Homestead Happenings

After a day or two of gloom and cloudy weather, this weekend was fantastic!

Firstly, Miss Mara is officially potty trained! Yes! No more diapers, no more Pull-Ups! She's dry all day, through the night and in the morning too! While I'm thrilled to be finished with it, part of me is sort of sad too...there's no denying now that my kids are getting big. No more babies in the house. Mara is so proud of herself, she's been telling everyone she's not a baby anymore. She's a "beeg gorl". Thrilling and heartbreaking at the same time.

In the garden, the veggies are loving this temperate, rainy weather we've been having. We're up to 11 pounds of veggies for the month including onions, lettuce, greens, sugar snap peas, a few beets and turnips. The runner beans are covered with red blossoms, the tomatoes are full of blooms, the sunflowers and amaranth are almost a foot tall already. Summer is definitely in full swing, regardless of what the calender says.

On the preservation front, I ordered a new dehydrator this past week and I can't wait to lay hands on it! Should be here tomorrow, and then I can start with the drying of the berries. Drying is fast becoming my favorite means of food preservation...especially the fruits and tomatoes. I can eat dried tomato slices like they're candy...very chewy, tart candy. I planted a number of tomatoes this year specifically for drying...Principe Borghese, Amish Paste and Striped Roman. Can't wait for them to start bearing.

The hens are doing great! Miss Broody-Butt Dominique is finally off the nest and has stopped growling when you open the coop door. That's always a good thing! Nothing like a growling chicken to get your day off to a bad start! We're getting, on average, 5 eggs a day, which is just enough to keep us in eggs, with extra for parents and an occasional neighbor. My dear friend Ann surprised me with a pair of Ameracaunas, which with any luck, we'll be bringing home in a couple of months. She's got them tucked away in her brooder, til they're big enough to fend for themselves in the coop. If you recall from last year, Mr. Roo was supposed to be our green egg layer, til the whole gender confusion issue came up. Ann was sweet enough to share a couple of Ameracaunas from her newest batch, as she knew I was pretty disappointed that I'd be getting no green eggs from Cockadoodle-Stu. Thanks Ann!

Domestically, we're back on track after a couple weeks of weirdness. Jeff has been working an average of 3 weeks a month with a layoff week thrown in to keep us on our toes....which an occasional week off is better than indefinite layoff, right? It makes for interesting finances to be sure, but it also does odd things to our home schedule. Our diets change, sleeping patterns change, spending patterns *definitely* change, but for the most part, we're hanging in there and doing okay. We've been hearing rumors of a new project coming to the plant...military trucks...and if that's the case, it will be a real boon to our little community.

Plans for the upcoming weeks include building a new, traditional coop (in lieu of a chicken tractor), constructing a lattice screen to provide shade for the back of the house and patio, replacing our crappy old sidewalk with a new brick sidewalk and possibly installing a whole-house fan so we won't need to run the C/A as much. I'm hoping we can squeeze in a trip to the zoo/waterpark as well, during July's extended shutdown (2 weeks vacation + 1 week layoff). We shall see. Til later, best wishes from the Run.