Homesteading is a journey. Some months you accomplish your goals by leaps and bounds. Other months, you fall back a few steps.
The important part is to keep working hard to progress forward in your goals. It doesn't happen overnight. Many websites make it seem easy, but it isn't. It takes baby steps to get to the big projects. So, I'm starting this monthly homesteading update to share our progress and setbacks. I hope that you find them useful in your journey of homesteading.
February
- We moved goats to clear out overgrown areas.
We have several overgrown areas on the property. With the chickens in the greenhouse, we used the fencing and shelter for our goats during daytime hours. We rotated the goats in some rough areas, and they did a decent job clearing it out.
One lesson learned is that when you feed goats hay and other delectables, they are less likely to clear out the overgrown brambles. We had to decrease their food rations slightly so that they would choose to eat the less delicious brambles.
- We moved more hay into the greenhouse.
We are housing our chickens and rabbits in the greenhouse with deep bedding.
This area needed more carbon. We don't currently have access to wood chips, so we are using old hay for this bedding. It has worked well but we had slacked. It was easy to tell when we needed more as the area started to have a smell from the animals. With the deep-bedding method, you shouldn't have a smell even with the animals contained in the same area for an extended period of time. We fixed this by loading up and laying down more hay bedding.
- I started my indoor Kratky lettuce.
I was missing fresh greens in our diet so I started a few containers of Kratky lettuce. It wasn't a lot but simply enough to provide an occasional salad.
- We made a sign for package deliveries.
Since we live in the country and have five kids, I enjoy the convenience of having things delivered to the house. We discovered that the delivery drivers had different ideas as to where packages were best placed. It became a game of "find that package" on a regular basis. To fix this problem, we purchased a deck box and turned it into a secure area for package deliveries.
Now, we no longer have to search for them, and the dog doesn't feel the need to "mark" them before we get home.
- The dog continued to travel to the road.
We were afraid that he would cause an accident, so fixing our perimeter fencing moved higher onto the list of priorities. Meanwhile, we had to tie him up for his protection.
He was not happy with this arrangement.
- The chickens escaped the pen and ate my strawberry plants.
They have plenty of room in their area, so I think this was their way of telling us that food scraps and nutrients were not providing enough green material in their diets. Or maybe they were just getting bored? We do have very spoiled animals around here.
- We removed old fencing.
In order to put up new fence, we had to remove the old fence. The area was greatly overgrown.
Luckily, we were able to borrow a skidsteer to help with the work.
- We had a day of high winds.
This resulted in a door to greenhouse broken, roof to Chibbet broken, some flashing that came off of house, the top to the package box was broken, the slide to swing set fell, our trash cans were blown over the hill and other minor issues. We consider ourselves very lucky as some neighbors suffered much worse damage.
- We lost a Rhode Island Red chicken.
There was no obvious reason. She was alive one day and simply dead the next. After examination and thinking it over, we suspect that she could have been egg-bound. We had on chicken that was laying VERY large eggs and now we are not seeing them. It is disappointing but it can happen.
- We started planting seeds indoors for our garden.
We start them indoors under grow lights for now. I want to move them to the greenhouse, but after the strawberry incident (see above), I don't trust the chickens around my baby plants.
We are planting a ton of seeds this year! The kids are very excited and have been active in this process. We hope to sell any extra plants and produce at the local farmer's market this season.
- I was attacked by our Americauna rooster.
I wasn't paying attention to him when he decided to get me in the rear-end. I will spare you the photo of the injury! He's lucky that I want his genetics for some eggs to hatch by our hens this summer or he would have been stew by suppertime. If he keeps up this behavior, he will be culled.
- We had gutters installed at the barn.
The hubby added drainage pipes. We have plans for water catchment in the future but for now, we need to get the water diverted away from the barn.
- We ordered and set up a new chicken waterer.
We have used and abused many waterers in the past and wanted one that can withstand the demands of our weather, kids and animals. We chose to go with this one from Premier 1:
Imperial Tri-Pod Waterers, 2.5-7.5 gal - Premier1Supplies
We discovered that the bowl section holding the water quickly became dirty when placed directly on the deep bedding. When it was elevated, dirt wasn't as much of an issue.
Overall, we are happy with this purchase. It is sturdier than waterers that we have used in the past and want to see how it fares outdoors.
I can't wait for spring! I am solar-powered and really need the increased light and warmer weather to be more productive. We have a lot of plans for the upcoming year, so keep reading as we continue to share some of our successes and failures in the upcoming year!