Well I hate to do it but it is time to clean up my friends list and request list. I am always hesitant on adding friends. I do not want to friend 1000 people just because. I want to share my life and the lives of the people on my list and you cannot do that in that large a number. So to those ends I will be eliminating some people from my list whom I have no contact with.
I laso need to clean up my request list. It is hard to tell who is wanting to friend me because we have something in common and who is doing it to add to there ever growing collection of friends. So if you sent me a request and remember doing so and still want to be my friend hit me with a PM so I know. Otherwise I apologize to those that get cut.
The garden is finally done. I finished digging and it is also completely planted with the first crop. We have already begun harvesting lots of salad greens, radishes, and our first round of broccolli(obviously planted much earlier). Tomatoes, peppers, corn, peas, brussel sprouts squash, zukes, cucumbers, canteloupe, and watermelon all in. Once the corn gets a few inches on it we will plant greenbeans and pumpkins.
The second round of planting will begin in a few weeks once all the early stuff and the peas are spent. That is looking like limas and I am not sure what else.
We had to do some major repair to the fence when I stupidly forgot to make sure the gate to the pasture was closed one evening and the goats got out. Luckily they did not do that much damage, mainly because I think my wife found them not too long after they had gotten out.
With the garden somewhat under control I have to start thinking about other things. Three big ones are butchering the chickens, shearing the sheep, and finish spraying the fruit trees. None of the three are an easy task but they are mostly time consuming, perhaps the most precious and smallest resource I have.
Well on to some good news. My wife and are about 19 weeks away from our second child. We have held off telling anyone for several reasons, mainly because we want to keep stress down. But homesteading has taught us a lot of things that are wrong with society around us. And when it comes to having a baby it seems there are more. I think people ask a lot of questions that they do not have the right to ask, or feel it is ok to touch a woman's belly. We are also not happy with the medical industry in the USA. That is all I am going to say in a public blog. For my friends feel free to message me and I will give yall alot more info.
Well after a month I make a return to the computer. And what a month it has been. After the birth of kids the whirlwind begin. Two kids were rejected by mothers meaning bottle feedings multiple times a day. They are all nearly two months old now. And unfortunatley with a hay shortage I will have to ween them instead of letting them do it on their own. Not much hay, especially alfalfa hay means less milk. The kids drink alot and so there is less for us and we really need it right now. The two girls are hopefully going to be sold as will one of the boys. I am still hoping to keep two for draft training but they may end up goign as well if we need the money and cannot afford to feed them.
I am also trying to finish upgrading the chicken coop for the chickens. All that is left is to finish the wire inside and outside of the coop. It is hard to find time to work on it there is so much else to do around here plus actual employment. The cross rocks will have to be butchered in less than two weeks... something else I MUST make time for.
I have finished tilling the garden. After three years the ground is still hard as rock in the lower section. I have decided to improvise some beds down there using three very long pieces of plastic cut about 4 feet wide. This means ALOT of shoveling. IN order to avoid the hard pan and make them raised beds I am shovelling out the good soil in what is to be my paths I am also moving a couple of inches of the hard pan as well, and putting them into the new beds. This is back breaking and slow work. The final results should be 6 ro more inches fo good soft dirt in the beds and a hardpan path that should be very weed resistant espcially after I bury it in 4 inches of mulch.
I have also cleared away new ground and installing a new berry patch( black raspberries, blackberries, and wineberries so far.) That is more or less complete at this point. The ground there was not so hard but full of roots and trash left by the previous owner. Everything is doing well there. We will most likely not get any berries this year as it wil take most of the season for the roots to really get established.
We were also forced to get a new truck. The transmission blew on our old one. Money is always tight around here so we new we had to go cheap and fuel efficient we found an old 84 ranger on Craig's List that fit the bill fine. Get it road legal was another story. We got it in North Carolina and I live in Virginia. This proved to be a nightmare at DMV. And since we have a more rigorous state inspection on vehicles it will not pass inspection till I do some work to it. Mainly the exhaust system.
Then we got a dog a very nice looking Austrailian sheperd. We decided on this because of of its ability to herd, loyalty to owner, and it was also free on Craig's List (I love that site!) But since I work, I am away from the house and he has bonded with my wife and son, but does not much care for me. This is causing no end of problems. The only way to fix it is to spend time with him but I have no time for him.
