Summer of Change at the Homestead

A photo from last year, but it was summer so it fits the topic. It’s been rather hot and muggy the past month and a half here so there aren’t many new summer photos to share. We had so much rain for the spring, and then went straight into the over-heated, nasty stuff, it sort of put a damper on our hiking and outdoor fun. There’s always autumn, though!

Around the Homestead:

I mentioned in the last update that the Man of the Homestead will be heading off to New Jersey soon. We haven’t gotten an exact date yet, but it’s coming up. Definitely by this time next month he will be enjoying the cooler temps of the northeast while we are still sweating it out down here in the South. This job will be the farthest away from home he’s been in the past 5-6 years…15+ hours. The plan is he will fly home for 4 days, every 3 weeks. at least until winter strikes the northeast and we will play it by ear from there. Another year of the single parent homesteading and homeschooling isn’t quite the adventure I had in mind, but it is what it is, so onward we go.

I also mentioned the possibility of moving. We aren’t. I love Tennessee, and I can list off a hundred pros to being there vs here, but the biggest con on the list, the one that I just can’t get around, is the debt-free part. We own this place, there is no debt here. to move, we would be starting over with a bank loan or renting from someone and not having the ownership. If the goal is to drag the Man of the Homestead home and keep him here, that debt-free thing has got to be. He can’t, and won’t, come home at all with a loan hanging overhead. And as much as I’d love the like-minded fellowship of Tennessee, I don’t think it’s smart to start over again with $100k and more in debt just to get there.

So…we finish projects here…like the addition off the back of the house, the barn that needs rebuilding, the fencing that needs done, the remodeling that has been ‘in progress’ for so long. The list is lengthy, that’s for sure, but it all keeps moving forward toward the goal, and that’s the point I suppose.

Some projects I need to work harder on…keeping the pantry stores up, and forcing this land of clay and slop to produce for our needs. Part of that process will include finding Miss Judy, and perhaps Bo the bull, a new home. There isn’t enough ‘pasture land’ here at all to truly keep a contented cow. She is just 7 years old now and still has quite a few years of calving and milking in her. She just needs the right family homestead. I hate seeing her go, but it has to happen. I will miss the availability of the milk, and definitely the fresh butter, but we don’t have the proper set up for her, I cannot get her bred way out here (no one want to come AI a single cow in the middle of the hinterlands here and there isn’t a neighbor willing to rent a bull for date nights, etc). I have to stop hanging on and just admit that bit of the dream just isn’t meant to be. Perhaps we can get reworked here to better suit the goats, and work on rebuilding the herd back up. We have lost our best goats over the past several summers with so much rain and the increase in the worm-load. I stopped milking them to keep their health up for those having babies.

In the Schoolhouse:

We are wrapping up some odd projects and such to end the current school term here and I’m preparing for the next great school adventure…the 1800’s. I am planning out a Daniel Boone and Lewis & Clark refresher. then into the Westward Expansion this school season, then the Civil War next season. We could work them both this year, but I’m afraid we will just miss too many good things trying to lump them both together. The Civil War can easily take us the majority of the year, and 20 weeks/5-6 months seems such a short time frame. Same with Daniel Boone, Lewis & Clark, The Gold Rush, Westward Expansion…there’s just so many projects and so many adventures waiting in those topics, kwim?

General Notes:

The blogging will increase. Yeah, I know you’ve heard that before from here. I’m serious this time. I love Facebook, it’s a great tool for keeping in contact with friends and family. It’s so easy…that’s part of the problem really. I can grab up my phone and visit with friends, share in their day, keep up with prayer needs. Blogging takes a more concerted effort. I have to grab the computer or the iPad and get logged in. That brings along the various bunny trails I inevitably begin to follow, and before you know it I’ve lost some serious time in my day. I can do that with Facebook too, but I tend to use that venue in more of a snatch-n-grab style, as opposed to sitting down with a glass of sweet tea, getting comfortable, and playing with the iPad. I miss those old Homestead Blogger days, but I spent a lot of time getting lost among the blog fields back then :-) However, despite my own shortcomings in being disciplined with ‘all the world at my fingertips,’I want to get back to blogging. I want to recapture a bit of those care-free days I no longer seem to access thru Facebook.

Wait…What did I hear you say? I just want a larger format for passing along my rambled, often jumbled, incoherent thoughts? Ok. You got me there. Y’all know me so well :-)

Deanna