Growing Pains

It's been a couple weeks since my last post because I needed some time to recharge and refocus my energy. In truth, learning how to navigate social media and grow a business has been time consuming and frustrating. We thought LONG and hard whether we should start a blog/business out of our homesteading journey because putting our life out there is the exact opposite of how we live. We are inherently private and we live a simple yet very rewarding life. I'm not a marketing or business guru so it's going to take me some time to figure it out. I didn't know how to make an Instagram reel two months ago and now I can change video speeds, add stickers, make transitions etc. Every article I write or reel I share is time away from my kids and homesteading responsibilities and the last few weeks have really felt like I'm hitting a wall. This is NOT a "whoa is me" or "pat my back" effort. I think being honest and vulnerable about how truly hard it is to transition from self-sufficient to business is important. There's a million people doing this and the pitfall of "how hard can it be" is real. It's really freaking hard. I'm trying to embrace the challenges of this new direction but it hasn't mentally been easy. Putting yourself out there is scary but regret is worse. So, other than licking some of my wounds, what else has been shakin' around the farm?

Birds, birds, and more birds 🐥

My absolute favorite farm animal arrived last week...FIFTY Cornish Cross (CX) meat chickens. We are giving the non-broiler (ie dual purpose) birds a try for a customer and it's been a great head-to-head comparison of raising both. So far, Cornish Cross is leading by a mile. We've had ZERO losses so far with the CX and they are already starting to feather out at less than a week old which means we can kick them out of the brooder around 10 days old.

The barnyard mix of heavy breeds received their eviction notice last week and we kicked them out to the new chicken tractor. So far we are thrilled with the new tractor design which has withstood some substantial rain and some serious wind. All of this batch of birds are roosters and despite having plenty of space in the chicken tractor they're already fighting with each other...boys will be boys 🙄

Butchering these rowdy roos in a couple months is going to be a real treat I'm sure. With that said, my very sweet husband bought me a chicken scalder that auto-regulates temperature to make my life way easier on processing day. I've been using the homemade equivalent of a turkey fryer set up to scald and keeping the temperature correct takes quite some skill. It was smart (and thoughtful) to invest in a scalder based on the volume of chickens we process but I'm cheap and I didn't want to spend the money on a job I could functionally do. I told him a few months ago that I will raise CX until I die (I mean, maybe not until the very day I die but he got the idea) and our sweet kids said they would come home to help process them even after they're grown ❤️ That scalder will be put to good use for a very long time.

Dirty hands, happy hearts

Garden season is in full swing and we've been busy getting both the large in-ground garden and my raised garden bed ready. It FINALLY dried out enough for us to plant our onions and potatoes but I'm a bit nervous about the potatoes. Our potato chunks got VERY dry while we waited for monsoon season to stop and I'm hoping there was enough life left in the potato 👀 to take root. The kids really enjoy planting potatoes so worse case scenario, they'll get a second chance to do it this year.

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Farmer David and I hauled 200 pounds of cow manure up our extremely steep hill to turn into my raised bed. A lot of grass and weeds developed over the winter so we needed to pull all of that out before hand tilling it. I'm planning to use a cover crop or cardboard to keep weeds down next year. I decided to try a few things different this year and see if it helps my crop production. I'm placing my lettuce and spinach behind my tomato plant rows in hopes they will benefit from some shade during peak summer sun and not bolt as early. I'm also companion planting my carrots in front of my tomatoes to help loosen the soil. On the other side of my bed, I'll be figuring out how to trellis vining cucumbers. I haven't utilized a trellis before but it's all the rage so I'm going to give it a try. My family LOVES pickles and we've eaten through our stash so I'm ramping up production for canning.

My sprouted seeds are doing beautifully and have been training on the farm to toughen up to the elements. For the first time ever, I have tons of peppers! I'm hoping to get them in the ground sooner rather than later...I'm growing weary of babying them 🥴

Time to get agu-cated!

Every year around Chelsea's birthday, Washington County holds their Ag days. It is an amazing event full of local vendors, Ag education talks, a petting zoo, tractor pulls, and a kids pedal tractor pull. Chelsea, Emily and I learned about the horse Henneke scale (a way to measure a horse's fat) from a Penn State Extension equine specialist while the boys enjoyed the tractor pulls. Afterwards, we met up at the kids pedal tractor pull where Chelsea took home a blue ribbon for her age group! She was the only girl signed up in her division and beat out the boys (by quite a bit I'll add 😉) to get first. It was a great confidence booster for her.

Chelsea also had her monthly vet talk at riding school and our entire family decided to attend. Who knew horses "need" chiropractors?!?! It was fascinating watching a chiropractor adjust a horse and understanding how to read the horse's body language/nervous system reactions to it. A few toots and some lip licking are good indicators the adjustment helped. Finally, something the pharmacist can relate to 😂

Chelsea turned eight yesterday and she requested hamburgers for her birthday dinner. I decided it was a good time to try making sourdough discard hamburger buns and although they turned out AMAZING, they were not ready in time for dinner 😭 I know better...recipe proofing times are ALWAYS wrong for my cold house and I underestimated how long the rise steps would take. Nonetheless, we enjoyed fresh homemade buns the next day for lunch and they were FABULOUS. I'll be popping the leftovers in the freezer for our next cookout.

That's it for this week! See yinz next time for more farm fun! If you're enjoying our journey, don't forget to like and share our posts with others....it helps our family farm grow 🫶🏼