Homesteading: A Woman's Journey

Thanks & an update

I first want to thank everyone who contacted me and left comments with ideas for helping to soften the clothing dried on the clothesline.  I will give the ideas a try and see what difference they make.

I decided that because I need to make new diapers for Micah, I will make them with line drying in mind.  I am making covers with a flannel lining in them.  I am also going to make prefold diapers large enough that he will be able to use them for quite a while.  This will allow for fast drying on the line.  This winter, I will set up a drying rack near the wood stove to dry diapers overnight.  If I do end up having to run the prefolds in the dryer for a couple of minutes to soften them for him, that will be fine.  The main purpose of cutting back on the dryer usage will still be achieved.  The dryer is also a benefit in the winter as it helps to heat teh back of the house.  If I can find a soft fabric to use in his diapers that will dry on the line and still remain soft, I will let you know as this may be useful for others to know also.  I am going to take advantage of the windy days and try to do whatever laundry we have on those days. 

Friday night I was up late, until nearly 1:30am, getting the food ready for the weekend.  Friends are coming for a BBQ today and I needed to bake bread & some burger buns.  I ended up making cinnamon swirl bread to have with our breakfast.  Abbie loved the bread.  She kept walking around and showing it to us in between bites.  She seemed especially fond on the spots where there are abit more brown sugar & cinnamon.  I may start making this bread more often.  I am thinking that I may start my baking before dawn now that the days are getting so warm.  

On Saturday, the BBQ went very well.  We had a lovely visit with our friends, Kyle & Christee.  They brought us 2 A/C units that they no longer needed.  They had already replaced these with new ones.  Kyle and Joe put one in the front room and the other in the kitchen.  What a blessing!  They are keeping the house so much cooler.  Micah is doing much better now as he was having alot of problems with the heat.

While Kyle & Christee was here, our neighbor and his sons brought over a young ram for our ewe, Angel.  We had bought Angel from Mr. Maples last spring when she wa a couple of months old.  We had thought to have her go to "visit" one of his rams in the fall for breeding.  He had alot of new rams born this year, so he called and offered to sell us one of them.  They picked out the best one for us.  He breeds registered Hampshire sheep that his sons take to the livestock shows.  We have no plans of showing the sheep we have.  Ours are strictly for meat.  Next spring, I would like to get one more ewe lamb from him.  We will then have 1 ram and 2 ewes for breeding.  We want enough ewes to allow us to control the frequency of breeding as much as possible.  The lambs that we get from the ewes will be butchered in the fall/winter to provide meat for our family.

Our dwarf nubian goat, Cloe, who runs with Angel has been playing with the ram.  She bangs her head up against his and chases him around as she used to do with Angel before Angel reached full size.  Right now, the ram is slightly taller and much heavier than Cloe.  It won't take long for him to play too rough for Cloe and she will settled back down again.

Today has been a quiet & restful day for us.  We had planned to go have a family picnic at a park next door to where Joe works.  His boss is giving him all the scrap pallets, wood, and tree prunings to bring home for use in our wood stoves and some mulch material they have no need of.  We all ended up sleeping in this morning so we stayed home.  While the kids are taking their naps, Joe is out picking up a load of the wood & mulch to bring home. 

I am starting more seeds in little planters.  I hope to get a good start with them for my fall garden. Our current garden is very water-logged at this time.  We had alot of rain 2 nights ago.  Luckily, the plantings were done in raised rows which will prevent the plant roots from being too wet.  The garden is gaining alot of weeds starting to pop up.   With the ground so wet, it should make it easier to weed through the garden.  We have some weed barrier plastic to put down in the garden again.  Between the weed barrier and the mulch, we should be able to get the garden set up for little to no weeding.

Among the wood scraps Joe is bringing home, there are pallets and other pieces that are serviceable enough to be recycled and used for building our chicken coop and chicken tractor.  I am sure as time goes on, we will find alot more uses for them.

We are beginning to set our goals for next spring.  It is funny how in homesteading or farming, you have to set your seasonal goals a year in advance!  We are planning to add to our livestock next spring.  As mentioned before, I am wanting to get a 2nd ewe so we can stagger the breeding between the 2 ewes and hopefully prevent over breeding 1 ewe.  We are going to get the coop & chicken tractor ready this summer so that we can buy new chickens, guineas, and possibly turkeys next spring.  Another addition will (hopefully) be a pair of Border Collies.  Since we are planning to turn our homestead into sheep & goat farm, having the border collies will be a great asset.  Joe will train them to help in herding the animals.  We will have a pair so that we an also breed them. 

One of the primary goals, besides being able to support our family's needs through the homesteading, has always been to get ourselves set up in such a way as to be able to help others who are just getting started.  We have been greatly blessed by the Lord through the generosity of others who have given to us or have sold at a discount to us livestock to get our homestead started.  We would like to be in position to do the same for others just starting out.  As we gain knowledge in how to do things more simply and self-sufficiently, we hope to be able to share that information to teach others how to do it for themselves. Each season, I am seeing us becoming closer to reaching that goal.  There is so much yet to learn and do before we will be in a position to truly help others as we desire to do.  By and by it will happen though.