Category: Around the Homestead

Around the Homestead, Social

Grandma’s 80th Birthday…

Gretchen

We had an eventful weekend.  It was my Grandma’s 80th birthday party so we had lots of family in town.  Thursday, Randy and I went up to Grandma’s to see my aunt, cousin, and her daughter.  Randy and I were really close to all of them when we lived in South Carolina.  We miss them so much, but neither is willing to move closer to the other just yet.

Friday night more and more people started making their way to town and out to Grandma’s house.  We had a potluck dinner with tons of food and great conversation. 

And plenty of kids to entertain one another.

Saturday, Randy and I worked hard around the house trying to get a few things done, got cleaned up late afternoon, and headed back up to Grandma’s.  The adults were going out to dinner and all of us cousins were going to order pizza and hang out to watch the KU/UNC game.  The adults got home in time for the game, so it was a packed house for the big game.

My Grandma does a grab bag once a year with things she has collected along the way.  These hats are out of the collection.  My cousin and I ALWAYS have a fun time together.  Humor tends to bounce back and forth off of us and back to the other.  Sometimes others find it funny, sometimes I think they find us annoying, but we have so much fun either way.

Notice the red lip?  I got popped in the face by a three year old that morning. 

Sunday morning was church, family pictures, and lunch with everyone.  Then we all loaded up and headed to the Country Club for Grandma’s birthday.  There were over 100 people there for cake, punch, and conversation.  Other than a pretty strong wind the weather was beautiful for the entire weekend.

Here are my two cousins, Mindie & Ali.  Ali looks a little different without her stylin’ hat.

Sunday evening most had headed home.  A few of us rode 3-wheelers, 4-wheelers, and hiked down to a pond on Grandma’s property.  It was so peaceful and the two “city” boys from Georgia enjoyed being able to run and play and explore a whole new world.

Monday was a dreary, rainy day.  I got up early and was out putting up electric netting at 6:30 in the morning, so I would be done by the time everyone else was up and at ‘em.  I went to Grandma’s and chatted with my aunt, cousin, and grandma for the morning.  My cousin and I finally got to sneak away for a trip to town and got to visit a bit.  Her and I share secrets with each other and have a wonderful relationship.  If only we were closer.  We share many of the same ideas on how to raise children, homeschooling, and just life in general.  I will really miss her and her mom (they fly home today).

The kids got to hold our baby chicks, feed bottle lambs at mom and dad’s, and see their donkey and our llama.  Life was good for the little ones.

One of my cousins has two little boys.  They were well mannered and just and sweet as they could be.  I could sit for hours and watch her interact with her children and admire the bond they have and the wonderful job she has done as a mother.  Her efforts were very much noticeable and noted by all.

It was an incredible weekend and so much fun to have all of us together again!

Around the Homestead

I’ll try to catch you up…

Gretchen

I’m getting really terrible about blogging.  I tell myself I’m going to do better and the next thing I know a week (or two or three) has passed.

The visit from Randy’s mom and fiance went really well.  They weren’t here for long, but it was nice seeing her and meeting him.  You know I was worried about the whole menu thing.  So, I cooked pretty much like I normally would and received a nice complement.  Jeff (fiance) told me the one thing about vacations he never liked was eating food you don’t normally eat, so you never feel quite right.  He said it was great at our house because he was eating good food he would normally eat at home and felt great.  Yea, that is the best complement I could have gotten the whole weekend.  We drank raw milk, ate homemade mozaarella, homegrown eggs, and lots of organic veggies and fruits, and they couldn’t have been happier.

We have a sick ewe lamb at home.  She’s almost two months old and we are at a loss for what’s wrong with her.  Dad came over last night to look her over and is checking on her today.  We did so well not losing any during lambing season it will be terrible to lose one now (especially a ewe). 

We got our baby chicks last night, twenty-five Rhode Island Reds.  Dad walked in to see them and asked, “are they laying any eggs yet.”  Ha, ha, he’s so funny!  They are really cute.  I took pictures, but I think I left my camera in the car.  Oops!  Just take my word for it, they’re cute.

Today is the day my family from all over the country will start filing in for my Grandma’s 80th birthday party.  It’s going to be so much fun.  It is going to be a weekend long event and Saturday night the adults are taking Grandma out for dinner leaving all of us cousins at Grandma’s to watch the KU/UNC game and visit.  Some of the family is from NC, so we are going to have a divided household.  Rock, Chalk, Jayhawks!

I was also supposed to go plant some flowers at a friend of our’s on my way home from work.  She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, it has spread, and not good.  She loves flowers and always has such a beautiful yard.  There’s a good chance it will be raining, so I think Randy is going to take off work tomorrow and go over and help me or do whatever they need done to help around their farm.  She is such a kind-hearted, happy person.  Pray for her and her family.

