The White Family Homesteaders

I'm trying to catch up on here, we've been so busy lately.  We get going on the homestead with chores for days then we have to go back to the real world of our actual paying jobs and then next thing I know it's a new week.  Last week we did some much needed maintenance on the homestead of trimming up some trees. That was an all week project with a little work on the garden. We have at least a handful of trees that are in need of some desperate trimming. We got to two of them and the process is still continuing. We still need to take what we trimmed off to a local tree limb drop off site. It's amazing how much better and happier the trees look.  Besides trimming them up for landscaping reasons we also did it to discourage the deer from hanging out under them. We don't want them getting comfortable on our property close to our garden. The first tree was pretty simple of just cutting limbs down. The second tree was more challenging, it didn't want to let go...

Wow our weekend went by fast for us but we managed to get most of the things on our "to do" list done. I'm starting to lose it...I can't recall what we did on Tuesday. So I guess onto the rest of the week.  I picked up a new skill this week that I'm stoked about. I learned how to engage the PTO on the tractor so now I can mow the pasture. It takes some caressing here and there of Colonel Mustard (our tractor)  to get the brush hog going but I believe we've figured it out now. It took a few hours one day and an hour or so the next to get most of it mowed, I still have one patch to do but I'm pretty proud of myself. While I did that the hubby was on wood cutting duty.           My view on Colonel Mustard.  We had his mom come over and watch the kiddo since we had to do some chores that took focus. But of course since we had a plan of divide and conquer something had to go wrong. This time it was the chainsaws...darn things didn't want to work. ...

This last Friday I was home relaxing on our front deck drinking wine. Wine has of late became my drink of choice here at the homestead thanks in large to my generous wino friend John. He gives me cases of wine that he grows tired of and being that it's free and quite tasty I have indulged in it quite frequently lately. Any how I had just swallowed the last sip of the bottle I decided to kill all by my lonesome when my dog Tuff let out a wicked growl followed by some genuinely concerned barking. It had just become dark enough to force me to look for a flash light so in my drunken panic I grab a tiny key chain flash light, my pistol and an Axe handle just in case whatever it is needs a good beating. Finally I waddled my dumb drunken stumbling ass down the hill to find Tuff all up in the backside of a good size skunk. One thing about our boxer is he is fearless when it comes to defending what he thinks needs defended. This particular time he was exceptionally tenacious and would not b...

We are getting so close to having the garden all done and planted.  I love gardening but I want to move on to other chores.  Hopefully just one more week of transplanting and the garden will be in.  The cantaloupe seeds I saved and planted have popped out of the ground. I wasn't sure about them but so far it's a success which makes me smile.  The cantaloupe sprouts saying hello. The peas are growing fast, so we put up some T-posts and fencing for a trellis for them to climb up.  The T-posts we already had and the fencing we acquired from family that didn't want it anymore.  I took video to show how we wrapped the fencing onto the posts and I'll be posting that on our you tube channel.  The drip system is all laid out and in place for the most part.  There was an unexpected chore that came up this week. The trellis for the peas.  I was minding my own business doing the dishes the other morning when I realized our water pressure had dwindled...