homestead update #22

Hello there friends! Here we are with another weekly update. Last week was so busy and so, so good. I’ll try to keep it brief!

Chickens

First up is our egg count! I collected 37 eggs from 7/19-7/25/2021. The chickens are doing really, really well. They’ve been spending a lot of time free ranging. Baby is definitely on the verge of laying eggs. She is in the nest box as I write this. So we’ll know soon if she’s actually laying eggs. I saw the eggs that have already been laid today. So if there is a new chocolate egg or an olive egg then we’ll know for sure!

Buddy is such a good boy. He was laying in another nest box making supportive noises for her. But he’s also a beast! He’s trying to assert his authority with some of the male clients so his free range days will be limited when we have customers. I presume this is normal behavior for a teenage rooster. It’s been so long since I’ve had a teenage rooster that I don’t remember. And I certainly haven’t had a rooster at the fly fishing homestead with so many people around. I’ll keep my eye on him and see what happens. It would be a shame if he didn’t work out. He’s such a good boy and so pretty. But we can’t have an aggressive rooster. Otherwise all the chickens are doing just fine.

Garden

the garden! Friends! The garden. Did I start last week’s update just this same way? The garden is so much better than I could have ever imagined. It brings a smile to my face every time I see it. Last week I said I thought everything was ‘stuck’ and not growing, but I’ve been keeping an eye on it and I actually think it’s doing better than I thought. I did manage to get a cardboard ‘weed’ barrier down and then really mulched with straw. I had intended to lay down another really good layer of straw anyway, but the weeds got out of control so I needed to either pull them all up or put down some sort of barrier. So I did that and then mulched like crazy! It looks so good and I think the plants are definitely happier. I’m also using an organic fertilizer to help them out too. I’m also spending some time pruning the tomatoes. They need it and apparently they really like to be pruned. Just ask Steph!

So I’ve started harvesting a few things here and there. The volunteer plants are all doing well, of course. Hehehe. I just harvested some zucchini and there’s definitely pumpkins and acorn squash growing as well. Anyway, I’m really excited with all the growth happening in the garden.

In other gardening related news, I met some girlfriends for blueberry picking yesterday. We have a place near us that has wild blueberries and normally they charge money for it, but when we got there yesterday they had a sign up that said ‘free picking’!! We all picked about a half gallon each. I’ll try to make it back this week for more since the season is ending very quickly this year. I also did a thing over on Instagram where I asked what blueberry recipe everyone wanted. So I’ll do the same here. What blueberry thing would you like for me to make and then post the recipe for?

Business End of Things

Business is good. Things have been very busy with Chicken Librarian. I even took the chickens on the road last week! I taught a ‘Certified Chicken Keeping’ class for kids at the library in Port Jervis. Then on Saturday I had a fun group of ladies at the North Branch Inn where we made hand pies! It was a good week of classes. The chickens did really well being out and about. I took Sassy and Gracie. They just kind of hung out in their crate and didn’t mind the kids running around. I’m so proud of them. They get extra meal worms for all their hard work!

I’m still planning some fun things for this fall. And I have my ‘on the homestead’ classes coming up fast. So check back for details. You can always find information about my upcoming classes and events here. And check the shop for details on the classes here on the homestead.

Oh! And thanks to Dani, I ordered a wireless mobile adapter for my Nikon camera! I can’t wait to get it and use it. I think it’s going to make my life a lot easier. Also, someone told me about bluetooth remotes for your phone for when I do videos. And! And friends, I was able to download my pictures from the iCloud. I think it was my internet connection. Whew! So I took a bunch of photos off my iPad. I have a whole system for downloading and editing and then uploading (and offloading…that’s a lot of loading!) my pictures and try not to let them pile up but I’ve been in the middle of so many different projects using those pictures that I’ve just kept them on my iPad. But now my iPad is not happy with me. Nor is my iCloud account. But I’ll get it taken care of this week.

The Rest of the Story

As for the rest of the story, there was a lot going on last week. We picked up the kayak and the Mister’s canoe a couple of weeks ago which I told you about last week, but what I didn’t tell you about was the cast iron pans we brought back to the homestead. I need to clean them up and season them, but that one pot with the lid? It’s going to be great for stews this winter! I can’t wait!

I also picked the rest of the ground beef that we’ll need for the next year. And I ordered some chicken (80 pounds to be exact). I’ll pick it up this week and that will fill the freezers with all the meat we’ll (hopefully) need for the rest of the year. Speaking of freezers. We’re getting the rest of our big stuff from storage this week. Stay tuned for details on that next week. Our upright freezer, our washer and dryer, my grandparent’s stereo. I can’t wait.

We had some visitors to the homestead this week! Some ponies from a neighboring farm keep breaking out and making their way here. They were here for a couple of days and then disappeared. We presume they made their way home, but we haven’t heard.

There were also a couple of date nights with some friends. I know my friends will say it wasn’t date night, but it was! Haha. We went to a new-to-us restaurant for BBQ and pizza. The next date night was with two other couples and we tried going to a new restaurant but they were closed so we ended up at a tried-and-true place that we haven’t been to in a long time. Oh! And we sat around the fire pit visiting with our neighbors until the wee hours of the night. That was fun. I was totally wrecked the next day though. This girl has an early bedtime so staying up until midnight is late. haha.

In other news, I finally got the house cleaned and picked up but, of course, now it’s a disaster zone again, especially with getting our appliances and big pieces of furniture out of storage. Oh well. It won’t take me long to whip it all back into shape!