Tonight I’m hoping to make homemade pizza and roast a chicken for sandwiches since I didn’t have time to actually roast it for a nice dinner.  I’m in charge of cole slaw and a couple of appetizers for the weekend, so those will have to be made also.

Tomorrow chicken broth will be going in the crockpot and hopefully Coconut Chicken Soup (NT) to follow.  I’m hoping to nip the allergies in the bud before they take over.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Around the Homestead, Gardening, Homemaking, In The Kitchen

Lots to do and company coming…

Gretchen

We have been really busy around our homestead the past couple of weeks/months. 

Garden:

We are putting the garden in and some of the things are getting off to a late start due to a lack of fencing.  We needed to fence our free-range chickens out of the garden, but instead they are on a short break from their free-range status until we can get fencing around the garden.

So far we have potatoes, onion, peas, greens, beets, radishes, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower planted in the garden.

Randy borrowed a roto-tiller from our neighbors and was tilling the garden (and before you say anything I don’t like deep tilling the garden and suggested not turning the soil anymore than necessary).  Eh hem, so he was roto-tilling the garden and the engine locked up, piston broke, etc.  $150-$200 and a few hours of labor later the roto-tiller should be purring like a kitten again.

Yard work:

I managed to get the fruit trees sprayed with an organic dormant oil spray from Gardens Alive.  It has to stay above 45 degrees for 24 hours in order for the spray to work.  Sadly, yesterday was about the first calm day with a predicted low above 45.

Pasture:

Dad came down with the tractor and disk and worked up a bottom area of our pasture that seemed to only grow poke, devil’s claws, stickers, and cheat.  Yesterday evening, I headed down there with a big bucket of turnip seeds and my little lawn fertilizer spreader to throw some turnip seed around.  The plan is to have turnips for the sheep to eat soon and follow up by planting grass.  We’re a little late, but that’s kind of our theme this season.  I have no idea how many seeds got thrown, where they got thrown for sure, if they will come up, and what it will look like if they do, but it is done and we got a tiny bit of moisture last night and today to help the little guys grow.

Tonight we will be docking tails and doctoring sheep.  Luckily a friend of Randy’s and my Dad will be there to help.  They will also start an hour before I get home, so hopefully they have it covered by the time I get home from work.  Randy’s mom and fiancé are visiting this weekend, so I have plenty of tidying up to do before they get here.

I know we eat differently than a lot of people, so I always panic when we have company and meals will have to be prepared.  I don’t want to freak anyone out with the meals we eat, but I also don’t want to completely change who we are for someone.  So, I will make some slight compromises which some are more of a convenience for me anyway (i.e. store bought tortillas). 

We will probably go out to eat once or twice.  His mom can’t sit still for long and insists on going “shopping” a lot.

Otherwise, on the menu:

Dinner:

*Fajitas (venison, shhh!) with homemade salsa, homemade yogurt, store bought ww tortillas (compromise/convenience), and homemade Spanish rice

*Roasted Chicken (raised on our farm) with baked potatoes, veggie, and homemade bread

Breakfast: 

*I hope to make ww pancakes one morning while they are here and maybe kefir smoothies another morning if anyone is feeling daring.

Snacks: 

*Organic raw veggies (carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and celery) and homemade Ranch dressing

*Organic apples with organic peanut butter

*Organic bananas

*And possibly no-bake cookies if I’m feeling froggy!  I know they aren’t healthy, but man are they tasty.

We are supplementing a bottle lamb right now, so it will be fun for his mom to get to feed the little cutie.  Our blue heeler, Ash, can always squeeze in a game of fetch.  And our cat, Spooky, can always stand to be held and loved on.

I’ll try to take some pictures over the weekend, so I have some more interesting posts next week.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Around the Homestead, In The Kitchen

Easter and Springtime…

Gretchen

Things are busy, busy here on our little chunk of the globe.  We celebrated Easter with family and lots of wonderful food.  We have Randy’s family coming in this weekend, so there is lots of housekeeping and food preparations to get finished up before they arrive.  Hopefully the weather is nice, but they are already calling for rain here on Saturday.  The rain will be good for the pastures and we need pastures desperately right now.

Chas has a Giveaway!  So go check it out.  She has a wonderful blog and the giveaway is great too!

So far I only have potatoes and onions planted.  My peas didn’t come up and our garden isn’t fenced yet, so our free range chickens will eat the seeds if I plant them.  Hopefully this weekend I will get the majority of my seeds planted. 

I know it’s late, but this is a wonderful recipe for Blarney Stones for those of you intrested in some fun Irish food.  One recommendation is to use salted peanuts.  I made half with raw unsalted peanuts and the other half with regular salted peanuts and they were MUCH better.

Have a wonderful day!

