RJ Homestead

I’m going to start off apologizing for the lack of posts, it’s been a busy few weeks and I’m a bad social media person. We had a very rainy May and the work needed to get done, so the days it wasn’t raining we were out working around the homestead. Most of the time I didn’t even think about taking pictures or documenting what we were doing, I was just trying to get the work done. Afterward I’d look and think, man, we probably should have made this a post. So kudo’s to those that post every day, and make and edit videos to post regularly. I don’t know how you find the time. Between working two jobs, keeping Eva busy and engaged, and the work around here, there is very little free time.

But we have been busy getting the spring chores done, and adding to our little homestead with some new stuff. First off, about a month ago we had a huge storm and we lost 9 trees. All pine. Luckily they didn’t hit anything (by the grace of God), even though it was close to the garden and the chicken coup and house. It was a lot of clean up.

After all that cleanup we did get the garden planted. This year we’ve got peas, tomatoes, peppers (including a variety of hot peppers), potatoes, corn, popcorn, spinach, lettuce, and pumpkins. I’m sure there is more, but Rebecca maintains the garden layout and list, I just dig the holes and help put the plants in. This year we used some of the wood from the fallen trees to make a trellis for the pumpkins. We’ll see how that goes.

We also added several new medicinal herbs to my medicinal inventory. We added comfrey, borage, mugwort, boneset, apple mint, stinging nettle and tulsi basil. All of them have taken and seem to be doing well. They’re small patches at the moment, but we’ll collect seeds this year, and plan a bigger patch for those we use the most. I’m looking forward to incorporating stinging nettle to our daily routine.

On top of that, we expanded our little orchard. We added 2 more apple trees, another peach tree, nectarine, and three cherry trees. Because why not? Eva loves the fresh fruit, and we like to can and fill our shelves.

We also expanded our berry selection, adding a second row of red raspberries, a second row of blueberries and a new berry I just happened to come across, called Tayberry. Tayberry is a cross between a blackberry and red raspberry. So we’re excited for that to take off and see how we like them.

We also added more grape plants, and got them trellised this year. Brings us to a total of 9 plants I believe. They’re just starting to produce, and we’re keeping an eye to see if we are going to need to net them so we can have the fruit and not the wildlife.

On top of all that, we added four new chickens to the flock, and this past week they were released from our little coop quarantine and allowed to join the big flock in the bigger coup. So far so good, everyone is getting along and last night the little girls finally went in the big coup without having to rely on me to help.

It’s also dehydrator season, and I’ve started harvesting the medicinal herbs we grow, and we’ve been on some forage walks to look for ones we don’t grow yet. This year’s jars are starting to fill up, and it will be time to start making tinctures soon. From now till end of august or September the dehydrator will get very little breaks. We also found several first year mullein plants around the garden, so we’ve dug them up and have them in a temporary location till I can get a spot to plant them. I threw hundreds of seeds down at the end of the property, but I have not seen anything come up yet, so this was a nice find. We go through a lot of mullein.

Aside from all that, we also had to open the pool, which was hard plumbed and we found one of the pipes shattered and was unusable so we had to scramble to find new fittings and hoses to keep that on track to get it running. And Eva decided she was old enough to learn to ride a bike, so we’ve been doing that on the weekends. I’m sure there is more I’m forgetting but, all in all, it’s been a busy month, and summer is just getting started.

Well that’s it for now. I’ll try to do better and find some more interesting content to add, or as we do more around here, try to make sure we document it. Thanks for sticking with us and following along.

Also, please stop by our facebook page and give us a “like” there. We post some additional content there, and we’re always happy to respond and answer any questions you may have! You can also find me on GAB, https://gab.com/jungerer!