Planning and Preparing for Success

There's a lot of wisdom in what Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” There's also an old British Army adage, “Proper preparation and planning prevents poor performance." Admittedly, I'm an impulsive person. I want to jump in and get going but homesteading has taught me (often through very hard life lessons) to be a lot more patient, plan carefully, and prepare BEFORE doing. A lot of this past week has been all of these things!

Preparation

I had a MAJOR success this week...and it was TINY. I successfully germinated jalapeno and hot banana pepper seeds. Seem a little anticlimactic? It wasn't. I was so proud of those little sprouts that I called Dave to tell him.

Pepper seeds of any variety have been the bain of my existence for many seasons. I have not had a single plant germinate. Not one. I reached out to Dave's cousin this year who has had a lot of success growing hot peppers and got a very helpful pointer...keep the soil very moist. Starting from seed is always our goal because of the lower cost and sustainability (the less we rely on the system, the less we are affected by supply chain issues). Not having to buy pepper plants every summer is very exciting. In fact, I seem to be having a lot of success with all of our seeds this year. The entire tray is taking off nicely. It is oddly satisfying to plant something, see beautiful green life sprouting up, and knowing it means food for our family for the next year.

If you're following me on IG, I shared a money saving and renewable hack for seeding starting...using cleaned egg shells to plant your seeds! PSA: don't cut a corner and not rinse the shells before drying...they will develop an odor 🤢 I've been doing this for years and it works great. As an added bonus, the eggs shells compost over time and add extra calcium to your soil. It's a win, win, win. I'd be interested to know if any of you use this method.

Planning

Dave and I have been discussing adding a greenhouse to our setup. Now that we have a good system worked out for our gardens, it's time to progress to the next level of sustainability...growing food throughout the winter. We are able to preserve a lot of our summer harvest throughout the year but having access to lettuce, kale, fresh broccoli, herbs etc throughout winter would be a game changer. It would also get my messy seed starting setup out of my workout space in the basement. I've been reading a lot about ways to increase revenue on a homestead (especially with low regulations) and flowers seem to be a great way to generate sales. Adding a greenhouse will make growing annuals possible. We currently have an outbuilding that our kids refer to as the "snake house" because it's dark, damp, and looks to be the perfect place for snakes 😳 Needless to say, that things gotta go. I half-jokingly said to Dave we should turn it into a greenhouse and to my surprise, he agreed 🙌🏼 I want to do some research on how I would like it laid out and find the best way to maximize space but the hardest part is done...convincing construction of the building plan 😉

Progress

The chicken tractor is DONE! I'm so proud of what the guys built.

It's sturdy but light enough I can pull it myself without using the tractor. Dave travels for work and when he's gone, I need to move the birds twice a day. Firing up our 50 year old "little green tractor" to pull the cornish-cross tractor is a real pain for a variety of reasons. I'm pretty excited to put this thing to use and see how it stands up to whatever PA weather throws at it. Aside from the final product, I loved watching my husband and son build it together. David was so incredibly proud of what he built and even created his own version of it next to the barn. What could be better than building tractors, life skills, and confidence at the same time?

Speaking of progress, Dave has been on an endless cement pouring mission. He built beautiful stalls with overhead storage in our barn and cement floors are the last step to get ready for a critter. If you've never poured cement, I'm here to tell you it's a miserable, back breaking job. Lifting half my weight in cement bags to put in the cement mixer is exhausting.

Then there's the dust. Oh the dust. It's in your hair, nose, mouth, eyes...awful. Just awful. I kicked the kids entirely out of the barn because the dust was so bad. One part I did enjoy was the finishing step. Dave asked for a woman's touch 💁🏼‍♀️ to help level and smooth it out and I really enjoyed it. Turns out, I have a bit of a knack for it too.

We ended up pouring 1200 pounds of cement Sunday and we have probably 3x that amount to go. Silver lining, the kids left their handprints in the cement and I'm building big 💪🏼

Papa stopped by for a visit and we finally got our chocolate on chocolate cake. Last week I mentioned I was going to try making one with sourdough discard and it did not disappoint. Even Chelsea who despises chocolate asked for seconds. I used a beautiful Nordic cake pan Dave's Grandma gave me and made individual flower cakes with ganache.

The addition of sourdough helped balance the richness of the cake and coffee deepened the chocolate flavor without imparting a noticeable taste. It was almost too pretty to eat...almost.

Life is pretty sweet when sharing great food with the people you love.

I had a reader reach out to me this week and say we've inspired them to plant a small urban garden this year! I can't tell you how much that meant to me. Sharing our story is encouraging others! I mean, wow! So this is my shameless plug asking you to like and share our journey on social media. One share last week increased our site traffic 5 fold! It really does help!

We have a busy week ahead. The girls and I are traveling to Ohio for their last cheer competition of the season, a special visitor is joining us for dinner, new meat chickens are arriving (how many chickens does one farm need?????), and the guys are helping me install a cattle panel trellis in my raised garden bed!

See yinz next week for more this n'at!