Hi there! I’m overdue for an update. I like to write a blog post once a month at the least, but now it’s the 22nd of July and my last post was at the end of May! Every time there is a gap between posts I say how busy we are. So you’ll hear me say that again… we’ve been really busy. This time we’ve been busy in new ways (and the pictures above give you a clue.) 🙂 In my last post, I said we had been working to get projects done in time for some homestead deadlines. Well, those projects were to finish building a goat house and yard, as well as put up a structure that we would use to keep our friends’ ducks in while they were on vacation (and then after use for animals of our own.)

On Mother’s Day we brought our new goats home, and what a great gift that was! Long time readers might remember that we had goats here many years ago. I can honestly say that Jeff and I have missed having goats here ever since. If you are a goat person, you get it. Goats are just the best. We are very glad to be raising goats here again. We also knew what we were getting into this time, and fully understood what a responsibility the milking routine is on the homestead. I went from minimal animal chores each day (with just the quail to care for) to hours per day when we brought home two goats in milk and started the milking routine that very first night. It’s a lot of work, and also very rewarding (not just because of the delicious milk.) I plan to share pictures and introduce you to each of them at some point, but for now wanted to give an overall update and share the joy we feel at having goats in our life again.

Not long after we brought the goats home in May, our friends brought over their ducks. We took care of their five ducks while they were on a trip, and really enjoyed having them here. They gobbled up garden greens like crazy, as well as slugs and snails, which we appreciated. Years back, Jeff and I also raised ducks here, and considered raising them again at some point. Having our friends’ ducks here made us miss having ducks so much that we decided not to wait, and contacted a local farm about getting some duck hatching eggs to put in our incubator. Before we left to pick them up, we found out the farmer also had some ducklings for sale so we ended up bringing home ducklings and eggs to hatch. So, we’ve had a lot of new additions to the homestead this year!

It seems like it has happened all at once, but it has been years in the making. We knew as soon as we stopped traveling for work and our goal of working from home was a reality, we wanted to get goats again. It took time to get to that point. In 2019 we wrapped up the traveling, and were so excited to finally be able to put more time and energy into our homestead endeavors. In 2020 we started buying lumber and materials to build a goat house, but decided to prioritize quail first (and all that goes with that- like building pens, setting up watering systems, etc.) and also focused a lot of energy on expanding the garden that year. We were really busy with work, and projects always seem to take longer than you think they will. (What we intended to create for a simple goat house did not turn out to be simple at all.) We thought for sure goats would happen in 2021, but in the end the goats that were meant for us fell into place in 2022, and the wait only made us appreciate them all the more.

Speaking of new additions, I wanted to add more layers to our flock, so we hatched out more quail eggs in April. The first two times we hatched out quail eggs, we had good hatch rates as well as a good experience with the farm we purchased them from. In April (the third time we hatched out quail eggs), we didn’t have a great experience with a different place we purchased them from and we also didn’t have a great hatch rate either. We ended up with 16 chicks, and out of those we only got 5 girls! So we ended up with five new layers. Not what I was going for, but still grateful for more eggs for our family each day. In other quail news, we lost B’s special quail named Trooper. We were all fond of that sweet little bird, and she is missed.

What is the weather like where you are? I mentioned how soggy our spring was, it went into summer as well. I kept hearing from locals that they thought summer would never come. It sure seemed that way. Then summer hit suddenly with a heat wave. Then rain again. Then intense heat again. Back and forth. Not like our typical dry summers. The temperature extremes were quite shocking to the garden. Through it all the garden was hanging in there, though, and while some things are behind, they are growing like crazy now and seem to be catching up. In our usual fashion, we expanded the garden, just like we do each year. Jeff has been working on setting up a watering system. It’s a lot of work, and time consuming, but will save a lot of time when it’s done.

A lot of my energy this year has been going into physical labor, rather than anything screen-related. I feel like I’ve worked harder physically than I ever have before- hauling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of soil, compost, woodchips, gravel (that kicks my butt)… hauling straw and feed, and setting posts, and putting up fences… and the list goes on and on. I like seeing progress and getting so much accomplished, it’s what keeps me going even when I’m exhausted. I’m grateful that Jeff and I are both fulfilled by this homesteading life and are on the same page about what we want to create here. I look around at all we’ve done over the years and though we sometimes wish we could make progress faster, I’m proud of all the work we’ve done.

When there’s so much to get done in a day- dishes to be done, meals to make, laundry to put away, animals to feed… it’s hard to find time to write a blog post, which is why this space was quiet for so long. But also, I felt pulled in another direction- giving my energy to my immediate world around me. It felt good to be more unplugged for awhile. The noisier the world gets, the more my soul needs quiet. My soul wants time in nature, and physical labor, and to listen to the birds and the river while I milk goats. I do want to keep writing posts here, though. I’m also craving connecting with kindred spirits.

We’ve always loved the feeling of having food in our backyard. It’s humbling how much work it takes to grow and produce that food, and at the same time that is exactly what I feel guided to do. I also feel guided to keep encouraging others to connect to their food, and grow it if they are able and inspired to do so. (We’ve sold many plant starts over the last few years and I have a not-so-secret mission to get as many people gardening as possible.) I’ve spoken to so many people this year who tried gardening once and gave up, or felt too busy to give it a try, or who were discouraged by the weather or all the bad news. I want to tell them to not give up, to keep digging and planting, and if one thing doesn’t work to try another. Sometimes I feel my voice will be drowned out amidst all the noise, will it matter what this one voice says in this quiet corner of the internet? If one person reading this feels some encouragement, then my time spent writing this today meant something. Every step we take matters, even if it feels small in the grand scheme of things…