WELCOME TO THE HOMESTEAD

July 2022

Welcome!!! This is our first newsletter for our homestead. We would love to send it to you monthly, so be sure to sign up!

Each month we will share highlights on the homestead, along with a yummy recipe, budgeting, home styling or health tips!

We arrived on our homestead in the middle of November. Our chickens and rabbits are resilient, as we housed them in a modified enclosed trailer and a Premier 1 Electric Fence! Holidays were upon us fast and with success we were unpacked and had family in for Christmas!

The past few months, our main priority has been getting all our critters settled and the homestead set up. We are planning each area. We are only wanting to build it once!

Our goal has been to quickly get our food source in place. We raise most of the food we eat for the entire year! Getting our garden in, expanding our rabbitry, adding hogs, add a dairy cow and expanding our meat chicken production has been quite adventurous.

We have successfully expanded our rabbitry to add an additional four does. We purchased our breeding stock for our hogs with two sows and one boar. We are raising Red Wattle/Berkshire Cross. We also purchased feeder pigs to grow for our meat this year. We were excited to add to our homestead a dairy cow, Maggie Moo. She is a beautiful Guernsey. She had a little heifer calf, which we named, Dollop of Daisy. We are calf sharing. More on that adventure in another chat. Maggie Moo is supplying all our dairy needs. The homemade yogurt and mozzarella are amazing! HA! That’s another chat too with recipes!!

We have raised meat hens over the past years. This year, we were excited to try new breeds, especially the dual-purpose (eggs and meat) homesteader breeds. They are doing great as they roam the pasture and forage for bugs and grubs!

We were excited to purchase two beautiful Great Pyrenees girls in December. They watch over us quite well. They pulled me out of bed one night about midnight. I opened the front door to find an opossum that was on the porch eating the cat food! They were just puppies, but now, they have turned into hard working girls!

The garden is doing great, though we did get a late start. We are enjoying fresh food each night with what I might pick for that day. I will start canning green beans this weekend!

Last month, we started our meat harvest. It’s excited to see the fruits of our labor starting to come into season and of course, it’s TASTY too!

The months ahead will be busy as we put food up for the upcoming year, continue to replace fencing for new pasture areas for Maggie and Dollop of Daisy. I am trying to convince Ty we need a few goats to help eat the weeds….we shall see.

It’s always busy on the homestead but one thing is for sure; you sleep good at night!

Until Next time…..

Happy Homesteading!

C&J Homestead, Kentucky.

This Month’s Budgeting Tip

I love my clothesline! I have had a clothesline for many years. I plan my laundry days when the sun will be shining! Even in the colder months, you can use your clothesline! This is one of my first requests when moving onto our new homestead.

So, let’s chat. First, check with your local guidelines and HOA before you begin. But seriously, a clothesline can save you cash and it’s good for your health too! Yes, it really is!

Right now, everyone is looking how to save especially with the rising cost of fuel and groceries! Growing your own food is one way to help save money. But, that’s a different chat session!

Let’s chat clothesline. We had lived in our home for a bit so we had a trend on how much our electric was year over year. I grew up with a clothesline and missed having one. We did not have an HOA so Ty installed one for us. We reviewed our electric use year over year. We discovered that we were savings around $80 a month in electric by not using the dryer! That’s about half of our grocery budget for the month! At our new homestead, we are saving around $50 a month!

Happy dance! Not only does it save you money, but it has many other perks too!

I love the quiet moments when I am hanging items on the line. Hearing the sounds of nature and the familiar sounds of the farm. The smell of fresh washed cloth as I pin them up. The sun is a natural disinfectant. I do not need to add chemicals, such as bleach. Let the sun do the work! I think I sleep the best nights when it’s sheet day! The smells of line dried clothes are amazing, relaxing and refreshing! Line drying is also easier on your clothing. I think the towels absorb better and because they are little bit stiff, they are great exfoliators!

I realize that not all folks will be able to do this. You may have an HOA or town guidelines, or physically limitations that hold you back. But if you can, I challenge you to do so! Here’s the cost to set one up!

Our cost to set up, just under a $100. Our items were: two wheels, two swivel bolts, 200 feet of clothesline rope, tightener & clothespins!

Sunshine and Wind are free!

I really like the following blog about the health benefits for you, your clothing and the environment! WIN! WIN! WIN!

https://www.thespruce.com/reasons-to-line-dry-laundry-2145997

HAPPY LINE DRYING!