I did a bad job of keeping track of everything that happened this month but I’m doing my best to piece it all together for this blog post! It was certainly a month of praising God for all He has blessed us with, like a new home, but also learning to praise Him in our grief.
One very sad thing to report is that we were excited to announce our 4th pregnancy with you all but instead have to share that we have sadly miscarried our baby at 12 weeks. Please keep us in your prayers during this very difficult time! The Lord gives and the Lord takes away but blessed be His name!
Keep reading for more updates on the homestead…
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Finally Signing With The Bank
We are now officially signed with the bank and starting our mortgage for our new house! As exciting as it is to have a brand-new home, and what a blessing, it is also hard going back into so much debt. Debt is not something we enjoy having but it was necessary at this point in our lives.
The interest rates are not ideal and it is depressing looking at our newly tight budget; however, we are still rejoicing at the end of this process! It has been a long journey with many ups and downs. It has not been an easy year since starting the house build. Yet, God has been faithful. He has provided. And we feel incredibly blessed to call this piece of land our home!
We have chased our dreams and seeing them come to reality can only lead us to do one thing, and that is to give God all the glory!
Finishing Up The House
We haven’t moved into the house yet, while technically we could. Landon is working on finishing up several things before it is ready to clean and move our things over from the tiny house. The list includes pantry shelves, his office desk area, mudroom storage space, trim work, and other small things. We are hoping to move in sometime next month!
Blackberry and Blueberry Picking
It was fun when we found a fairly large spot of wild blackberry bushes on our property! We picked as many as we could, because let’s be honest, we ate most of them fresh. Then, brought them inside and made some honey blackberry jam, which will have to be a summertime staple each year for us because it was delicious!
We were disappointed this year when we realized that we couldn’t pick at our neighbor’s blueberry patch because their bushes were not performing well. Thankfully we found another u-pick opportunity and took advantage of it where we could. Even though we don’t have as many blueberries in the freezer as we would have hoped we are grateful for the ones we do have!
Butchering Our Hens And Meat Chickens
What a long few weekends we have had! First, we butchered about 25 old hens and put them in the freezer to become wonderful broth for us this winter. Then, we butchered 60 meat chickens to stock our freezer for an entire year’s worth of meat! It is not easy work but it is all so worth it! It was fun having our kids a bit more involved in the process this year too.
Rabbits Dying
It has been a hard month on our rabbitry. Several rabbits have, over time, been dying off. They seem to get sick, have diarrhea, and then are dead by morning. We are not sure exactly what is causing it and it has been disappointing. We will do a good cleaning of the cages and replace the flooring before the next batch moves in.
Family Time
We have enjoyed spending time at the lake, watching our sister/sister-in-law/aunt Korbin win a gold medal in the Olympics, and just soaking in summer where we can before it disappears on us! After the house build ended we were all so burnt out that we just craved all of it, and fit it in where we could around the work that still needed to be done.
There’s still so much to do on the homestead before winter comes, including moving into our new house. Look for our update on all of that next month and thanks for reading!
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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