Animals, Around the Homestead

Done lambing…woohoo & Grandma’s surgery

Gretchen

It’s just another one of those days here at work.  My co-worker is on vacation so I am all alone today. 

We are officially done lambing.  It ended with a bang, of course.  Our favorite lamb, Ma, had a major ordeal delivering her single ewe lamb.  I’ll spare you the details, but we are doctoring mama and baby and praying to avoid infection for the mama and pneumonia for the baby.  Things are looking good so far, so hopefully we have a completely happy ending.  So, it is safe to say this now without having to “knock on wood,” not including our aborted/miscarried baby lamb that started off our lambing season, we had no fatalities this season.  Any of you who raise livestock will appreciate this.  We had 18 ewes lamb this year and have 26 babies to show for it.  We didn’t have the highest percentage ever, but we are grateful for the healthy babies we have.  Two have already been sold and one is spoken for, so we are pleased.

In other news my Grandma had surgery to have her gall bladder removed and is doing really well.  Randy brought her home yesterday afternoon and said she looked really well. 

We have decided to buy her car from her since she is buying a new car.  With both of us commuting we put so many miles on our cars everyday.  Randy’s car is a really old, worn out car and may go at anytime.  Hopefully by this time next year we won’t need two commuter cars, but for now we are on the treadmill and contributing to pollution, the need for Middle Easter oil, and an empty house all day.  We’re working on it though.

Randy has been working with Ash, our blue heeler, in the sheep lots.  She is still a long way from independently herding sheep; however, she has made small progress in the form of not devouring sheep poo as soon as she is through the gate.  Baby steps!

I am off to a vet 1 and ½ hours away Friday to get a second opinion on our other dog, Koal.  He has allergies in the form of a rash and also has a small bump on his back we need to have looked at.  So, him and I are loading up (without Ash, she will heartbroken) and heading to a different vet to see if we can come up with something.  I will also be ordering CLO to supplement both of the dogs from here on out and also contemplating making Koal’s food.  I found a recipe that uses lamb which is in great supply here.  I’m just not sure I can keep up with it at this point in my life.  He’s always done really well on the food he is on now.  So, unless they have made changes to their food I can’t imagine it being the problem.

Other than that things are pretty normal here.  We placed an order for 25 Rhode Island Reds which should be here the beginning of April.  We lost another Bantie hen in our stock tank and are down to three.  It was decided to go with a larger chicken that can reach the stock tank without jumping up on the edge, so hopefully we have better luck with these.  Did I mention we are excited about having normal-sized eggs too!

Have a wonderful day!

Animals, Around the Homestead

Just a quick post…

Gretchen

I haven’t posted in awhile, so I thought I would real quick. 

Here are some pictures of my Dad’s Icelandic sheep’s babies.  They are the cutest little things!

And of course, what would a post be with out the cats involved.  They just happen to be the most photogenic critters on our farm.

This weekend we will be selling our two bottle lambs.  Yea!  We are also hoping to possibly burn our pile of limbs leftover from the ice storm and mow around our pasture so we can get it burned off soon.  Oh, did I mention build more lots and fence in the garden to keep the chickens out so I can plant seeds?  We’re going to need a long weekend :  )

Have a wonderful day!

Animals, Around the Homestead

It’s been awhile…

Gretchen

I know I haven’t posted recently.  There isn’t a lot going on at our little farm.  Lambing season is winding down.  We had a wonderful season with no casualties thus far.  We still have two more ewes to lamb; one is our absolute favorite, so we still worry about them.

Our black cat, Spooky, has found a new place to sleep and if I can get a photo I will be sure to post it.  He likes to sleep in the nesting boxes in the chicken coop.  Every evening we have to go retrieve him from the coop and put him in the pool house for the night.

We have once again decided to work more with our Blue Heeler and allow her to go out with the sheep more.  She has so much energy; maybe it can be put to good use.

Isn’t she cute?   hahaha

Spring seems to be slowly creeping in.  I have a few seeds started, will start more this weekend, and I’m also trying to get some black berries started from cuttings.  No luck yet, but I was told to cut near the main vine and try to start those cuttings.  This weekend I will cut a few more and see what happens.  I also need to trim up the crabapple tree this weekend.  I can’t wait for crabapple jelly!  The grape vines, boxwoods, apple tree, and black berries have all been trimmed.  I need to go through my herb garden and see what need to been cut back and get them situated.  I’ve been cleaning out lambing pens and using it to much the beds and garden.  Peas are in the ground, so hopefully they start pushing through soon.  I will get my potatoes this weekend so I can get them cut and curing.  I might even try to get some lettuce going in a small box near the house.  Spring is in the air!

Have a wonderful day!

