What has been happening on our homestead?

I have had a few readers ask me what is new on our homestead since I last posted. 

Well during my time away from blogging, we downsized our goats. We no longer have meat goats. All we have now are 3 goats. My mom's pygmy goat, Tyler's white and brown Nigerian dwarf and Kyle's Black/brown Nigerian dwarf. We also downsized our layers. At the time that was what we needed to do. We had a lot on our plate and a lot going on. 

We have since gotten more layers and are excited to be getting our egg business up and running! ( Even getting our business stamp made and should be here by the end of the week! Also, got our order of 100 new cartons.) We just got an order of layer chicks to help replace a good bit of our older birds come this fall/winter. We are super excited about this part of our journey and how we are looking to hopefully continue to expand.And talking about expanding,  I have an incubator coming this month ( Happy Mother's day to me! :) ) to also start the next  new adventure into hatching/ raising our own replacement layers, as well as selling some of the chicks we hatch and raise.  I will be sure to do a post on this, showing which incubator we chose and as we go through this adventure , so stay tuned!

We have put in a small orchard in our backyard! We put in 2 peach trees and 2 pear trees. We will be excited for them to start producing fruit in a few years. The boys have also put in a small pond in the middle of the orchard for the next  new additions. Any guesses? 

And last we have put our garden in for this year. We are already enjoying lettuce , strawberries and even some broccoli from it. We planted lettuce( 2 types), broccoli, sugar peas, green beans, dry beans, zucchini, 3 types of tomatoes), beets, onions ( red and white) and a lot of red potatoes. We also transplanted 2 blueberry bushes that were Tom's dad's. We are very excited to have these and see they already have some fruit started grow on them. 

Did / or are you getting anything new or excited to add to your farm/homestead/property? I would love to hear about it. Leave it in the comments! 

~ Katie

Back at it again!

 After a long while off, I have decided to start blogging again. I hope you all are doing well.

 A lot has happened since I blogged last and a lot in this world is going on as well.

   There has been happiness, stress, sadness, mourning, doubt, prayer,  growth, seeking and planning in our journey during this time. But during this time I keep coming back to Jeremiah 29:11. That verse says so much and it is wonderful to think God has it all planned for us!

 I am very happy to be back  to share all that is going on and  somethings we have planned for the future.

I hope you will join me ( and my family) as we get back on this journey.

Feel free to share my posts, I would greatly appreciate it!

~ Katie

A New Year and new goals

It is that time of year, when we all set goals. I love reading others posts about their goals, whether it be homestead, personal, faith, financial, etc.

I sit down every year and make a list of my goals. I usually have a set of homestead goals, personal goals and faith goals. I like sharing these with you all so I can stay accountable to them. I have decided to only have a few in each section. I have noticed in years past I have made these big lists and sadly don't get a lot of them done. So I want to make it more manageable, so I can meet more of those goals. 

Here are my goals for this year:

Faith Goals:

To be more consistent with my devotions and quiet time with God. 

Find a good bible study (studies) and be intentional with doing them.

Personal goals:

Make more memories with my family :) ( whether this be fun trips, game nights, or just snuggling on the couch reading books.) 

Continue to do my best and grow at my job ( I do wedding coordinating  part- time).

To grow my friendships stronger and to make more time for coffee, chats, etc.

Read 36 books this coming year. ( fiction and non fiction included)

Do something every month for my husband ( encouraging notes, coffee in bed, etc. )

Homestead goals:

Grow our flock to 20 chickens, to grow our egg business. :) 

Get a pig to raise this spring and summer. ( still working to see if we can make this happen)

Stock the freezer: buy a half or whole cow for the year. 

Those are my goals for this year. We have financial goals but as of now we won't be sharing those. But when we accomplish one of them I may share them then.  :) 

Do you have any goals for this coming year? I would love to hear them! 

Happy New Year everyone and here is to a new year of homesteading goals! 

~ Katie

Dreams

Dreams. We all have them. Whether it to be to learn to can our own food. To having a garden that sustains your family and maybe someone else's. To raise all your own meat. To have chickens. To have a dairy cow ( we all know that is one of mine ;) ). To pay off your debt. To pay off your house. To go on a certain vacation. Whatever it is...

I wanted to say, " DON'T GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS!". Tom and I have many dreams to expand our homestead. Will they all happen? Maybe not. Will we ever expand? We hope so!

We have these dreams, but we pray and ask God to lead us where He would want us. It may not be what we had in mind. But we have to remember His Plan is far greater then what we can dream of. He has a purpose for our little homestead . Whether that be to just to feed our family and friends. Or to be able to feed many others.

