Catching Up

It's almost been a year since my last post and although it truly feels as though 2017 just began, we are already almost all of the way through it and so much has happened... not just in my little corner of existence, but in the world. Without getting into politics or our ever unraveling society, I will just say that that exact topic is what has kept me from doing any updates. I've found it difficult to sit down and write about things that are really minuscule and meaningless compared to the bigger problems of the world. If you could see the "Drafts" section of my blog, you would see that, since my last real post, I had actually begun writing four other posts. Sometimes I come up with something to write about but then I usually decide its not really relevant to the theme of my blog and give up on it. But I am reminding myself that I started this blog as online journal, to record our little journey and so here I am, starting yet another post... hoping it turns into something relevant for my blog! 

So spring... spring this year was WET... like the wettest on record for our area. It gave our garden a boost... our beds have already seen another round of lettuce that came (bolted) and went. Those onions we planted in the fall, went dormant for the winter and then went crazy once the sun came back out... we harvested them recently and have consumed almost all of them. We planted carrots, beets and cucumber from seed this year they all did great but we struggled in the way of squash and tomatoes. But we are learning a lot with each season of gardening here in Somerset and I'm thinking that 2018 is going to be the year of expansion! Until then, though, we might throw in a winter garden with some greens to hold us over!

After our crazy wet Spring, we had a crazy hot Summer. It was rough not having an air conditioner (per the usual) so we spent a lot of time at our local river and outside. Our annual friend camping trip was nice, as we got a break from the heat up at Stumpy Meadows Reservoir, and even got a bit of rain (Seems like our friends camping trip is always in line with some weird summer weather!) It was extra fun having with the babies of the group now actually toddlers and able to enjoy the great outdoors... so yeah, here are a ton of pictures of kids who aren't my kids!!

And back to the homestead! Our goat update is a bummer, Willow never got pregnant, just fat (or as our breeder calls it, well maintained, haha!). We are going to try again soon, but in all honesty, we've had other animals to keep us busy lately and baby goats would definitely have added to the chaos!

And yes, since January we have added chickens and pigs to the homestead! Long story short, having five baby chickens in our house for weeks was, plainly put, disgusting. I couldn't wait to have them outside! But now that they are normal chickens, I love having them... they are easy, cheap and currently the only animals giving us an output. We are currently getting three to four eggs a day, which is more than plenty for just us two! One of the chickens, Cinnamon, turned out to be a rooster and was promptly renamed "Cinna-man". Cinnaman is a beauty and loves taking care of his hens but has started to become slightly aggressive towards us recently, so we are going to have to start training him up a bit... show him whose boss! Otherwise, the chicken journey is something I wish we has started a long time ago. We built their coop inside the goat pen and we let them out every day to hunt worms, beetles and flying things... they get along great with the goats and they help to turn the giant pile of goat poo/old hay...  so, like I said, they are really doing their share!

Now, for the pigs! We had talked about getting pigs many times before, but when Spring came, the decision to purchase them was swift. Ultimately, my decision to finally get pigs was based of a stronger desire to raise our own meat and good timing. We had a perfect, shady, area for them near the goats and we built them a house entirely out of materials we already had. We purchased 2 females for ourselves and had a friend buy a male that would stay with us. So far, having pigs has been great... they are super smart, affectionate animals and within a few days, I already knew it was going to be a difficult thing to harvest them. They are very social, they love when we come out to feed them and scratch on them and you can watch them forever, they are so funny! They eat a TON of food, and its not cheap, so we are excited to compare cost of raising them to amount of sustenance we get out of them. My heart aches a little every time I think about them being on my plate one day, but the ache is something I think necessary. I sought for a real understanding and appreciation for where my meat is coming from and I'm definitely getting it! We plan on harvesting the pigs at the end of this month.

So yeah, a lot has happened in 2017, which is probably why it feels like the year has flown by. This month is going to be a busy one for us, we are working on remodeling the spare room in our garage, not to mention all of the chores we need to get done to prepare for the winter... getting wood stocked up, harvesting our piggies and before we know it, Christmas will be upon us yet again! So until then, bloggies.