This Week on the Homestead

31 March 2017




Look! They're all outside! Together! 

Can we call ourselves a homestead yet? What even makes a place a real homestead? Oh well, I'm calling us a homestead! Fake it till you make it!

Anyway just thought I'd do a little re-cap of what went on around here this week.

Iris let the chickens out. Ah! She was playing in the backyard and I was feeding Harvey inside when I hear, "Mooooooommy! The chickens are playing!" I pop Harvey in his bed and run outside to see Rosa and Michelle wandering around the backyard. GAH! I asked her why she let the chickens out (while trying in vain to corral them back into the coop) and she says, "Mommy, they needed some exercise.  It's ok! They just need some exercise!" Then, laughing like a maniac, Iris started chasing Rosa around the yard. Thankfully my dad was due to stop by any minute so he helped me get Michelle back in the coop. But wouldn't you know it, Rosa found the smallest opening in our back fence (through the cedar trees) and escaped to the neighbour's yard!!!! So then I had to run all the way around the block and figure out which house backed on to ours, knock on their door and pray they wouldn't be upset about a chicken in their yard. Thankfully the woman was more than kind and let me through to her backyard where I managed to scoop Rosa up. Success! Did I mention I had not held a chicken until this incident? I ended up chatting to our neighbour for a bit and she thinks what we're doing is really cool (yay!) and didn't even know we had chickens. Dave and I ended up going back later that day to give her some eggs and a thank you/sorry/nice to meet you card. Anyway holy drama! I think we might need to put some locks on the coop door now...

We have the materials for the chicken yard! My dad had the day off today so he offered to pick up all the materials for us so we can start building tomorrow. Thanks Pops!

Gus has been climbing into the compost and eating it. Ugh. We only have yard waste in the open compost system (we'll talk more about this later), but he somehow finds things to eat in there.

Started planting seeds in the front garden. We have a few types of pollinator seeds that need to be planted a few weeks before the last frost (or in the fall) so I planted some of those in the front. We have a landscape mat under mulch in the front garden so I had to cut through it and fold it under where I wanted seeds to go. Honestly, I'm not sure if this is our best course of action. Maybe I should just take the whole mat out?

The coop needed some TLC. With all the rain we had the wood expanded and made it difficult to open and close.  So we had to really force it, which caused a few damages. One of the latches came off as we yanked on it to try to open the door to the nesting box and a wooden latch popped off too.

Started looking at table plans. Hoping to start building the large square table for the patio/gazebo area soon. Still haven't totally committed to a building plan yet though. Not going to lie, this project is really intimidating me. But the thought of having a place where we can have the families and friends over and we can all sit at the same table is so inspiring.  It's spurring me on!

Now that we're all healthy again (knock on wood) things are moving along :)
Have a great weekend!

Post a Comment

© Here at Home. Design by Fearne.