Around home.

I have been so busy that I had to go through our photos to figure out what I have not had time to blog about. I have been sure to grab snap shots here and there just so I could keep up and remember what we had done.It has been a crazy mix of life and homesteading around here.

Issac is going to summer school and working this month which means he is gone form 7:30 in the morning,comes home to change and then leaves for work until 10 at night.It is a good thing his health is great right now and has the stamina that only a teen has.

Sol has become a social butterfly and is out daily with friends but I did nab him one morning for strawberry picking.
  This year we picked 25 pounds of berries which is up from last years 16 pounds.We had plenty of jam with the 16 pounds but this year I would like some extra jars for gift giving. I ended up freezing the berries until I had an open day for jam making.

Chance harvested and braided our garlic into 3 thick ropes of garlic heads. He found a couple of videos on Youtube that he gleaned the how to part from.I watched him do it and it was easier looking than I ever thought it would be.Garlic braiding is one of those skills that has always been a mystery to me.We now have around 45 heads of garlic for winter,maybe not enough for a whole year but it is a start.Each year we just keep adding onto the quantities we grow and will do so until we think we have hit our mark.








We took a Sunday off and took my Mom and the boys to the beach for a day of sandy bliss.The weather was PERFECT. That is Sol in the photo enjoying the quiet of the beach.I love living in Oregon and will most likely never move form here.As you can see from the photo our beaches are clean,beauty filled and empty.I always say if someone is on the beach while you are and they are closer than a city block it is a busy day on the Oregon coast.Our nearest neighbor that day was about 3 city blocks away.

We harvested our first bunch of carrots,yummy sweetness.

And the Pancette Chance made is now ready to eat. Chance cooked some up for us and it was good, a nice mild herb flavor to it and not smokey like bacon.

We are starting to eat small amounts from the garden, swiss chard,strawberries,raspberries,salad greens and carrots.Our beets are ready to pull and the potatoes have bloomed ,a sure sign we could dig them now and have baby potatoes but we are waiting until the plants wilt down so we can have bigger potatoes.The rest of the veggies are making a come back after the horrid weather and all was not lost like we feared.We may not have the large quantities like we did last year but there will be plenty.
 Even with all of these things done and made I am the most proud of Mama Trixie and her Chicks.Now I really feel like we are firmly standing on the path way to being more self sufficient.The whole process of having our own homegrown chicks was pretty darn amazing.We started out with big hopes that one of the hens would go broodie and we lucked out one did.As Mama Trixie sat we hoped and prayed we would get even just one chick.During this time my Dad said to me ," Well the hen is doing her job,if it does not work it is the Rooster's fault." I had to laugh at that.In the end both Mama and Rooster had done their jobs and we were gifted with 3 darlings.We have had chicks before but watching the chicks with their Mama is just so, nifty,natural,wondrous and endearing.None of the batches of chicks we have had in the past beats these three.With the nice weather I have the kitchen widow open and through out the day I can hear Mama Trixie clucking to her chicks,talking and teaching them what ever it is a mama chicken teaches her little ones.Her voice is so different than a non-mama chickens,deeper and mellow.
  There have been moments through out the past year and a half where I have felt like maybe we would never really get the hang of this homesteading life.And moments when I did not want to look like someone along for the trend ride.When our spring turned into a flooding, gray and depressing hell I wondered how we were going to get on track and keep things going. We have kept our chins up and pressed forward and having that Mama and her babies right out my backdoor has silenced those fears.Now I feel like if we can have homegrown chicks there is nothing stopping us from our journey.
  I'd like to say thank you to everyone who chimed in on my blog posting about learning to cook.Several of the comments have given me food for thought and I am working on answering some of the questions and incorporating some of the comments into my next posting in the series.
  Rois