Homestead happenings and projects

Wooah it's been a while since the last update, that's because there's been lots to do. Twice every day the dogs, goats, chickens and cows need fed. The garden and nursery plants need watered and weeded. The kitchen and dishes need kept clean and the chicken eggs need collected and cleaned. The goats need grazed, lest they start plotting against you.

But in addition to chores several projects have also been getting done. I've been spending time each day gathering Dewberries. And with these gathered dewberries is made dewberry jam (or preserves) and after the preserves get made, you put it on toast!

Dewberry jam tastes awesome, way better than that regular....grape jam. Plus it's pretty cool to pick the berries and have a way to preserve them for future eating (properly canned preserves are good for at least 365 days) The first batch produced about 8 jars and the bag is almost full again to make another 8 jars.

Another project that's been getting some attention is the milking parlor. We've been installing insulation, adding interior sheathing, caulking and painting. Cabinets have been moved in and need some restoration and the sink is awaiting some plumbing work (water line in, a drain for the sink and another drain on the floor) Once the milking parlor gets a few more touches we can start using it for goat milking. This will be much easier and cleaner than milking outside. Currently most of the milk goes to the kid goats but to keep the mom goats healthy extra is milked (which goes to the chickens)


In other news the goat herd has added 4 new goats to their ranks. This makes the goat population at the homestead now 21. The kid goats are healthy, doing fine and are becoming very adept at flopping and flailing about in the pasture.



The garden has been doing good and growing new stuff. Some of the new produce-ready-to-eat is zucchini, summer squash, jalapeno pepper and bell pepper.



Other items soon-to-be-ready-to-eat are corn (lots of corn) and tomatoes (more then I can count) And even some watermelon (what you don't believe me?) Fine here's the picture and in fact this watermelon is 2 - 3 times bigger today, six days since this picture was taken. With a little bit of rain I think this watermelon could be a contender for Guinness World Records world's largest watermelon.
Well I'll wrap this up with a "thank you" to a garden visitor, Green Tree Frog, found him hanging out on the onions. Check back soon for more posts about some food drying experiments, goat updates and garden news.