While I have (obviously) been very quiet for quite some time, there have been some things put in motion and being planned out for the future. Plus, it has been super busy in our everyday life, as it normally is. We have added some animals, lost some animals, made some things, grew some things, and much more! Read below for our new items, animals, and updates around our homestead.
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New Items and Shop
We have decided to make some useful items in our home that we could sell online (Etsy.com) and in person.
Lard Bar Soap
I have been making soap for quite a number of years so I decided to start selling it. We have unscented and Lavender scents available. We also sell soap in both single bars (approx. 3oz.) and full batch of bar soap (approx. 30 oz or 10 bars).
This is made in our home with minimal ingredients! It is a great everyday-use bar soap for the whole family, or just yourself. We do NOT add any colors to our soaps. If there is anything resembling added colors, it will be coming from certain ingredients (such as coffee, flowers, etc).
Cholla Bird Perches
These ones have a wing nut on one end so you can attach to the side of a cage. The wooden part of these are approximately 13” long.
New Animals
We have decided to add a *few* more animals to our homestead this year to help out with our food supply.
Quail
We have decided to add some quail to our homestead this year for both meat and eggs. While we did raise quail before, our pen was not sufficient enough to keep the squirrels out. The squirrels actually attacked and ate not only our quail eggs, but our poor quail as well. I sold off the remaining few quail before we left for vacation. Once we got back home, I bought 9 dozen Coturnix quail that lay blue eggs (CE gene) and stuffed them in the incubator.
Rabbits
We have decided to add some meat rabbits to our homestead. We bought a young Palomino male, and 2 (mixed breed) Californian females. Unfortunately, we did lose one female rabbit (drowned) within the first month.
Chickens
We decided to add Jersey Giant chickens to our homestead for both meat and eggs. We bought 40 day-old chicks online. We received 41 chicks, but 2 did not make the trip. 3 more chicks dies within the first month.
Bees
I kind of jumped the gun and offered to save a beehive from a local person wanting them off their property. Hurriedly, I bought the minimal supplies I needed to take care of the bees. After 3 days of trying to move these ladies, I finally got them home. Here’s hoping to lots of honey in our future!
Growing Items
Garden
Our garden suffered a little while we were on vacation, but since being back, it has been growing wild everywhere!
While I know there are a lot of weeds in our garden, I have been working on getting rid of them.
We have LOTS of tomatoes that have been growing! I only planted 7 tomato plants, but lost 1 shortly after. However, there were SOOOO many volunteer tomato plants that just sprouted up from last years seeds left behind.
Rats
We had 30 baby rats born before we went on vacation! That’s just 1 litter from each of our 2 female rats. I was shocked! Since we got back from vacation, we added a new female rat, and now all 3 of our girls are pregnant and due very soon!
Next Time
I would like to keep you all updated with what’s going on around our homestead. I’m hoping to put out an updating post every week. I have a few ideas in mind to add/change, but I’m not sure when I will get around to getting those up and going.
Let me know what’s going on around your place!