3 years ago, we had a dream  to move out of our 650sq.ft. home on .05 acres in the middle of our town  and to a larger piece of land to grow our food. God blessed us with the house and land we are at now. Yes we have had struggles and our jobs take a lot of time from our homestead , but we still have the dream of raising our own food. It is happening slowly but surely. And we are not giving up on our dream!

So don't give up on your dreams. No matter how little you may think they are!


Here is to a New Year full of Dreams!

~Katie

Merry Christmas!

We wanted to wish you all   A Very Merry Christmas!!! From our homestead to yours!

Among the hustle and bustle of this day ( or several days) of celebrating Christmas with family, driving, milking, feeding the animals, etc. Let us not forget why we are really celebrating this day!

No, it's not the presents ( maybe there will be a Jersey cow under my tree this year! hint, hint Tom ) , no it's not the yummy amazing food, not the Christmas trees, carols, candy, cookies....


Let us remember that our Savior Jesus Christ was Born!! He was born to love and save us all!!



Merry Christmas!

Daisy Hill Homestead ( Tom, Katie, Kyle, Tyler and all the animals too)

Getting back at it...

I have been on a break for a bit. There have been some changes in our lives and the homestead. I am excited to share some of those things here with you!

One exciting thing that has happened on our homestead is we have started homeschooling this year. I 

have wanted to home school the boys for many years, but was just to scared too. I am so glad that we decided to do this! It is so neat to watch the boys as we are learning about something and their eyes light up when they get it. Or when they beg me to keep reading because they want to keep learning about a certain place in the world or an animal, etc.  Watching them excel in subjects and be able to apply what they learned to something we can go and do outside, etc.  Such an awesome thing!  Yes, there are days I wish I could go back to having my house clean for 8 hours and no one makes it messy, or the days when the house is quiet for me to think, days that no one wants to do school work and you just want the day to be done, or the days when you get to have alone time! Yes I do miss those days, but I love these days more! :) 

Homestead news:

We have downsized our goat  herd for the fall/winter. We  are talking about re- establishing a new herd, better pasture management/ grazing patterns and how to better our management of them. 

We are going to be selling off our flock of chickens ( they are older birds and egg production is Way down. So we will be starting with a whole new flock. I would like to get our red sexlink again but establish in some of the older heritage breeds as well. 

There has been talk about adding a pig to the homestead this spring! ( I am really excited about this!) We will have the pig from early spring and then have it ready for butcher in the fall. Any of those with some good tips, books, videos about raising pigs, I would love to hear from you! What is your favorite breed to raise and why?

We are wanting to add some apple trees this year. I would like to find a nice heirloom apple that I can use for canning ( pie filling, applesauce, etc.) . We have peach and pear trees, but the deer got to them this spring. They didn't kill them off, but we didn't get a harvest off of them. I am wanting to fence them off next year to help with that problem. Do any of you have deer problems with your fruit trees? What have you found that works best for this?

We are downsizing our garden for this coming year just for me to get back into the groove of everything , plus I am working. So if I can get some canning done next year ( unlike this year ) , with a small garden and then work at expanding the garden later on. I am going to try to work back in heirloom seeds to our garden as well. Last year we were so busy I just fell completely off the wagon and just bought any seed.  So next year will try to be more intentional. 

So that is it for now, I will have more in the New Year on our goals for the Homestead and what we plan on doing! 

Hope you all have a Very Happy Thanksgiving!  There is so much for us to be thankful for!

Happy Homesteading,

Katie

Our new addition and an incubator

    About 2 1/2 weeks ago we welcomed a 6 month old , black and white painted buck. We are excited

for his arrival, but also a bit anxious to have a buck on the property. We are excited though to be able

to have babies on the homestead again.

 His name is Luke and he is adjusting well. Right now we have him separated from the ladies for now

until we are ready to put them all together. He is a sweet boy, but you can surely tell he is a buck (

not just by the smell either! haha) by the way he moves and acts. We have talked to the boys about

safety around him since with all animals you need to use caution.

We are excited to see what the baby goats will look like this spring and summer.




We are also excited because we just bought a small egg incubator to hatch our own chicks! We have

5 eggs in the incubator right now , which we started yesterday. We will be sure to keep you updated

on this journey and with pictures as well! ( if I can remember!).


I have started working on our garden plan for this year as well! Yay!! I can't wait to get things

planted! I am ready for the dirt to get under my nails and the smell of freshly tilled soil! Anyone

else?! We are also making a list of projects we want to get done on the homestead. Honestly, I don't

think the list of projects ever gets done or ends, but I am okay with that!

I would love to add more animals to our homestead this year, but we are still unsure if that will

yet or not, but I will be sure to keep you all updated.

Anything new on your homestead? Anyone else hatching their own eggs? If so any advice would be

great! I am a nervous wreck about this!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

~ Katie