Maple Grove Farm

Saturday: Fire Cleanup and the usual work

I did not get to blog this morning because we were up bright and early and DH stayed home to work on a few projects.  I started my morning with some weeding.  When we moved to this house the flower beds were all overgrown.  I am focusing my efforts on two this summer and trying to get them weed free and planted with more flowers.  I like beds to be so full of plants the weeds hardly have room.  This method along with a summer of weeding it regularly had previously resulted in easy to maintain beds and I am hoping it will work again.

After the weeding I started on some household projects but realized I needed to return some items I purchased yesterday.  I bought some 7 gallon food grade buckets with good lids, but two lids did not fit.  Yesterday I got all my open 25-50 lb bags of staples moved to the bins and today I got the remaining lids that would fit.  I went to town and also visited the used book store.  I got several intersting homesteading books and a old time country cookbook.  I came home and cleaned up the pantry and did a little more work on organizing it.  I moved some jars around trying to get them all on the shelves for summer canning.  I also bottled 5 more bottles of mead (honey wine), but still need to bottle some more.  I think I may be short of bottles.

I spent the last couple of hours working on the burned out shop with DH and the kids.  The kids really worked hard today shoveling, raking, and moving the debris to take to the dump.  It really makes you feel like a family when you are working hard on a project like that.  Despite many offers of help, none have really materialized.  My father helped some right after the fire and will be back to help some more, but no one else has really followed up to see if we need help.  DH is too prideful to call and ask.  The two boys 9 and 11 really put in a full day and I think I will reward everyone with some peach cobbler.

Last weekend I got two rows of peas planted and a row of spinach.  I did some work on the room that we need to get ready for cold storage.  DH also brought home two pigs, but we can't decide whether we are raising them to have piglets or if we are going to eat them.  The 30 chicks for butchering came home last night and we also replaced 9 of the 18 pullets that perished in the fire.  DH built a temporary shelter for them in the dog's kennel.

I have to share with you about the poor dog's kennel.  It was a pretty large kennel, perhaps 40 feet long by 15 feet wide.  When DH brought the pigs home last weekend he fenced off half the kennel for the pigs and built a temporary shelter.  Today he boarded in a 8.5 foot square area for the chicks.  The poor kennel has turned into a shelter for all the animals until the new barn is built.  The poor dog will be cramped for awhile.  Now we do not care for temporary shelters, so these can not stay up for very long and I can't wait until all of the new animal housing is built   

Untitled Comment

08:49, 2006-Mar-19 .. Posted by Becca

What books did you get? And what bookstore did you go to? The sourdough was delish!

Wow!

07:09, 2006-Mar-25 .. Posted by haras

You have really been busy! It's too bad you're not getting the help that was offered. I think people mean well when they offer, but life gets in the way of their intentions.

What is honey wine? I don't think I've ever heard of it.

I pray for the best for you in rebuilding.

Sarah