Animals, Around the Homestead

Twelve and still going…

Gretchen

My Dad has been going to our house throughout the day to check on the sheep and now to supplement a noon bottle to the 3-4 who need one.  Yesterday he had two ewes deliver single boys to bring our lamb count up to twelve.  Now, single boys aren’t exactly a sheep owner’s dream come true, however, the mamas had the babies by themselves, mamas are fine, babies are fine, mama has plenty of milk, and are good mamas.  As far as we are concerned, it’s perfect!

Does it get any cuter than little baby lambs?

I mentioned before how we have help outside a lot.  Well, we have two more additions to the “helper” list.

Our oh so nosey ram, Cash, has to be in everyone’s business and has a really bad habit of putting his front feet up on panels and gates.  Cute as he can be, but a pain more often than not.

And the other star of the show, Cooter.  He’s been rolling around behind the chicken coop.

What a sweet little guy!

The cats get locked in our pool house during the night and anytime the dogs are in the backyard.  Our little black dog, Koal, is a cold-blooded killer when it comes to the feline family.

Part of the fun is catching the little kitties.  Cooter had been “avoiding” and running from us the whole evening.  He has been caught, handcuffed, and hauled downtown!

It is supposed to be in the low 50s today.  Yippee!  We are so ready for warmer weather here in Kansas.  Hopefully it stays that way.  I have a garden to plant.

We hope to get our peas in the ground and some boysenberry bushes transplanted from my Grandma’s.  I’m also hoping to trim some of my blackberries up a little and try to start some new ones from the cuttings.  Will this work?

Animals, Around the Homestead

Over the weekend…

Gretchen

We are up to 10 baby lambs on our little homestead.  We are also up to four bottle lambs which is not a good thing.  Lamb milk replacer has nearly doubled in price since last year, so it could get a little costly.  Although it will be time consuming, we hope to another ewe will lamb soon and have extra milk we can swipe to supplement everyone with.

Starting around noon yesterday the wind picked up and was blowing 30-35 mph with gusts up to 45 mph.  Life on the prairie can be a lot of fun sometimes.  It was nerve-wracking hearing it whip everything around.

Of course I had plenty of help.

Here is a yearling ewe lamb from last year. 

We chose not to grain them heavy and push them to breed in the fall, so they get a whole year and a half to grow before they become mamas.  We are considering keeping Dorpers for fall lambs and Texels for spring lambs.  We just have to get our fences built (and re-built due to heavy ice and limbs crashing down on it) so we have enough pens for everyone.

We had dinner Sunday evening at Mom and Dad’s and Grandma brought down our afghan she crocheted for us out of Hank’s (our llama) wool.  What a great keepsake to have from her.

I also got to try out my new juicer Monday morning.  I juiced and organic cabbage in hopes of taming a ulcer that has resurfaced.

To say cabbage juice is an “acquired” taste is pushing it.  I added a little carrot to help it, but it will take more than a carrot to make cabbage juice palatable.

Hope everyone is having a great week.

Around the Homestead, Budget

A Friday at Work…

Gretchen

Since I took the day off yesterday I decided to make up my time by coming in today which I really hated to do, but the bill don’t pay themselves.  Randy HATES me going to work for a number of reasons, especially if it’s somewhat voluntary.  However, we are really striving to be dept-free and as a result I feel we need to work a certain amount of hours to keep on track.  Tax-time is never nice to us, so we are in a slump right now.

We are striving to decrease our spending, our debt, and eventually our income.  We find it so hard to give away ¼ our hard-earned money to others who don’t have to go to work and spend hours away from their home like we do.  So, the only way we know to avoid paying in a huge amount of money in taxes (legally) is to just make less money.  Yeah, those two college degrees may be considered “wasted” to others, but to us we would never be where we are today without them.  Whether we hold jobs in our fields of study or not.  *I will step off my soapbox now.

Randy’s car wouldn’t start this morning, so he was late for work.  It finally started, thankfully, so we are both away from the farm today.  Dad will check up on the sheep and if anything happens I will head straight home to take over.

Yesterday I got a lot done around the home.  All the usual:  dust, vacuum, clean the bathroom, laundry, and baked bread.  Ash and I got in our three games of fetch, and I managed to get a small bottle of Lavender Linen spray made to help me sleep after my middle-of-the-night trips to the barn to check on the girls.  A big part of my day was spent outside and with a high of 25 degrees it makes for a chilly day.  I am sipping on a nice hot cup of green tea as we speak.

I’m putting together a small post on nutrition, supplements, and some environmental ideas.  Hopefully I can get it posted today.  If not, it will be sometime next week.

I promise baby lamb pictures soon.  They are adorable if I do say so myself.  My favorite is a little boy (of course).  Rule Number 1 for raising livestock:  don’t fall for the baby boys, it only makes your life harder when it’s time for them to “go.”

Have a wonderful weekend and try to stay warm.