Spring Update on the Homestead

We hope everyone is enjoying their spring. The weather has had its ups and downs but we are pleased with what God has blessed us with. The picture above is one of our collard green bushes.

There have been a couple of changes on the homestead. One, we sold chocolate and caramel our goats. They were more of a chore than they were worth. As sweet as they where we felt they could be in a home where they could run and have kids. So right after selling them we got in the car and bought 2 lambs, 2 & 4 are their names and ages by month. They are Katahdin sheep and make great lawn mowers, each can produce 2-3 lamb twice a year for selling/consumption and can produce great fertilizer for the garden as well.

A ram will be introduced to the family within a couple of week to help populate the herd in the future and eventually help increase our income.

Pork chop and Ham are doing wonderfully, getting fat and sassy. We will have photos of them in our next post.

Another addition to the family is Queenie, a great Pyrenees puppy. This photo shows her when we received her at 3 month old. May 25, she will be 4 months old and is already up to my knee, a little taller than Chakka. This breed is amazing. They grow to be about 150 lbs and will fight to the death to protect their guard from predators. They are the sweetest most gentlest dog I know. Great with kids and instinctively know how to protect the livestock, especially the young and old. She watches and follows Shaq our disabled 98yr old on (June 1st) bullmastiff and adores him, kisses and plays with him all the time.

Here she is at 3 mos. old, buttering up Chakka our 91yr old (june) american bulldog mix. They all get along wonderfully.

Since we will be harvesting and cleaning greens from the garden and processing our own chickens we built an outdoor kitchen. On this, we processed and cooked our first chicken and also made gluten free apple cobbler all on the rocket stove to the right of the picture. Joe made the table and we both had fun engineering this one. It may not look it but it is very sturdy.

We have been able to enjoy wonderful meals harvested from our keyhole garden. It contains oregano, thyme, cilantro, basil, spearmint, collard greens and kale and at one time peas.

The first garden I planted in October also gave us delicious greens, collard, kale, cabbage,a few lettuces and some Japanese mustard greens (Mizuna) that as you can see, is going to seed. I believe I will be selling the Mizuna seeds this fall, they have a spicy hot mustard green flavor and are easy to grow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizuna.

You also see the new chicken coop in the background Joe built from free pallets. We house our 9 chickens. Two of them have gone broody. That is when a hen wants chicks so they lay on the eggs for 21 days until they hatch. Next week we will see how many chicklets we get.

Now I know a farmer is suppose to be patient, but this farmer is just as antsy as she can get. I am excited to see my permaculture food forest come to fruition.