And then we can butcher those birds for the freezer. There’s always options.

In other news, I think this season of my life is teaching me to be quiet. To spend time alone. And to be okay with that. I mean, I have the Mister, but I’ve never been a collector of friends. I usually have one or two close friends. Mostly just one. We come in and out of each other’s lives through the years. But as I’m getting older and really focusing on my business and my homestead, I’m realizing that it’s okay to just be by yourself. Go do things by yourself. This has always been hardest for me. And I really enjoy the company of those close friends, but I also have to realize that it’s okay to just go do that ‘thing’ by yourself. Or to just hang on the homestead with the Mister, the cats, the dog, and the chickens. And whoever else happens by. Speaking of. Anna Lee has really matured this year. She’s been spending more and more time outside with us when we’re eating dinner. Or when I’m in the garden (as long as it’s not one of those blazing hot days. Those days she stays inside where it’s cool). I’m really enjoying this time with her. Her BFF, Cori the Corgi, went home for the season and I know she misses her, but I also like that we have more time with Anna now.

Speaking of going home for the season, most of the guides will scatter this week. They’ve started scattering slowly, but this week draws to the end the busy, early season. And that means that I get my house back. I’ll get to move my office and craft room back downstairs. The kitties will get their bathroom back. And I’ll get my bathroom back. We’ll be able to finish setting up the commercial kitchen so I can really start focusing on running classes there. I won’t be displaced anymore! I’m so excited. I’ll get to clean and organize the house for the summer. Oh. Joys. This season was tough. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but friends. It was hard. I’m ready to settle back into my space and start looking to the future.

In other, yummy, news, there’s been lots and lots of ice cream eating. I really need to make more ice cream and put it in the freezer, but it’s so hard to resist when you’ve just been on a stockpiling run and you pass an ice cream stand. Or you pick 27 pounds of strawberries and you must eat ice cream in order to recover. That’s right. My friend Diane and I went to pick strawberries yesterday and I kept telling her that I needed to pick a lot of berries for the freezer. I just didn’t realize that it would be 27 pounds! Haha. Stay tuned for more about those berries!!

So. That brings me back to updating the to-do list. I’ve been able to mark a lot of things off the list but I also have lots of things to add to the list. I think it’s all doable and we’re not on a timeline for most things so there’s no real pressure to get things done quickly. Just keep working through the list and time and money allows.

The List:
1. garden: plant garden and flowers, finish putting rocks around sage, hostas, currants, asparagus, and horseradish
2. make soap
3. make mozzarella for the freezer. Set up cheese fridge, make cheese for aging (parmesan, cheddar and then go from there).
4. chicken coop expansion: put metal roof on run;; install curtains, move nesting boxes, hang waterer in run, cut second window in back of coop, finish barn quilt, install barn quilt, put up barrier around base of run to keep shavings inside.
5. make and dry pasta
6. do something with cherries
7. process strawberries
8. plant more bulbs in the flowerbed along the back porch, define the flower bed
9. finish installing gutters along front flower bed
10. clean and organize the pool house
11. Finish commercial kitchen makeover.

that’s it friends. I’m really happy and feeling good these days. I’ve been continuing to exercise and be mindful about my health-physical, mental well-being. This time of slowing down and getting things done has been really really good. I hope you are doing well.

’til next time
-k
xoxo