Its July already?

Hello!!  oh, my goodess, summer sure is super busy here.  I worked most of May at a local greenhouse and farm and then returned to work in late May.  We planted a huge garden this year, adding potatoes and corn, which we've never done before.  Unfortunately our green beans did not come up and our zucchini seems to be rotting on the plant before it grows very big.  We had a ton of rain a few weeks ago and it just didn't recover from that.  The tomato plants are huge though, which is a wonderful blessing.

I've been exploring our yard, pastures, and the field across from us to find medicinal herbs.  We have nettle and red clover all over our pastures.  Elder grows along the fence and in another week or two, I'll be able to pick the berries and dry them.  I'll continue to make elderberry syrup for us throughout the year and the kids have requested that I try elderberry gummies this year.  I was amazed that I found a small patch of yarrow in the middle of the pasture.  I was super excited.  I currently have the dehydrator going with mint, chocolate mint, basil, and oregano.  I hope to get the clover, nettle, and thyme done this weekend also.  

I have calendula solar infusing in oil and am working on the second infusion.  I'm looking into making a plantain oil to make a salve to help with these terrible bug bites.....or I might just keep it an oil and put it into a roller ball.

I made a great cherry jam with the cherries off of our tree.  The pear trees have about a dozen pears on them.  The trees are only a few years old.  Our poor apple trees are empty.  There was a hard freeze four nights in a row in May and the trees never flowered.   

I cannot wait to post how the salves and oils work out.  Soon, I'll be crazy busy canning spaghetti sauce and freezing potatoes.  

I'm still planning curriculum for this next year.  I'm pretty sure I have it all figured out.  I'll post about that next time.  Have a wonderful week!

Wednesday, April 29th, 2020

We are in the midst of the stay at home order here in MN.  We should find out on Thursday, if it will be extended after the May 4th expiration date, or if we will be extended.  Our homeschool co-op board had a big discussion via zoom last night regarding next year.  We ended our year early because we have about 150 kids in our co-op and its too large of a group to meet.  We're not sure at this point what September will look like to see if we can resume or if we will need to make changes.  We have all admitted that our fall will probably look very different, if we are able to have fall co-op at all.

This week, we're winding down our homeschool year.  I have a few things that I want to hit hard before we end the year so I'm going to sit down tonight and tomorrow and hammer out plans for the next 5 weeks.  I did order some curriculum today for next year.  After homeschooling for 16/17 years and working full time the last year in the evenings and weekends, I'm waving the white flag and turning towards some online classes.  The 11th grader will do online government/economics and English.  The 7th grader will do online bible, English, and math.  The 5th grader will do online English, math, bible, and handwriting.  I only have to plan science and history (for the youngest two).  History will be Biblioplan Ancients.  I absolutely love this curriculum.  We are completing modern history this year.  Science is still up in the air.  I've really been looking at Supercharged Science but it is so expensive and quite honestly, I'm dismayed from the number of emails I get from her trying to sell me her curriculum.  Its honestly, like 2 a day and its a large turn off.

On the homestead:

• I started a batch of vanilla today.  I cannot wait to taste the yumminess later this year.  I'll probably start another batch in September.  I do a lot of baking.
• The garden was tilled up.  We still have our raised beds, although they are quite large.  It was my way of defining the area when we moved here as I didn't have any equipment.  We'll keep two of the smaller beds and make the really large one about half the size to do the tomatoes in.  
• The strawberries and raspberries that I ordered should be here this week
• In the next few weeks, I'll be getting the pear tree, 2 plum trees, and 2 peach trees that I ordered.
• Kevin planted the potatoes and sugar snap peas.  Everything else will wait for warmer weather.
• I am planting seeds for my medicinal garden tonight.  I'm very excited about that.  I have 8 different medicinal plants.  Elderberry grows wild here and we have an ample supply of nettle.  
• I'll be cleaning out the flower beds and adding some new ones to make room for my medicinal plants.
• I need to clean out the garage and really old freezer this week.  We are getting a giant chest freezer next week to make room for the two cows we are having butchered in May.  
• I'm continuing with the online ordering for groceries.  I will pick up a large order tomorrow.  I hope that my stocking up this month will help next month alleviate some of the grocery budget.  Two cows being butchered in the same month is quite pricey, but we'll have beef for over a year.
• I made a batch of chicken noodle soup and canned it (minus the noodles) and a batch of strawberry jam.  I plan on a batch of autumn jam and red pepper jelly this week also.  And I'm gearing up for the dandelions to come in. I'll make some salve and delicious dandelion jelly.  It is sooooo good.  It tastes and looks like honey.

Recipes:

I tried the gingerbread cake with caramel sauce in The Prairie Homestead Cookbook.  It was divine.  I absolutely loved it.  I didn't have time to try any other recipes this past week.

I've finally returned

It's been almost two years since I've posted so much has happened and our world is upside down now the covid-19.  We are in our fifth week of quarantine and it certainly has changed and challenged our lives.

Update on the last two years:


Homeschooling:

• I have been working full-time for the last year.  I work retail and mostly evenings which allows me the flexibility of still homeschooling.  
• Hallie graduated last year and Courtnee graduates next year.  Trey graduated from a welding/machine repair program in December and is working full-time
• Kailyn and Tylar are completing 7th and 5th grade this year
• We still participate in a wonderful co-op, that sadly stopped in March because of the virus.

Homestead:

• We added cows and goats to our homestead.  We've had several calves and kids born this last year.  
• This year, we're adding more chicks (egg layers).  The last two years, we raised meat birds but decided not to do that this year.
• We are increasing our garden this year by adding corn and potatoes.  I am excited to add both of these.  We are also adding 70 strawberry plants and 4 raspberry plants.  We added two pear trees last year and we're adding another one this year along with 2 plum trees and two peach trees.  
• I finished an introductory course on herbalism this year.  I am adding 6 different herbs to our gardens; echinachea, st. John's wort, mullein, calendula, chamomile, and yarrow.  I've found a nice mulberry bush on our fence line so I'm excited to pick those this year.  I've also foraged elderberry and nettle on our property.  And I can't wait for the dandelions to come in so I can make some dandelion jelly.  I only made one batch last year and it delicious; tastes like honey.

Quilting projects:
So many projects so little time. I'm working on hand quilting the quilt for Courtnee that I started several years ago.

Have a wonderful day everyone!