Welcome rain, warm nights.

Despite the challenges right now we're moving along with life as we address them. Lately our predator concern has come from the hawks that are out a lot lately. The electronet doesn't help with that, but the chickens have been sticking to the tall grass and weeds to hide from the aerial threats. I'm always glad to see animals doing the smart thing to stay alive when I can't be there to preserve them 24/7/365 since I'm at work during the day.

On the funding side of things, the furnace situation is rough, but the go fund me has been incredibly helpful, and people have been generous, kind, and helpful with money, advice, and love. Our strength and wealth is in our community and friends, and this has really highlighted that.

Seedlings, and seasonal confusion.

Despite the very strange weather that continues to be very unpredictable, and perhaps because of it, seedlings are our focus right now. This weekend was the seedling swap, so you may notice that a lot of our seedlings are gone because we gave them away at the seedling swap this weekend. I'm always happy to be able to share the wealth with seedlings, especially given that it isn't like we came home empty handed. You can see some of the more sensitive seedlings still inside in this photo, but we also came home with a basically full herb garden.

Continuing rapid changes.

This weekend we had a really nice time with a fire pit and a lot of good friends visiting, and in the interests of that, we got the cleaning of the yard that was so desperately needed done! It also reminded me of just how much I like cooking over wood, despite how inefficient it is over an open fire. I shifted things around in the fire pit to make a shielded cooking area with a radiating fire box, but it's still much cooler as a cooking surface than if I had a purpose built cooking area. Probably not a project for this summer, though it very well may be given some of the other changes around the house.

The biggest change is we now have a housemate. I offered to use an alias for him, but he's fine with just being himself. Lucas is now going to be living with us, and he's going to be working at one of the local stone quarries. He's the gentleman that provided the tools and expertise on building the stone floor in the kitchen, and in addition to being handy, he's indicated he'd like to help out around the property. With that, we'll see what becomes possible with more help around the property on a regular basis!

Surviving plants, and chicken thoughts.

We have a big surprise coming out of some days in the teens. We though the Kale was done, and were going to cut and blanch the leaves. Before we had a chance to, turns out the Kale is just fine. Some of the weaker leaves aren't doing as well, but overall now that we're back up into the 50s and 60s during the day the kale has fully bounced back.

Some of it is a little worse for the wear of the Critter exploring the texture and general feel of the leaves. These things happen, frankly given how much kale is produced how easily, the Critter tearing some of it up isn't exactly a big deal to me. Either way, we're going to have Kale for a bit longer which is a nice thing. It isn't the only thing that survived the frost, though the other survivor isn't exactly unexpected either.

Critter, and sustainability as we learn to be parents.

Today I'm going to talk a little about having a small person while being involved in this homesteading lifestyle, and thoughts about sustainable living and having an infant. The first thing I'm going to note is that especially as relatively low income working parents, sustainability is frankly going to be the first thing to go out the window if it starts being a problem. Given how we are handling the Critter though I think that won't be a problem. We're doing cloth diapering which I'm finding is actually really easy, partially because cloth diapering isn't the same as it was in the nebulous past. Using cloth diapers is a good first step on being sustainable with an infant. I think though, that the big thing we're doing that is sustainable in terms of critter care is that very little of what we have in terms of clothes, toys, and baby care stuff is new. Most of it is hand me downs, leftovers, and the like. Babies use things for 3 months at the outside before you need a new size, so why would we buy primarily new when there is plenty in excellent to near new condition out there not being used right now. Due to some wonderful friends, and an excellent community we didn't end up having to get much. In our hilltowns area there is an idea I like called the Country Closet that facilitates this. It is a place for folks to leave un-used baby clothes, toys, diapers, and furniture, and others to pick it up when they need it. Sort of a local store of baby things. Our plan is to give what people we directly know need to them, and put the rest in the Country Closet. I think on both a community and sustainability aspect these community resource sharing centers are important.

One of the things that has occurred to me as I've been thinking about sustainability, homesteading, and a baby. Other than the necessary increase in resources for having an infant, just going on as we have been and trying to reduce what we buy and increase what we produce is going to be the way. Obviously we're having to spend more fuel to keep the house warmer than the often debated 50 - 55 I prefer to keep it. We're going to have to have more food, more clothes, do more laundry, use more water. That is the nature of another person, but if we just make the effort to stay conscious of what we are doing and what we are using I think that continuing to make ethical choices won't be any harder than it already has been in our situation. Especially if we continue working with and being part of our local communities. Offering and accepting support in turn as we have to give, and ask when we need.

Another aspect of sustainability is us the parents being able to keep up what we are doing, and I think that sustaining function is probably a challenge for all new parents. The big one for us has been sleeping, and getting anything else other than infant care done. If it weren't for the help we've been receiving from friends and the Hilltowns Families group the house wouldn't be being cleaned, we wouldn't have clean dishes, and we'd still be tired. As it is what we've been able to maintain ourselves is the animal chores since livestock will be deadstock quickly if not, laundry including the every other day baby laundry, keeping the wood stove going, and that's about it honestly. We've been starting to get somewhat on top of cleaning. We've been really supported in terms of house cleaning, dishes, and just sanity checks that we've desperately needed. As with so much in what we're doing out here, we keep coming back to the community. I feel very fortunate that we'd been starting to get involved in the community before we had a child, we hadn't planned it, but having that support structure is what is contributing to our success on the homestead, and as a family with a new child.

