We are loving this May spring weather! We are constantly outside and just soaking it all in.
The chickens have still been laying fantastically and we have been doing well selling eggs at our farm stand. (Follow Bethsaida Homestead on Facebook for updates!) We also had a new round of baby bunnies born and they are just the cutest, as always!
Can’t wait to share more of what we have been up to with you…
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Chicken Fencing And Netting
At the beginning of the month, we moved all our chicken fencing and hung new bid netting! Our chickens now have probably at least a quarter of an acre all to themselves and they are loving it!
After installing the garage door on our barn in the fall, we realized that the fencing made pulling up the new driveway path into the garage quite difficult. So, now that it was spring, and the ground was muddy from all the snowmelt we knew it would be the best time to get stakes in the ground.
It was a full day of work, and after hanging all the bird netting, we had a windstorm that took some of it down. We had to rehang it all, but the birds are safe underneath it now.
First Time Canning!
I finally did – I learned to can for the first time! It definitely is a learning curve and intimidating to get started but I’m so glad I just went for it.
In this book (which I review in this blog post) I followed the “beginning educational track” as you could call it! Basically, there are five recipes at the beginning of the book they encourage you to do first when you are new to water bath canning.
The five recipes were strawberry jam, mint jelly, salsa, corn relish, and dill pickles! We have enjoyed taste testing all of them.
I also canned some dandelion jelly and elderberry syrup!
Freeze Dryer
Speaking of preserving food, our home freeze dryer arrived! It was definitely an investment, but we have no regrets! We want to have food stored up and preserved for the crazy times we are currently living in.
So far, we have freeze-dried bananas, avocados, apples, watermelon, mango, and milk. It has been so fun to try all the food in the freeze-dried state and experiment with it. The possibilities really feel endless!
I have an affiliate link here if you’d like to check it out for yourself: https://affiliates.harvestright.com/1525.html
Landon’s Dozer
We also purchased a dozer/tractor/excavator thing (Landon knows the technical term lol) so that we can start doing some big projects that require moving a lot of dirt.
Unfortunately, ever since purchasing it, we have had quite a bit of issues with it, but thankfully the man who sold it to us is very nice and helpful.
With it, we hope to create a driveway, cover the septic, level out more land, and even plow the snow away in the winter. Let’s hope it keeps holding up for us!
Planting Blueberry, Strawberry, and Elderberry Starts
We purchased elderberry starts locally, blueberry starts online, and were given strawberry starts from our neighbors! It is so exciting to have these all planted so that in just a few years we can be storing and preserving all our own fresh fruit!
We used the excavator to clear a plot of land for our fruit starts and then tilled up the ground. We also purchased fencing to go around them and keep them safe. I hope they all thrive this summer! We’ll just have to remember to keep watering them in the hot months of July and August.
Planting Cold Hardy Crops
I planted our first round of seeds in the garden (and just missed a cold day where it almost frosted!) so hopefully, we will see these sprouting up soon!
We have four beds and two of them are almost full. The seeds planted include beets, kale, mizuna, carrot, lettuce, zucchini, mustard, peas, radish, and spinach. Come back next month to see what else we plant!
Making Bread
I also made bread for the first time this month. It was an easy recipe with instant yeast and whole wheat flour, but it was also a learning curve that I accomplished!
Learning new tasks and skills is definitely the theme around here lately, and sometimes that makes days really hard. But, for the most part, it is so rewarding!
See you next month!
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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