Yes! Still Dreaming of a Homestead

A sweet and relaxing Thursday evening to you, dear friends!  Finding yourselves cozy, I hope?

My feet are up and my cup of tea is near, the hum of the dishwasher is quickly making me quite sleepy and, thankfully, the house is quiet with the babies sleeping peacefully.  Daniel is away on one last mission from these two weeks of intense training.  I won't lie. I will be thankful when tomorrow morning comes and a long weekend can begin.  We have been on what they call "reverse cycle" these past weeks, meaning that we have Daniel home for breakfast and he heads to work around 2 in the afternoon but doesn't return home until early early in the morning.  Sometimes 3 am or sometimes not until 8 am, depending on the mission.  What a man he is to endure this training and to thrive in it!  I am exhausted just watching and I hate to admit it, but the "reverseness" (I think I just created a word and we are going with it!), the "reverseness" of it has really thrown me off-kilter and has affected me more than I had anticipated.  Alas, I think I am out of the irritated-annoyed-what time is it-which meal am I serving? bubble I have found myself in and am back to a somewhat re-oriented-with-normalcy type of routine.  

Somehow I was hoping to write about homesteading… um… let's see… how to transition?

Well, yes!  I am glad you asked.  Our hopes of homesteading are still alive and well and although we can not do much here in this yard of ours in Savannah, we are trying to do all that we can.  Our garden.  Well, yeah, that was not what we had hoped.  Why is it that we can't grow anything?!?  Well, we think it's because we don't receive enough sunshine here in the back yard. Or maybe, too, it is because we have a HUGE pine tree right in the middle of our garden which lends to the soil being more acidic.  Either way, we did not get a big harvest last year.  In all honesty, there was not a harvest at all.  Maybe one tomato?  

We tried a few kale plants and cabbage and carrots over the winter but that seemed to fail as well and so, we have just planted our last effort for a Savannah garden and we planted onions and potatoes.  So far so good but that is how all our other attempts have begun and so we will wait and hope.

And for our animals, we are loving our chickens.  We actually just made quite the big change to our flock.  We had two laying hens but they had come to the end of their prime for eggs and so we, well, we made them into delicious stewed hens.  Might that be a good way of putting it?  

Daniel was the brave one here, as always, and once again, it would seem we always have an audience on such occasions (remember something about a neighbor boy with a bag of chips and us chasing pigs?).  The neighbors just happened to be out, enjoying a gorgeously Spring afternoon when we decided it was time.  And so Daniel just stated over the fence what we were doing and not a minute later, there were the 3 young neighbor boys, already over the fence and standing, mouths wide and eyes wider at the chickens hanging upon our . .  clothes-line.  

Not to waste a beautiful bird, they were into the pot

plucked and cleaned and into the refrigerator.  We enjoyed one this week actually!  I put her in a big stock pot with water covering her and let it simmer for about 6 hours.  Then I added some onions, carrots, green beans, and potatoes and we had a delicious and nourishing chicken soup.  Delicious!

But that wasn't the only change.  We now have 5 new ladies we welcomed here.  3 Barred Rock and 2 Americanas.  They are not quite old enough to be laying yet, we are hoping for mid June.  But they are beauties and we are thankful for them.  Snow White seems to be the only name Tirzah has been using for all of them, so we have our sweet flock of SnowWhites and we are set for now.

We weren't quite happy with our coop set-up however, so we moved it from one side of the yard to the other and we put up a fence so the girls could have an extensive run to enjoy.  And in the move Tirzah found and communicated in the clearest way (loudest scream ever imaginable) that a snake was in our yard.  Thankfully it was just a brown snake, but he was a good two feet long and added quite the adventure to our back yard morning work!

Hard to see here, but to the right of Daniel and Tirzah, hidden amongst the pine needles and leaves is the snake!

Tirzah took this picture, actually!  Us in motion moving the coop.  That thing might not look heavy, but let me tell you!  I think my arms are just now over their soreness… Daniel was the muscle and I simply steered.  

So, yes, we do still dream of homesteading, and we do still love doing what we can, right now!  Never a dull moment, of that I can assure you.

We have had a full and wonderful past few weeks!  With visitors and friends, pursuing homeschool, and even beginning BSF leadership here in Savannah, it has been good, but full!

We welcomed our dear friends the Gibbons family: Grant and Lisa, Jadea, Gavin, and Annie to our home for a fast but wonderful Labor Day weekend.  We spent wonderful moments together at the beach, splurged on ice cream and donuts, pizza and southern BBQ, and went downtown for a Shear-guided tour and a splash in the fountains.  It was wonderful to be with them and we were so thrilled to host them!

Just this past weekend we had Greg and Marlene here.  Daniel is away in the field, and they were so kind to drive down and arrive late Friday night, stay all through Saturday, and then hit the road again early Sunday morning to be back for the class that Greg teaches at VMI.  We had a day full of adventures here at home and made the most of our moments catching up.  A wonderful surprise was that Daniel was able to come home early early on Sunday morning so that Greg and Marlene could see their son for a few short moments!

I wanted to share our garden with you here in Georgia... definitely don't get your hopes up for it though!  I am totally disappointed with it.  I thought I was some sort of master gardener after that garden we had at our little homestead!  But now, after being here, I realize I am definitely not that!  When we moved here Daniel quickly erected several raised beds and they are beautiful.  We planted squash and zucchini, tried our hand at corn, did wildflowers, tomatoes, and peppers, and cantaloupe.  Well, from all of that... we have harvested about 7 tomatoes.  Yikes.  We planted late, it's true, but I guess we were thinking: It's Georgia!  We can grow anything here!  It seemed that our squash plants never pollinated... I think our soil is missing nutrients, and we just don't get enough sunlight here in the back.  SO... we will continue our attempt.  Now we have some cucumbers planted and some trellis purple beans for a fall harvest.  We are hoping to do carrots, beets, kale, and maybe some parsnips for the fall as well.  Definitely adding some nutrients to the soil, and maybe even moving the garden over a long weekend to the front of the yard??  Any thoughts?!

