Weekly Update: 4.26.26
Three years of homesteading
This week marked three years of living on our land. I knew our anniversary of moving out here was in April, but I didn’t remember which day it was until my niece Chloe announced it on Thursday. “Today is land day” she announced — and I had to do a little figuring to be sure. She was right. I found a video I’d taken the first morning we woke up in our wall tent, dated April 23, 2023. I remember it was cool and sunny that day, and I was so excited.
Of course, the tent is gone now. Three years later, just a couple feet away from where I slept in the tent, I woke up in the bunkhouse we built from the ground up, from plans that began with sketching on graph paper. The bunkhouse still needs trim in many places, and it very much needs more shelving — but it’s a cozy, livable space. After so many years of dreaming, we actually did it. And there is still so much more to do.
On Monday, we worked on our outdoor shower. All eleven people in our family have been using the one shower in the bunkhouse — a situation that gets especially chaotic on Sunday mornings when everyone is getting ready for church. Back when we planned this bunkhouse, we knew we wanted two showers. Due to space and budget, we planned all along to have an outdoor option. This will be ideal after long workdays outside when people are so dirty, they really don’t want to come in the house without cleaning up first.
We are starting by mounting the shower fixture to the side of our house, as we are anxious to have access to warm water outdoors for bathing dogs and washing extra-dirty laundry. We had been using our old point-of-use propane water heater, but it finally broke last week. It took some creativity to decide how to enclose the unsightly shower plumbing externally. We also added a little spigot beneath the hot and cold water lines. This will be nice for filling buckets with warm water, but more importantly, it will allow us to easily drain the system before freezing weather arrives.
On Tuesday, it was also time for my dad to move the beer we made on his birthday to it’s secondary fermenter. It was a simple process to siphon the brew from one carboy to another. I cleaned the used carboy. Then, since the carboy was already sanitized, Grace and I decided to go ahead and mix up the cherry cider kit we picked up a few weeks ago. Instead of using sugar, we always use honey as a more natural option. It came together so easily, we were finished within the hour. It was fermenting nicely by the next morning.
Early in the week, Bonnie-Jean prepped our seed potatoes for planting. The red seed potatoes were smaller, so she left them alone. Our brother Levi had picked up some larger russets locally, and Bonnie cut these into appropriately sized chunks. We let the cuts dry and scar for a couple days. While they dried, she and our nieces prepared the soil. They opened up our garden compost ring that we stopped using last year and mixed it well. They incorporated several buckets into the potato area. On Wednesday, we finally got the potatoes into the ground.
Grace and our brother Levi spent time in the garden this week as well, working on repairing our trellises from last year. We had always intended to reinforce the trellises when we first built them, but we didn’t ever get around to it. Winter had left them all in sad shape. As of this week, most are repaired and ready to go.
We also finished our exterior siding this week. We worked on some of it with our dad on Wednesday, then we finished up on Saturday with our brother Jeremiah. The last step was a bit complex, as it involved uninstalling and reinstalling our Starlink internet set-up. While we were at it, Jeremiah also installed an outdoor Wi-Fi booster and security camera. Of course, we still need to add trim — but after so many months, it feels so good to have the siding finished.
Along with other homestead projects, we’ve been washing all of our winter work gear this week — insulated bibs, etc. We always try to dry everything we can on the line, and thankfully, the weather has been cooperating.
On Thursday, we celebrated the Feast of St. George, who is remembered for slaying a dragon. Catholics understand the story symbolically, of course, as we know from history that St. George was a Roman soldier who was martyred under Diocletian. Still, I can’t help loving the fact that St. George has a well known fairytale version of his life. May we all be so blessed someday! Since St. George is the patron saint of England, we celebrated his feast day with cottage pie and Victoria sponge cake (the red in white colors appropriately reflecting St. George’s flag).
It was a very busy week, and our homestead anniversary left me feeling thoughtful. Remembering how far we’ve come was good for me, as I have been feeling frustrated with the slowness of our progress lately. As humans, it’s so easy to get bogged down in the details, to focus on all the little things not getting done instead of being thankful for the things that are. Talking about the excitement and gratitude we had back at the beginning was both convicting and encouraging. We had so much joy just being out in the country again, after years of working toward that goal. Life is still hard, though, and all humans have their struggles — their personal crosses to bear. Our homestead anniversary was a much needed call to reorient my thoughts on gratitude. Things aren’t perfect. Some days are downright difficult. But, this is a good life.
