Category: Around the Homestead

Published on Leave a comment on Happy Summer

The weather was beautiful this weekend so it was time to catch up on a few things.  The early morning started with opening the bee hive.  It had been a week since we brought them home.  It was time to add one more brood chamber and put the first honey super on.  Since it was fairly cool the bees were not too active.  I did suit up fully and smoke the hive just a bit but everything went very well.  Since there are many things blooming they should start to make honey now.  There is a queen excluder between the brood chambers and the honey super to prevent the queen from laying eggs in the honey area.  It has been really fun so far getting to know the bees.

I finally got the additional 50 strawberry plants into the new planting bed in the front yard.  The plants that we planted a couple years ago are heavy with fruit.  We were able to pick 2 quarts of beautiful sweet fruit in the afternoon.  From the amount of berries still ripening on the plants I'm think we will be able to pick this amount each day for a week or more.  Boy they were really good sliced up on vanilla ice cream with a bit of my mother in laws famous hot fudge sauce on them.  My next project will be to make biscuits so that I can make my sweetie his favorite strawberry shortcake.  It must be on biscuits though, none of that squishy sponge cake.

We had a heat pump installed a few weeks ago so it was time to built the rain cover over it.  I just built a little shed roof with a scrap piece of metal roofing over it.  Now when it rains or if snow from the house metal roof slides off it will not hit the outside unit.

There is still a ton of stuff to do during our short summer including getting the garden weeded soon before they take over.

Well, it sounds like we are having a passing shower, good for watering in those new strawberry plants.

Happy Summer Everyone

Published on Leave a comment on Finally a Fenced Front Yard

Well it took about 3 weeks to get it finished but the front yard is finally fenced.  I finished by hanging the gate after work today.  We fenced the front yard for a few reasons.  We are putting the bee hive inside the fence to keep it away from the chickens who would think each bee made a fine snack.  It also places it up in the vicinity of the dog yard and house which will both be a deterrent to bears.  The added advantage to keeping the chickens out of the yard is now I can have my edible perennials and not have to fence each planting bed.

So far we have planted inside the fence blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and asparagus.  I have some elderberries and ground cherries yet to plant this year.  The strawberries and blueberries all bloomed really well and now have fruit set so we should have a good berry harvest this year.

 

Published on Leave a comment on A Lot Has Been Happening On the Homestead

I must first apologize for the long delay is posting.  It has been a very busy spring here at the homestead.  I took the week of Memorial Day off to work at the homestead and fortunately the weather was great.

The first thing accomplished was the painting of the back side of the barn, well at least the really high areas.  I still need to finish the bottom but we had a lift for day so got the hard to reach parts done.  We also used the lift to top the large pear tree to a lower height which will be more manageable for harvesting the fruit.

I also got 3 raised beds put into the garden.  I have been wanting to put raised beds in for many years and now I have them.  I only made them three feet wide instead of the standard four feet.  I am not vey tall and it was a little awkward to reach the two feet to the center of a four foot bed.  I am not going to walk on the beds so I will be able to reach the entire bed from both sides.

There are several other projects in the works and I will give you an update on them in the next little while.

Published on Leave a comment on The Seeds are Started, Finally!

Now that there is a little bit of Spring in the air I have finally planted my seeds that I start early indoors.  I usually plant them six to eight week before I can put them out into the garden.  We have such a short growing season here that without this advanced start I would never be able to harvest a tomato.

Besides tomatoes I have also started onions from seed.  This is the first year I am trying this as I usually use onion sets and plant them directly into the garden.  I have also started some different varieties of melons.  Again these take longer to grow and mature.  They will get planted in the hoop house for some extra heat to get them well on their way.

In addition I planted several different herbs to help my new herb garden get started.  The plan is to add a small herb garden up by the house with some of my favorites to make tea with as well as some medicinal herbs.  I'll keep you posted as that project gets going.

Happy Spring finally and have a Blessed Easter.

 

 

Published on Leave a comment on New Desk from Salvaged Materials

Since Spring still hasn't come our way yet I decided to tackle an inside project today.  My workspace here at the homestead was rather small and didn't have any really good work surface.  We didn't really need to have a door between the shower and the rest of the bathroom so I took it out a few months ago.  Today I turned that door into a desk.  I purchased some really nice legs from Lowes, cleaned the door up nice and attached the legs using brackets for that purpose.  I am now writing this from my new desk.  There are still a few finishing touches that I want to do before I paint the entire thing but it is functional now.  My filing cabinet fits right under the surface and I am going to add a shelf on the opposite end from the computer and chair.  I have more salvaged plywood for the shelf and it will hold a couple of baskets that I have to keep office things in.  There is enough room for my printer too.  The door is 80"x22" so that is a lot of room.  I might have to get a piece of acrylic to put on the surface since it is a raised panel door but we will try it without for awhile and see.  Now I just have to find a place to put my Great Grandpa's desk that I was using.