And lastly, we have been doing some sweet and simple homeschooling for Tirzah!  We are following the guide: Before Five In a Row, and it is just the sweetest.  It is based on children's literature; so basically we read a book every day for a week and then do simple activities to go along with the book.  This week we are reading Katy No-Pocket, a cute story of a Mama Kangaroo going to great lengths to get a "pocket" with which to carry her son kangaroo.  At the end of the book, the kangaroo goes to the city and finds a man with an apron that has lots of pockets in it.  And the man gives it to Katy!  That way she can carry all the baby animals of the forest!  So today, we made a cute little apron for Tirzah.  I am so hoping that tomorrow I find her with her stuffed animals in those pockets...

The rest of the week we are doing some printable activities I found on this site, we are making a traditional Australian dessert here, and even doing some Aboriginal  Art!

Have a wonderful day!

Laundry room prayer

Well I have been meaning to start writing about this for some time: our dream of having a homestead. And today is not the day to dive into it, but let it be a short beginning.

Daniel and I dream of having land someday. The thought of growing our own food, having chickens, and maybe even a dairy and meat source all on our land is the desire of our hearts. And it hasn't always been like this, but the pull on our hearts has increased and we find ourselves reading about and dreaming of and planning for this part of our future lives.

One thing we can do now, in preparation for that dream, is save. And a major way to do that: move out of DuPont. We have absolutely loved this house and this neighborhood and we could not have asked for anything better during this season of our lives (speaking of season... 1 year ago today, we were spending our last day together as a family before deployment began...). But, it is incredibly expensive to live here and we need to find another home so we can begin to save.

We put this house up for rent with a feeling of apprehension: how would the timing all work out? Moving out, finding a place, moving in... But The Lord has amazed us in ways beyond measure. Truly. We found a place after several weeks of looking on Craigslist and this place is perfect for us. 2 acres, fruit trees, a shed and a horse stall, chicken coop included and a huge place for the garden. The most amazing part? The owners allowed us to simply pay the last months rent to hold it until the DuPont house rented out and we could move in. They even let us put in our garden last weekend!

Let's see, so I guess it has been about 2 weeks now since we have decided on this property and have begun to paint the backdrop of this new season in our lives. But we still didn't know when the DuPont home was going to rent. Tomorrow? Or maybe not for several more months. But this morning, over a pile of laundry, I asked The Lord that the home would go today. At that exact moment, I received a text from Daniel saying we had a showing today at 130! And... The house was rented!!! Glory!!

So, thus begins our next move, this time: DIY. And so begins our first steps in homesteading. So much more to come...

So this is to be our new garden plot!  Huge, right?!  Daniel has worked so hard and it is looking so good!  That little shed to the right of him. . . perhaps a new home for goats??

On Friday we spent all morning moving these 2 raised beds from the middle of the garden plot, to the corner.  This one is for herbs: oregano, sage,  chives, lavender, parsley, and then room for basil

And this is where we sowed our spring mix of lettuces.  Hopeful for them to come up in the next few days

Here is What I'm Loving this gorgeous day!

LOVING the new life in our garden!  Beauty in abundance from the seeds sown last year. . .

LOVING the growth and new additions to the garden.  4 different types of blueberry plants, said to produce 5 pounds each.  And 4 new raspberry plants!  So hopeful and excited for these guys to produce. . .

my kale that I planted in the fall.  I definitely did not plant it early enough, note taken, so it wasn't large enough to eat from over the winter, but it did survive and I will mark that down as my first kale success!  I just harvested a few stalks this afternoon and chopped them fresh into my salad. . . just going to say that it doesn't get better than that.

And don't judge the abundance of other things growing around the garlic. . . just look at the beauties themselves!  Hoping for 19 heads of garlic here.

LOVING this salad:

kale freshly harvested

ruby swiss chard

apple

raisins

toasted almonds

carrot

green pepper

Tossed lightly with olive oil, dijon mustard, and fresh lemon juice

LOVING this picture of Daniel and Tirzah and our amazing friends Tom and Sean.  Daniel got to spend some great time with them this past weekend in Wheaton.  Although I was teasing him: Saturday was our all day ladies day, leaving the babes with the Daddies. . . and Daniel drops off Tirzah for Renee to babysit so he can go out to lunch with these guys! :)  Isn't he the best?!

LOVING Mumford & Sons

Absolutely LOVING Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall.  Oh. My. Goodness.  We heard of this man through our good friends Sy and Mary, and after visiting them almost two weeks ago, we have spent every moment of our free time that we can watching his TV series River Cottage.  Seriously, it is the best thing ever!  Short story: Hugh decides to leave the hectic life of the city to become a "small-holder", basically a small self-sustaining homestead/farm.  This TV series takes you through his challenges and successes and keeps you laughing all the while.  If ever Daniel and I wanted to have a homestead before?  It's like times ten after watching these.  You will love them!  We purchased them on Amazon Prime. . . just in case you decide to watch too!

LOVING that Tirzah's fever has broken and we were able to go to Bible Study Fellowship this morn.

LOVING MaryJanesFarm and her daily journal over here at http://www.raisingjane.org/journal/

LOVING, well now because she is sleeping, but hearing her little pitter patter of feet upstairs, knowing she was happily playing before her nap.

LOVING fresh cream, scooped from the top of the raw milk we purchased at the Co-Op, added to our home roasted coffee.  Oh.My.

What are you LOVING this day?