The White Family Homesteaders

     I can't believe I didn't publish last week's blog until this week, I think we might have a bit too much going on right now.  The days and weeks are flying by and I don't even know what day it is.  I'm hoping last week was the worst of it and now it will be smooth sailing.  It all started with Papa's work schedule changing, so it put the whole week out of whack.  Then lil man had preschool graduation, it was his last week of school, I needed a touch up at the salon, we picked up our bees which were delayed by a week so that was a wrench in our plans and had to finish up more metal art for the market and prep everything for market day.  Oh plus we had to get more tomatoes into the garden, make new cages for the raised beds, sow more seeds because some hungry creature ate my edamame, plus our everyday chores like cooking and cleaning.  The week rushed by and now a new week is starting. One of many tomato holes, epsom salt in.   ...

     Things aren't always smiles and sunshine on the homestead, there are devastations and setbacks.  Being a homesteader is a trial and error game and sometimes things go really well but at other times there are heartbreaks.  I'm hoping that this life we are providing for our kids teaches them to take mistakes as a learning tool.  I've always had a hard time making mistakes or failing as some might put it but the more farming we do I realize that mistakes aren't the end of the world and you can learn from them.      The weather finally warmed up so we were finally able to open up our bee hive and we were heartbroken with what we found.  All our bees were dead, which left us with no bees that was our 2nd hive.  After looking over them, our own bee autopsy...my own version of CSI...we've come to the conclusion that the hive no longer had a queen, which led to their demise.  After the shock wore off we had to decide what we wou...

     It's been way too long and I've missed telling our story so I'm making the commitment of writing every week.  I want to stay connected and let everyone know what we are doing or maybe what we aren't because sometimes life happens and nothing gets done.  This week we got some play time and papa got some garage time in.  With the cold weather and kids getting antsy we hit up one of our local kids museums to let out some steam.  It's a science museum so learning and fun is a win win.  We are wrapping up the holiday season so we put away the Christmas decor with the exception of the tree.  Lil man isn't ready to see it go so we compromised and decided that January 1st it will go out the door.  With a half hour here and there papa was able to get into the garage and fabricate.  The wings are on the splitter and will make splitting firewood a bit smoother. You can check out our Instagram page for pictures  here.    ...

     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...

  We came to the hard decision and got rid of our goats. It was a bit sad but the best choice for our family. They were great when we first got them but in the last month they were causing more of a headache then we wanted.  The first couple of months were a breeze after that not so much.   Trying to keep them off the roof was quite the challenge.  We have an awning that meets our hillside and we thought putting a fence up around it would be enough,  they proved us wrong.  It didn't matter how much wire or barriers we put up those pesky goats always found a way up.   The other issue was the fact that they wanted to eat up all the chicken feed. They broke down the door to get into it. The combination of that and them waking me up scampering on our roof was the limit. It was causing unnecessary arguments so they had to go. It's not all sad news though. Since we were able to sell them quickly we were able to put our order in for bees.   ...