Sharing more of us...
- 13 hours ago
- 5 min read
Welcome back to the homestead.
I have so much to update you on. I hope you are all doing well. First things first. We finally got the black stain. So, Rick and I got the rest of the kitchen cabinets all done. I think they look amazing. I know some people would be put off by the thought of using black, but with the wall and ceiling color it just pops. We are doing two toned cabinetry through out the whole cabin. So imagine shelves on the walls in a pecan stain. The stain matches our already existing dresser and two cabinets. Those all will be banked in shelved and cabinets in black. You just have to wait to see it. Rick did an amazing job putting together my cast iron wall. He laid out the locations of each pan and ran with it. Once again, I am so happy about that two. I was able to unload 3 more kitchen boxes. Yay!!!I have one box left of kitchen decor. That will be done once all the shelves are installed. I can then finalize where everything belongs.
Rick got to work on his mill attachment for the chain saw. He got it all assembled. He then needed to come up with an idea to get the first straight cut done for the logs we are milling. He did some research and got a brilliant idea. We brought our bed frame with us from Michigan. The creative juices were flowing, and he devised a jig to put on the log. We are hoping to do a test run tomorrow, if the weather cooperates. It sures likes to rain unexpectantly here. Even several times in a day.
In kitchen news, since I have all my tools and gadgets now. I am really enjoying putting together some yummy food. I found a bread recipe that we really enjoy, so we are sticking with it. I have been trying to keep us in bread. Sometimes it is hard because of all the unexpected things that come up, I did make chocolate pudding from scratch for the first time. That is a keeper recipe. We are both suckers for sweets especially where chocolate is involved. I received a box of produce that was on it's way out. I gave some to a neighbor and put up some carrots, sweet potatoes, and one jar or our own green beans. 18 more jars to put in storage. So, that makes our total of over 100 jars put up so far this year. Holy crap. I have never put up that much stuff before. I still have lots of growing season left.
Speaking of gardens, we are still getting a good harvest of green beans. Our second run of beans is looking fantastic. The peanuts are blooming, so they will be coming in the near future. I ended up with more zucchini plants that I intended, but that is more I can put up, plus exchange with neighbors and friends. The pumpkins are all blooming. Male flowers, but it is something. Now the bad news. I got up one morning, and the bed with my cucumbers and peppers was all dug up. The cucumbers were looking so good. As the day went on, they just started to look awful. There was also digging in our tomato bed. I consulted with my friend. She thought it may be an armadillo. She advised to start a hot pepper and vinegar solution. I got the items we needed. The solution would not be done for a few weeks so I cut up peppers and sprinkled them around everything. The following day, we woke up to more digging. This time more concentrated in the tomato bed. Fortunately, we just rebury them, and they seem to be all right. Now we have live traps, but we wanted to be sure that we were baiting for the correct animal. We well the cameras up to catch the vermin in action.
The next morning, we checked the footage. It was a trash panda. We set the trap up that night with some cat food. The following morning, nothing in the trap. We saw in the camera. It walked by the trap and barely sniffed at it. That night out motion light came on by out conex that opposite side of the drive way from the garden. The little devil was over there walking around. We reset the trap with even more bait and bait leading up to the trap. Come morning, bingo. Funny part was, when I woke up. I saw the critter in the cage, and a stray cat was laying on the log next to it. Made me wonder if the cat was mocking the raccoon because he was not the one caught, or he was being an emotional support animal. We took care of the critter, so we should not have anymore problems. Nothing was on the cameras last night. So, we shall see. No our garden is not fenced off at this time. We are extending our gardens either this fall or early spring.
Some of the odds and ends we have been doing is putting cages around our berry plants. The canes are getting out of control and trying to keep the fruit clean and prevent easy access from the ants. We had to stake the zinnia plants. The were toppling over. The dehydrator (sun oven) has been hard at work drying wild lettuce, comfrey and purslane is what we are drying now. After that, strawberry leaves. I made a refill to our odor fighting spray. It works awesome and is all natural. If you want the recipe, comment below. I finally dabbled in chatgpt. We finally have a logo. You should see it above. It isn't perfect, but we think it looks pretty good. I also started a facebook page just for the homestead. I wanted a place to post more of the everyday stuff...thoughts, random photos and other things that just don't make it on here. Hit the button below, and it will take you right to it. Make sure to follow to always be in the know.
Community is so important. These people help you stay sane. Good friends are there when you need them. They also come baring gifts, and you can recripocate. We have some slab wood and saw dust to pick up from a friends house. Bertha has brought us lots of produce, chocolate mint plants, moringa tree, and a gogi berry. I have been off loading medicianl herb plants to her and Shan. I got a little nuts on seeding some of them. We feel so blessed to have great people in our lives.
The last thing I want to touch on in this lenghty memoir, is my phone. So, it decided to pretty much crash. It was so laggy. The screen would freeze up a lot. I had finally had enough. Rick helped me back up everything. I had to do a hard reset. That was the easy part. Put everything back on there has been the challenge. This happened a few days ago. I am still working on getting everything as good as new. I will get there. Thank you ever so much for taking time out of your day to read our blog. We do it for our friends and family. We also do it for ourselves. A place to look back and see all the progress we have made.
We hope you have a great week. Take care
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