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Challenging Months
I love fall, but in truth, it’s the most challenging season of the year for me. I’m ready to hunker down for the winter, exhausted from the activities of the last six months, but I still have another month or so with lots of work to do. We’re wrapping up harvest season, we’ll be butchering soon, hunting season is coming, and we have lots to do before winter. The school year has also started, and we’re trying to adjust to our schedule and get the house back in order. Between winter prep and school, September, October, and November are challenging months! The gardens are so close to being done. Our…
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Happy Fall!
I love the changes in color this time of year. The last few weeks, the kids and I have enjoyed taking drives and seeing a world of green turn into a rainbow of color. The soybean fields are yellow, and the corn is yellowing too. That which has been harvested now leaves fields of brown. The purple and white flowers stand in stark contrast to the green pastures, and apple trees are dappled with red and yellow. I love the flickering yellow on white of birch trees and the vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges of the maples. The birds are singing new songs now, and the geese have joined the…
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Emergency Plans
Over the last year or so, I have discussed the need for an emergency plan on more than one occasion. For many people, the great toilet paper crisis of 2020 is the first time they’ve ever had to consider the need for a plan when an emergency strikes. In a world of modern convenience, it’s not necessary to plan very far ahead, but the last year and a half or so have shown us that maybe that’s not the best plan of action. I know that coming up with a plan can be overwhelming, so today I wanted to give you some tips for working your way towards a solid…
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When Disaster Strikes
Far, far too often the word “preparedness” gets a bad rap today. September is National Preparedness Month, and the U.S. government, along with other governments world wide and at the local level take a month to encourage citizens to be prepared for varying emergency situations and disasters. Throughout our nation’s history, citizens have been encouraged to take a variety of precautions from boarding up windows during hurricanes to keeping enough clean water on hand in case of power outages, to victory gardens and other wartime mitigation measures, and even suggests you have a go bag for scenarios like wildfires where you need to go, quickly. If you just type “National…
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Six Years and Counting
It’s six years and counting since we signed the papers on the homestead and moved in! Some days it feels like a lifetime ago, and I suppose, in some ways, it is! Two of the kids were born after we moved here and have known no other home, so for them, there was no “before” the homestead. So much has happened in those years, and I’m very grateful that I’ve kept the blog up throughout that time so we have a record of much of what has gone on. The progress we make each year has been amazing and deeply satisfying. We’ve made a lot of aesthetic changes in 2021,…
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Satisfactory Exhaustion
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of satisfactory exhaustion that sets in after a long day putting up food that you’ve spent months growing and tending. This past week has been filled with long, exhausting days, but with each passing day, we’ve added to our store of food for the coming year. The house is filling up with all kinds of food, flowers, and herbs, and I love it. Thursday began with a hurried run through the garden, doused in bug spray while picking as many veggies as possible before running back into the house to escape the clouds of mosquitoes. I picked all of the remaining purple pole beans,…
