A Year For Growth...

Lupines Established 2024

I don't even know where to start, what a year 2024 turned out to be. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Well we got busy with our first child graduating High School. What an experience that was! Emotional yet proud is the best description for that event. Many changes with the Homestead. My favorite lesson from last year was how much my soul needs plants and flowers in my life! The joy I found watching perennials establish to the property. Learning about companion planting, what is drought resistant and what is not, what plants are great for beginners, and landscaping. One of my fails was my pumpkin patch, I learned that slugs can damage pumpkins and worked through those tough times. So pumpkins were a bust. This spring I will focus most of my time into the garden and continually expand that space. We are hoping to add some fruit trees, fruit bushes, and hazelnuts.

Moving into livestock news... summer 2024 we ended up losing a heart breaking amount of livestock. Some of our flock were picked off by birds of prey which is hard to prevent. Other than keeping them enclosed. Some of our flock hung out in the wood line of the garden and were taken by a sly fox. The stress this caused was enough to come to the conclusion that we were ready to part ways with our chickens. I did however process some ducks for a local woman and am considering just raising a small flock of ducks for the freezer. With bigger projects ahead of us this year we downsized our livestock to currently only having a small herd of rabbits. From here we are hoping to get a mini rabbitry barn up to house them year round. Only breeding from spring through fall and giving our rabbit breeders the winter off to rest. As I can get things organized and established within the rabbitry I want to shift into workshops and an education based program. Moving forward in coming years we hope to raise a couple of pigs seasonal to add to the freezer.

The rabbits and the gardening is only a small fraction to cover over the past year. We have many projects that we are continually working on around the homestead and the property. Always growing as individuals and creating a lifestyle we can thrive in. So much change to come. Please bare with me while I get in to a groove of the blog and website. I'm always learning but also have so much stealing my attention away. We knew moving off-grid was going to be a struggle, never seeming to have a shortage of projects and needs.

Thank You For Your Continued Support.

Jessica