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Hello, Friends!
I hope you your July has been wonderful.
We had a wonderful month at our off grid farmstead.
Our grandson came to visit for about a week and half. He’s just one month younger than our son. The two of them have a wonderful time together.
For the week they decided they needed new names. They called themselves Hoss and Jack.
I made an old-time style picture to capture their alternate personas. Hoss is on the right and Jack is on the left. And yes, shorts with cowboy boots are a quite the thing.
Chickens!
We added laying hens to our homestead in July!
My daughter that was married in June brought us up some chickens. She brought 5 of the hens that used to belong to us when we lived at our old place (she lives their now and kept care of the chickens) plus a dozen young chicks.
It is so wonderful to have fresh eggs.
There are a few differences in tending chickens off grid compared to on grid. We’re still learning about all of the nuances and I look forward to sharing more in a future post.
Goats!
More baby goats were born in July at our off grid farmstead.
Pepper had a cute little girl on July 21. Those ears! Don’t you just love them?
Cookie had triplets on July 26.
One is incredibly small. I have never seen such a small goat. We’re having to give her extra feedings using a different goat (a wet nurse) and a bottle. We’re not sure how she’ll fare long term but so far is doing well.
The first goat (female) born was small but not terribly so and doing great. The third (male) was about regular sized and has the fluffiest hair and is growing very fast.
Pistachio had twins in the wee hours of the morning on July 27.
My husband found them a little after 4 am and she hadn’t cleaned them. They were not in very good shape. We were able to get them cleaned up a little bit and then she seemed to realize they were her babies and started licking them.
One of them didn’t seem well at all and we were prepared for the worse. About 9:30 am she suddenly started crying and moving around. I put her on Pistachio to nurse and she improved as the day went on.
Now both are healthy and bouncing around. So cute!
Pistachio is now the doting mom. I’ve read that sometimes first time mom’s don’t fully realize what happened and that they even had a baby. I guess that was what went on with her.
New babies mean mama’s in milk!
I love being able to produce our own dairy products. Nigerian Dwarf is a milking breed and has a wonderfully high butterfat content to their milk. It makes great yogurt, cheese, kefir and is good for drinking and baking.
Because they are a dwarf breed they don’t produce as much as a full-size goat but for their ease of keeping we think it’s an excellent trade off.
No more runny raw milk yogurt… This free recipe & simple tutorial, from Traditional Cooking School, shows you how to make easy raw milk yogurt that’s as thick and delicious as store-bought. And cheaper, too! Request the free recipe today by going here.
Garden
We’re sharing a garden with our neighbors down the road. They are away for the summer and planted their part before leaving. We put in our part and have been tending. We’ll harvest together.
Gardening here is a bit different than our previous place. I’m pleased with how the tomatoes are doing but disappointed that none of the beets came up.
We also have 2 small cold frames at our place. We had greens in the spring. I emptied it when the hot weather hit and have just now planted for a fall crop of greens. I’m hopeful we’ll be able to keep it going into the colder months.
The 2 small cold frames was all we could manage on our off grid farmstead this year. We are so thankful for the opportunity to garden with our friends this year. Next year we hope to have a garden in place on our own farmstead.
Cabin!
Inside the off grid cabin has been a buzz of activity.
We’ve worked on the new entry to separate the mud room and the pantry. It’s not quite done since we decided to purchase a new freezer before finishing out the wall. We were able to get the new freezer last week but haven’t had time to get back to the wall. Soon!
We have most of the items needed to put the kitchen together.
We ordered the base cabinets. We got stock, unfinished cabinets and will stain them ourselves.
Here’s a sneak peek (from my camera phone, so not the best photos) of what everything looked like when we started.
The upper cabinets are ones we were given by friends. We’ll paint them before installing. I’m so happy to be able to reuse these. They are good quality and helped us a save a little money.
Originally we had planned on granite counter tops. Our space isn’t very large so the cost wasn’t terrible. What was terrible was the installation cost! It almost doubled the materials. So we decided to stick with off-the-shelf laminate. We can always upgrade in the future.
I can’t wait until it’s all put together!
We’ve made do fine without a real kitchen for the 17 months we’ve been except I always feel unorganized. We’ve had everything on open shelves. It’s a challenge to keep them organized. I stopped trying sometime back. 😉
What was July like for you? I’d love to read what’s been going on at your place. Please share in the comments.
