Happy Holidays
- CATHERINE RAY
- Jan 1
- 6 min read
Welcome back to the homestead. We hope you had a fantastic Christmas. As you know, we could not join the family in Michigan this year for the holiday season. We were going to have Christmas breakfast with the ladies, but Michelle has pneumonia. Poor lady, we told them it does not matter when we celebrate, just need her feeling better. So, our celebrations are not done yet. We did a video chat with my family when they were celebrating at my sister's house. It was good to see all of their faces. It made it a little easier being away. We did head to Brenda and Shawn's for dinner. First of all, the weather was amazing. We played card games outside until dark. We had amazing food and amazing company with all that showed up. Brenda was so sweet and made us a gift basket. I am so looking forward to making gifts to share with others. Just forewarning everyone that next year is homemade gifts. Speaking of gifts, my daughter's gift I ordered, still has not arrived. USPS has taken it for quite the ride all over the US. Now they confiscating it, because their error. I had to contact the company to order a replacement. I struggled to come up with the ideas that I did, now this. Hopefully my kids will get their gifts before the end of January.
Per usual, we keep quite busy around her. Honestly, we lose track of the time it is and what day it is regularly. We vowed to ourselves that we will accomplish something each and everyday. It does not matter how big or how small it is. We were being so hard on ourselves of not accomplishing enough. Things don't go according to plan. The weather will act up, something will be break, a tool or supply will be lost in the black hole, so many variables are involved. As long as we are moving forward, that is all that matters.
The food forest now is edged out with logs. It looks very nice. We also like it because it helps define the area. The side yard was cleaned out for two reasons. Me mulched up the materials for the garden areas, and it is the future home of our permanent clothesline and grassy area. We are maxing our space in the yard for all of our growing areas. The clothesline is the only grassy area we have planned for right now. I need it for walking barefoot and get grounded.
The garden beds we will be using next spring are all ready except for the top dressing. We will get that done in the spring. We are looking so forward to getting crops in the ground. We were hoping to do at least a few fall crops, but that did not work out. That is ok. The root crop area is in process now. It will need a good tilling in the spring. Right now, we are just getting a layer of good stuff on it. Now these gardens will expand some when we work through some of the wood stacks, but for now, they will serve us well. We are just trying to get all the yard cleaned up. That will be done by the next blog. Just wait until you see the panoramic photo of our 4th month update. We decided that all the materials we are raking up will be put into the chicken yard. Chickens are another goal for spring. It will make great materials for them to scratch through and compost down.
Rick built us some temporary stairs until we have the porch added on to the cabin. Thank goodness. I am a graceful sort. It was a matter of time until I hurt myself on the sketchy setup we had before. The best part, he made them from all left over materials we had. Unfortunately, they will not work for our porch when it is built, but we will find a new purpose for them. He did a great job. He did all the mathing in his head, and did not have to refer to an app. That is a huge deal. I am proud of him.
The jeep got some much needed breaks. Well that is what we thought when Rick went to change them. They were not too bad until he got to the second to the last one. There was a crack in one side and the other side had fell all kinds apart. Now we can go on a quiet drive down to the mail box. lol
We spent more time working outside these two weeks, but we did get a few things done on the inside of the cabin. The shower stall is completely install. We just have to hook it up to the on demand water heater, which had to hooked up to the pump and our water supply. We still need to get our rain catchment system up and going, but we are doing fine. It is still a little rustic, but we know it is temporary. We do have our composting toilet up and going. That will be improved upon when we built on the cabinet for it. The last thing we did in the cabin was applied the grid work on the ceiling. I think it turned out amazing. It give it character and also covers the seems, so we did not have to mud and sand them. We will have to spend some time doing touch ups an fixes, but we are waiting to do them all at once. So once the cabin is completely done on the inside, we will go through and do all the touch up work.
One amazing thing that happened. We went ahead and ordered Starlink. Our service we had was crap for $50. Yes, the new is more, but the internet is amazing. I no longer have to wait to do my blogs when I go to town. We activated it today, and here I am writing the blog. We are so excited for this.
I am going to end this blog by wishing everyone a very Happy and Healthy New Year. 2025 was monumental for us. We had the big move to sell out house and move down here. There is no regret. He discuss sometimes if we should have waited a few more months or left a little earlier. To be honest, we left when we should have. Monetarily we met our savings goals and debt goals. We stocked up on most everything we needed or we could think of. We had our list of items we had to get down here. There was much planning and forethought to all of this. It was the perfect time. Here is my wish for you in the new year. Life is meant to be lived. Please do not just exist. If there is a dream you have been sitting on, what are you waiting for? You don't have to jump off the cliff and go do the dream, take the baby steps that will help get you there. If you are lonely, there are plenty of organizations out there that can help you get connected to a hobby group, veterans support group, volunteer groups, and so on. If your health has not been the greatest and nothing seems to help, do your research on living clean. If is amazing how your health will change if you eat real food, use clean personal products and use home remedies to help. Do yourself a favor and research it. No one is responsible to make your life better for you. That is your job. You just need to own it.
Our goals for 2026
completed cabin and porch
clothesline
chickens
gardens
maybe another animal
I joined a group that is learning a new homesteading skill every month
I need to figure out why I have been breaking out in hives a lot lately. (I will admit that our diet has been less then stellar for awhile now. )
looking for a new deodorant recipe. The baking soda in mine it irritating my skin bad.
Rick is just focusing on getting all the things built.
Thank you for stopping by and reading our blog. We appreciate the love and support from our friends and family. If you know anyone who would be interested, feel free to share.
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