Homestead side, next week I'm going to try to remember to talk about the chickens, the rabbits, and light cycles.

Some thoughts about those that came before

So, as noted, the Critter has arrived into the world. We're still very much wiped out because things have not gone particularly smoothly. We mentioned that Critter had been tongue tied, and we thought it had been resolved, but it turns out it isn't entirely resolved. We're spending a huge amount of time trying to help keep him fed, specifically the Lady of the House, and it is very wearing.  But as promised, here are photos of the Critter, Left is a photo of him in a great blanket Margot that comments on the blog made for him. The nice thing is that when he isn't desperately trying to feed he sleeps quite well. I know that sleeping like a baby shouldn't be the good thing that some people make it out to be, but when he sleeps, man does he sleep. It's a skill he is very good at, and we're glad of that in the 3 - 4 hour chunks he does sleep in. The thing is, if we were homesteading 100 years ago, he would be dead by now, and any future children we had would die in birth, and/or kill the Lady of the House in process. For him being alive and the opportunity for more children we have to thank modern science.

More wood, green beans, and community

Still no critter, and another late(ish) post. This time it's because it was just a very busy weekend, and I am unused to having my patterns changed. Having Monday off which you'd think would put me in a better place for getting things done did nothing of the kind. Instead I found other ways to fill my time, and didn't have the pre planned preparation time in place, so blog prep didn't get done. Ahh well. A re used picture from last year shows what we're starting to look like, even if the weather tries to fake us out with 70 degree days, the 30 and below degree nights remind us winter is not just coming, it's close.

Blessed Samhain to all, a day of reflections.

Blessed Samhain to all. For me this is a time of reflection, and while I don't have enough time to do a solid reflection for the blog on this year, I'm going to at least to a quick run down of our year and what's come of it. I think it will soon be time to do a proper re examining of our goals and ethical guidelines and see how we're doing.

 First of all reflecting on the rabbits. Overall I'd like to say I'm happy with how we're doing with the rabbits, and we are still learning a lot. For all of our successes, there were also a good number of failures which have led to us trying to extend the breeding season. The first breedings of the year were too early which led to the really awful 10 days of trying to keep kits alive that had gotten wet and failing. That was a discouraging and difficult time, but the rest of the breedings went relatively well. Even so with a couple small litters from Twilight, combined with the lost first litter, and then our later learning experience of the heat sterility (note to self, keep all males in the woods!) we ended up short for our needs. So in a lot of ways this was a year of modest success and a lot of mistakes. What I am confident I can say we did well was treat our rabbits well, take care of them, and try to learn to address their wants and needs better. Even with Sunshine and her sore hocks we gave her the place needed to recover, and we're keeping an eye on her to make sure they don't come back. One of the largest reflections oddly enough is the, just give rabbits cardboard boxes thing. The other big one is the huge value of fresh greens over the summer, and re examining the way we do feeding of greens and hay.

Despite the importance of the rabbits to our homestead, a lot of my reflection on the year is focused around the gardening and our tentative first steps into it. The biggest thing about gardening and this year with the homestead in general is acknowledging the huge amount of benefit we have had from the kindness of others. Our garden, modest though it may have been fed us a good many meals with the promise of more if we learn to use it better. That cost us very little due to the generosity of others through the Hilltown Seed Saving Network and it's seed swap and seedling exchange. As a note for folks in the area, this year's seed exchange is coming up November 23 in Cummington. You should come by! That group has been very generous with their advice, their seeds, and their seedlings. We didn't have as much to give as we'd like to have since this is our first time gardening, but that didn't  lead to hesitation on their part. So now we have peppers drying, tomato seeds separating from the goop, drying stevia, a bunch of frozen tomatoes, and a few squash having eaten liberally of Kale all summer, much of it on the generosity of others.
 Some of the largest of that I'd like to reflect on and touch upon was from Tevis and Rachel at Crabapple Farm who have tolerated our questions, helped us learn to grow, and even shared in some of our enthusiasm for the rabbits. The inspiration and friendship of people of like ideals has helped us sustain ourselves while things aren't easy and our garden looks like it isn't getting anywhere. The other obvious inspiration and teacher is Michelle Chandler and her Blessed Acre Rabbitry, in all ways our mentor in rabbits who has continued answering questions, inspiring, and helping us as she can, including the loan of a vehicle for a month(!) while we were in trouble.

There are many individuals and things that have been part of the year in terms of helping, inspiring, and teaching. Keeping us on our feet, and not giving up.

I think in the end of this reflection for me the biggest thing is, this is a partnership. Without the Lady of the House I wouldn't be doing this. Even if I had the inspiration, the drive, and the skills to do it I don't think I could do this alone. I don't know what that says to those looking to homestead in the future, if it's just me, but I think I'd recommend to people considering our path to not try to do it alone. Maybe find a community, an individual, a life partner, or even just a friend. This isn't a solitary activity, and that in the end is what I have taken away as I reflect on this year.

And last mentioned, but first in my mind, I'd like to reflect on the animals that have given their lives for us to eat.

Blessed Samhain

Meetings, events, and learning, going outside the homestead for new perspectives.

So I'm going to start with a quick homestead update glossing over a lot over the past few days. The babies are doing well, the garlic is growing, kale, radish  and lettuce are planted though those haven't come up yet. We are hoping they do come up because we are really excited about gardening right now, partially prompted by going to a Gardening 101 class put on by "Grow Food Amherst."