Weekly Update: 7.19.25

The smell of neem and peppermint oil soaked into the muggy air as Grace and I worked past dusk, spraying the garden with our organic insecticide and fungicide. As dark fell, fireflies began to blink and the cicadas began to sing. I was tired, but in a satisfying way. It was the most alive I’ve felt in almost two weeks.

I came down with a virus on the Monday before last. Several other family members followed in the days after. Bonnie-Jean got sick this week. Grace is still healthy — she is one of the few to escape it so far.

It’s been the sort of germ to take the wind out of our sails. It’s long. Just when you think you might be recovering, you get hit by another round of symptoms. Even recovered, I’m still dealing with a bad cough.

I tried to make good use of my time while recuperating. I listened to several audiobooks — including Good Energy by surgeon general nominee Casey Means, as well as Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Brant Pitre. I also started the process of moving our blog from Wordpress to Substack. I also moved my personal blog, Incandescent Ink. While the initial move is fairly simple, there is a lot of reformatting to be done in our archives. I worked through the last few months, but there is still a lot to be done.

While so many have been sick, we have been in homestead survival mode. Mainly, we’ve taken care of the garden every day and kept up the cooking and cleaning. As we have been able, we have worked on produce preservation.

Bonnie-Jean and Grace picked and froze more wild blackberries.

We canned more pickles. We made refrigerator pickles and pickled peppers. Grace dried some zucchini chips. We’ve baked zucchini bread (regular and low-carb) several times. We’ve frozen more then a dozen bags of pesto base. We’ve made salads, dip with veggies, and so much more.

Our watermelons, canary melons, and cantaloupes have been so prolific, Grace and I spent a whole day tying macrame hammocks to support them on the trellis.

While so many have been sick, Levi and Erin have managed to stay healthy. They have worked hard on their rooms over the last couple weeks. It’s been fun seeing all of their progress. It’s been encouraging, since the rest of us haven’t been able to get much of anything done on the bunkhouse project. We are hoping we are getting near the end of the sickness. It can’t go on forever (though it definitely was starting to feel that way for me). I thought I’d never feel like myself again.

And then I woke up yesterday morning, and I was better. I still am coughing and dealing with sinus issues, but I feel like me again. I felt up to working in the garden all morning, helping Grace apply much-needed fertilizer. And then last night, we closed the day out with some firefly gardening. As unpleasant as it is being sick, I have to say — it makes you so thankful to just live afterward. Normalcy feels like the gift it always is. When our family is back to normal, I think we will all feel especially thankful.