The White Family Homesteaders

     When you're homesteading or farming your chore and/or project list can be never ending so every minute of the day counts.  For us we try to be prepared when doing projects because we try to make the most of our time.  Sometimes we're fighting the weather, appointments, illnesses or lack of finances which pushes back completion but in the end we always complete what we start.  I'll share some of our tips for getting the most out of your time on your homestead. Greenhouse being covered. 1. Have tools Ready One of our newest tricks is having all needed tools in one spot, the way we do this is by using old dairy crates.  For instance our work on the greenhouse has continued this week and we were ready to go back out there because all our tools were in one spot.  When we start a project Papa puts nails, screws, levels, measuring tapes, plans, drills, basically all that is needed for our project in the crate.  What this ...

     All we wanted to do was put up a fence you wouldn’t think it would be so hard but calling 811 was a pain in our booty.  We needed to dig some big holes for the posts and papa had to say that he thought that there were possibly power lines in line where we were going to dig.  After that all I could hear was that darn commercial “call before you dig to be safe”.  The hubby put the work order in online and we had to wait 48 hours for the utility companies to come and find their lines.  Well two days came and went and no one showed up, I immediately regretted following the rules but that’s what I do.  I called and asked why it hadn’t been done and we got the reason that we didn’t give them good enough directions to our marked address.  I didn’t know it would be so hard for them to find our house, well they finally were able to locate us and the lines and we were able to move on with our fence project. Look at my favorite people work...

     I'm starting to believe the weather is against us.  Everytime we have a chore outside that needs to be done the weather is uncooperative but when we have no plan the weather is fantastic.  We need to get more logs cut and split because this winter is different then most or maybe I've been keeping the house warmer either way our pile is super low.  With the melting snow and heavy rainfall though our firewood processing pad is a shallow lake.  It would be cruel to make Papa cut in those conditions.  So it's been postponed another week but next week it has to be done, the lake is drying up so it looks promising. Where's the plug? I need to drain this water.      The weather here has been unpredictable and surprising to say the least.  I have a weather app on my phone and it's always alerting me to winter advisory warnings or this or that.  The one warning that usually never is correct is the wind warnings. ...

     Well our little lady is 3 months old and we've almost got her figured out. It really would be nice if babies came with manuals or maybe a live in nanny.  The homestead hasn't been getting much attention but that should be changing now.  Our honey do list for the property seems endless at the moment. We had to sit and write everything down and organize it into the coming months and weeks.       There is one project that will be ongoing until spring, raised beds.  We have come to the conclusion that we are tired of putting so many hours of work plus so much sweat into a garden that isn't yielding the harvest it should.  It was our hope to improve our soil but at this point it doesn't seem possible.  Plus the fact that we can't keep intruders from eating our plants.  Now we will be able to bring in beautiful soil and build barriers around the beds.      Some other items on our list include fencing...

     Homestead life has been keeping us busy for the last month. If you follow us on Facebook  you've been seeing everything we've been up to. Every week there's a list of chores that need to be done, most weeks we are successful in checking all items off.  In the last month we've been working on getting prepared for our bee's arrival, taking care of our seedlings, repairing a camper for camping adventures, along with our everyday chores of life.            Since our wallet isn't too big and papa is quite the handy man we were able to pick up unassembled bee hives at a local mill works Shastina  for a great price.  The guy who assisted us was informative and funny, wish we could hang out with him and learn more. We'll definitely make another stop there if we need more supplies. For the rest of our supplies like our suit and tools we shopped around for the best price, I'm all about making my dollars stretch. Glue, p...

Our homestead made a big decision this week, we put down a deposit on two baby boer goats.  The hubby and I put up hot wire in the back of our house recently but I was dragging my feet about actually making the decision of when to get some goats.  I'm all about planning and making sure we are up for any decision we make before giving the green light.  Homestead papa likes just jumping in and figuring things out as we go.  To be fair though he does a lot of research before hand.  But with me I need to know every possible challenge and that we can overcome it and I need to know that we can financially handle a new responsibility.  If it was up to me though it would take me years before I said yes, I'm just a bit of a scaredy-cat.  Casey's best answer to make me agree is to say that if it doesn't work out we can sell what ever it is...we've yet to sell anything.  I found a great deal on some cross Boer baby goats on Craigslist and sent the link t...

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...