Spiritually I have not been doing much in the way of ritual or formal spells, I am sad to say. But I am feeling more recharged than ever, so much so I think working these long days trying to keep everything together, that my spirituality is the only thing keeping me going. I feel it is driving me to make all these improvements to my land, steering to sustainability and giving me the strength to endure the hardships till I reach it.
Well monday was my birthday, I turned 30 this year. I know all the "typical" responses and feelings I am suppose to have but I am not having them..really. In the end I do not care about being 30 but the social sheep lurking inside me says I SHOULD be caring. I should have been dreading it. I should be denying it. But I don't care. I don't give much thought to age at all. Mine or anyone elses. I have days were I actually have to count to remember how old I am. It is just low on the list of priorities.
We had a nice cake, which my 3 year old son was VERY excited about and was shaking as he waited for his mother to light the candles so he could help blow them out. I got a new table saw, which is getting ready to be put to a lot of use, constructing a wall for inside the barn and finishing our mudroom renovation.
We had a lovely week end as far as weather goes and already the willows are showing buds. The poplars, maples, and our apricot are not far behind. Spring is really on us now. I still have sooooooo much to do around here. OUr first goat is due to delivery this week so I have to finish the new divide in the barn. Oh it will be so nice to have fresh milk again!. Still need to get the rest of the garden fence up. We have gotten aspargrass and some peas in already. The fence needs to be up before they are! And the trees all pruning before they get going and making fruit.
Well this week certainly ended better than it began. My son took sick Monday night and vomited about every 20 minutes to an hour form about 9:30PM till about 2:30AM I chose to stay up with to let my wife rest. After that he settled down and slept and so did I for about 2 hours before having to get up and get ready for work. After work I returned home exhausted my son was much better but still vomitting somewhat and shy about food or drink. We went to bed hoping he would be better in the morning.
At midnight I awoke sick and then I vomited EVERY 20 minuted from midnight to about 5:30 AM. Already exhausted fomr the night before and now this. I could not sleep for the ill churning in my belly. I stayed weak all day. All I could manage to keep down was some ice water and a couple of freez-e-pop things. At 5 PM I managed to sleep and did so till 7AM the next morning. The sick feeling in my belly went away sometime during the sleep and I began feeling better. During that night my wife took sick and did the exact same thing. Because I was still weak and with my wife ill I opted to miss another day from work to care for her and look after our son.
That is the first time I have been that sick in several years. I am glad it was only for 24 hours. If it had been longer I am not sure I could have stomached enough liquids to see me through it.
As I said the week ended better. We felt good enough by Saturday to work in the garden. I managed to get about a third of the fence up I need more plastic and posts for teh gates before I can continue. So I then managed to get about half way done on a reterracing project in the garden. We live in a hollow, and nothing here is flat. The previous owner terraced out the garden area, but how he did it I do not understand. Between the two terraces is another sort of microterrace. What it was used for or why I do not know. I do not like it, perhaps it is just me and my wife but I am dividing it up between the upper and lower terrace to make ONLY two terraces. Currently they are bordered by logs which is fine. It adds to the rustic nature of our home. So they are getting reused, I just have to move all the dirt and restack the logs, should be done sometime this year.
This is a good time for a rant against wasteful fuel usage. I am doing this all by shovel. My goal in the future is to try and limit my fossil fuel usage and reduce my footprint on the Earth in that area as well as others. I really get annoyed with complaints from people about fuel costs. If you have to drive a busted up '77 F250 that gets 8 miles to the gallon fine I got no complaints against you. But come on who HAS to drive and H2?? If you drive one and are reading this you might want to stop now. Fuel will be the downfall of the USA if ever there is one. We are nation dependant on far flung goods..no village system here. If teh transportation system breaks down which would probably be teh best of two outcomes then we will be stuck trying to figure out what to do with what you have nearby. Option two is the force a dying horse to continue to try to go over the mountain. What will happen? The horse will finally die at the worse time possible. To translate: We will continue to "deal" with rising fuel costs. Not only at the pump but at the store as well Bananas $2 a pound, milk $10 a gallon. Eventually it will stress our econmy so bad that on slight problem and depression is upon us..then we are screwed. Ok so the answer to all this? Thinking. Think about how you use fuel in EVERY aspect of your life. Do I leave that light on? Do I need to go to town today? can I move that dirt with a shovel? End of Rant.
