Hi, friends! How is everyone doing? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that everyone is ready for 2020 to be over. Let me know in the comments how I can pray for you today.
It’s been a while since I shared whats been going on around the farm. Scott finished building the chicken coop door/wall. We expanded the run, and the big chickens are happy outside. We let them free range during the day, and it’s so fun to see. They all stay together and eat the annoying bugs for us.
We had a bad storm blow through that took out a tree branch. Thankfully, everything else was safe. We’ve had a couple of days reprieve from the heat waves that keep blasting through. We spend a lot of time outdoors playing and working.
We have also added to the family. We got four barred rock females, and two easter eggers that will probably end up being roosters. haha! We have 18 chickens now! We really only have space in the run for two more– and I’m saving that space for silkies! I just think they are so funny.
We all love having chickens around so much more than we ever thought we would. The big ones are about 10 weeks from laying. We have named at least half of the chickens– I get asked that a lot. We are trying to make sure we can tell them apart.. and have honestly been trying to get individual pictures so that we can keep them straight. It’s not easy.
Bees arrived at the farm this week also. There must have been a swarm somewhere because the buzzing was SO loud. I was glad to hear them, and see some, because our pumpkins needed fertilized. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous being outside with it. But, I know they are good and won’t hurt me if I leave them alone.
The garden is growing more and more each day. We have BIRDS that keep eating all of our greens as soon as they sprout. I’m not really sure how to prevent that, so I’m going to fill in the empty space with some more carrots. Our melon vines are getting really big and we are finally seeing some fruit growing. I’m disappointed that we lost so many of our jalapeno plants this year. We have one left that had to be rescued from tomato hornworms. I pulled TWELVE off of my plants in a 24 hour period. Jerks.
I know that I say this all the time, but I am just so thankful for this place. The Lord opened the door for us just in time for the world to fall apart. We have plenty of space for the kids to play, and plenty of space to grow our own food. We are able to have family over outside, and most of them enjoy sitting outside with us. We are still being cautious and have good reasons to do so. The farm makes it easy to unplug and get away from the nastiness of social media.
We feel like we can finally say that we live on a homestead. Having that dream realized is such a nice feeling.
