Homestead Update: July 1st

I decided on a new location to stage my ‘monthly update’ photos from and sure wish i’d used it the whole time! Taken from the mailbox, you can now see the whole front yard including the fence…. which is germinating and blooming with what will one day be an amazing hedgerow of perennial shrubs, wildflowers and annual sunflowers. June was a fairly gratifying month, spent doing more relaxing in the perfect temperatured evenings and even working on some aesthetic projects. I put in a little kitchen garden that is actually growing (though the amount of feeding it’s doing is more on the level of an occasional snack whilst weeding) and we’ve buckled down to clean up the house in time for the arrival of my husband’s parents. We’re so excited to see them (i haven’t seen them since we moved away 2 years ago!) and to share this big dream in progress with them. Here’s the homestead on July first with some earlier shots below.

February | March | April

The garden grows! I build this little kitchen garden using facia boards taken off our house during the roof project, painted them white with leftover paint from my parents’ home renovation and filled it with some purchased soil and homegrown rabbit poo:

Speaking of rabbits, i’ll be weaning this coming week and already have one of Sake’s Harlequin/New Zealand Red cross doe kits sold! I’ll have a page up for available animals, eggs, etc up on this website soon. Aren’t they cute at this age? They’re hopping around and eating in earnest. Time to move out of mama’s cage and let her rest for the next round!

In anticipation of guests, we ripped out the nasty carpet in the guest room and discovered the source of the nasty smell. All has been well coated with Nature’s Miracle (which really works!) to neutralize the cat pee smell and the worst stains have been painted with Kilz. New carpet goes in Monday!

I can’t wait to get this room all decked out. Eventually we may rent this room out, so we’ll make it super cute and hospitable. For now, it will simply “not smell” and be a place to put an air mattress. Sorry, folks. We hope to get a new bed soon! Other projects we completed in June:

• Awesome new walkway and gate
• Added a kitten to the crew!
• Added some ducks to the flock
• Put in a new yard hydrant
• Moved the chicks out to the big pasture
• And most excitingly: got the tractor running! (mostly – repairs still in progress)

Now we just need to fit ‘evening walks’ back into the routine and i’ll be happy. Some projects to look forward to later in the summer include building a rabbit tractor to graze the growing fryers, figuring out where to put a butchering station and set it up, and figure out how to get plastic up on that darned hoophouse. Lots more to look forward to – maybe even a camping trip!

Have a wonderful July! What did you spend your June doing?