It still hasn’t snowed here yet in the UP (last year apparently it was blizzard conditions for a few days in early October), and for that we are grateful! We still have a few things to do before the snow hits and these early morning frosts become a bit more extreme.
I hope you enjoy reading about everything we’ve been up to this month at Bethsaida Homestead!
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Building Chicken Coop
The first big project of the month was building a chicken coop from scratch! And all in one day!
Landon started by tilling the ground right near our current chicken coop. Then he milled logs from our own land to be the main support beams, which took a good portion of the morning. That was followed by framing and then closing in the building.
I meanwhile set up all the fencing, which is between my garden and the current coop, and as the darkness set in, we were just completing the task. The next day just required putting some metal on the roof and sealing up the cracks.
It was so wonderful to see our 60-some chickens exploring the outdoors for the first time! They were desperate for more space and to scratch in the dirt. Now as I write this they have been in the coop for almost a month and that is getting crowded…next month we will be butchering about half of them (the roosters) and keeping the hens! We will also need to set up some nesting boxes at that point as well as we anxiously await our first eggs from them.
We also had one hen from our mature flock randomly die on us this month and we have no idea how or why. This is the second time that it has happened…but, that just comes with the homesteading life.
Many of the hens in our current flock are going through a winter molt so we are only getting a couple of eggs a day now, plus production starts to slow as we have less and less daylight each day. I can’t wait to start having more eggs for ourselves and to offer to our local community!
Rabbit Room Addition
With our rabbitry growing so big, (we currently have tons, probably 50ish babies growing up), we really needed a bigger pen to put all our “meaters” as we call them. They needed more space and more access to food and water.
Landon built an amazing raised pen for all the babies to hop around in. The best part is that it is super large and long so they can run back and forth, staying much more healthy than being cooped up with mom. It was time for them to leave the nest you could say!
Losing A Litter Of Kits
On a sadder note, one of our new breeders, a female we raised since birth, had her first litter but slowly lost each baby kit. It was something we have never experienced before, quite like this.
She gave birth to nine kits and they were all healthy for close to the first week of life. However, slowly after that each morning we would come in to feed the rabbits, we would notice a dead kit.
When the mom nurses the kits in the night in the nesting box, sometimes one will stay attached to the nipple and get dragged out of the nesting box. It’s much too cold at night right now for the baby to survive outside of its warm home and the mother is unable to pick up her babies (unlike cats and dogs). This happened for a few nights in a row. Its common when breeding rabbits to have a few die here or there due to this.
But what else is strange is that some died inside the nesting box, which is the piece of the puzzle we aren’t so sure about. Nursing didn’t seem to be a problem as all of them were growing well and had full tummies. It appears that something may be wrong with the mother, but we are not quite sure what.
We will breed the mother again this next month and pray for a successful litter! It’s heartbreaking for me to watch nine babies die off one by one, but it is a part of our life as homesteaders. There are highs and lows on the journey.
Adopting Two Dogs
One of the craziest things that happened to us this month was “our big mistake”, at least that’s what I’ll call it for now. Here’s how the story begins…
One day when I was on Facebook I noticed a post in a dog rehoming group I am in about a family rehoming two Great Pyrennes dogs, a boy and a girl, unrelated, and not spayed or neutered, both about a year old. The best part was that they were in northern Michigan and I never saw posts from people that were actually close by to us. In fact, most of them seemed to be in Texas or other southern states.
Now, I love breeding animals! I am much more of an animal homesteader than a garden homesteader you could say. The animals keep me going on days I feel tired or unmotivated, not something else like a garden. Anyways, these dogs could be bred within the next year and that is what initially piqued my interest.
We were also thinking about getting another dog or two that was a guardian breed for when we have sheep and/or meat chickens out on our pasture next spring and summer. We want more protection from coyotes, hawks, or bears, even though that hasn’t been a major problem yet for us.
This opportunity just seemed too good to be true. So, after lots of thought, conversation with the owners, and prayer we decided to go for it. However, both of us were still a little wary of it but we couldn’t pinpoint why. We literally had no excuse/no reason to say no.
When the dogs arrived we loved them and named them Sammy (Salmon) and Steel (steelhead), fishing names to stay with our theme. They were good dogs and we really had no trouble with them except for one thing…Sammy, the female, was a very good guardian dog and would roam very easily.
We couldn’t keep her on our land. Neighbors started to get upset and it became such a hassle. Landon didn’t have the time required to train her like he thought he would (we thought it would be easier than it was appearing) and we couldn’t afford the GPS collars that would be necessary to train her the “easy” way.
We hated keeping them tied up each day. It came down to the fact that we made a mistake and seemed to have jumped the gun on our decision. We decided to rehome them sadly, and after posting them on Craigslist, a neighbor down the road decided to adopt them from us a week after we had received them. They had 80 acres as well and a fenced-in area, and no other dogs, so it was a much better situation for them.
It was certainly a stressful week and not an easy decision but the amount of peace we felt after they were gone made us feel 100% confident that we made the right decision.
I will still breed dogs in the future, but we will do it when we can devote the time and energy to training our new dogs. Now we understand all the implications and factors that will go into the decision as well! And hopefully, our two border collies will be enough of a defense against predators when we add animals to the pasture next year.
Wood Pellets Stocked Up
While it hasn’t snowed here yet, it has been cold, especially in the mornings. It was time for us to get our wood pellet stove fired up and that also meant stocking up on wood pellets for the winter.
After a few trips to town with the trailer, we have enough bags of wood pellets loaded up into our barn to carry us through winter! I love the cozy fires we get to experience each day now and how it symbolizes the changing seasons.
More Venison
Friends of ours saw a deer get hit on the road near their house. They called up Landon and asked if he wanted to come and pick it up. Landon said of course and we spent a day putting another 50 lbs or so of venison in the freezer! It is such a blessing to have a freezer full of fresh meat.
Landon also spent a good chunk of time tanning the hide of the deer and it turned out quite well for his first time! He has lots of ideas for how he can use the hide this coming winter.
Hunting Our Land
One Saturday we took a walk through the back 40 of our land and went hunting for some partridge. It was so fun to be able to hunt on our own land, and so surreal at the same time! We love where we live and feel so blessed.
We came back successful with two partridges right at the end, and a wild rabbit as well. We ate so well that day and it was delicious the way Landon prepared it. I kept laughing because we raise our own chickens and rabbits, and we came home with wild chickens and a wild rabbit! However, they are still so different than the meat we raise ourselves. There’s nothing like a fresh meal on the table!
We also both love eating crayfish and we actually found a crayfish trap in our stream that someone must have left behind! It was such a fun extra bonus for us. There wasn’t enough to eat inside it so we added them to our pond and will hopefully have a whole new population of them to eat next year.
Waiting On Garage Door
One big downside to this month is waiting on our garage door to arrive. We ordered back on May 3rd! Can you believe that?! Now that the mornings are frosty and snow is in our forecast, we are pretty bummed.
We are going to be adding the garage door to one end of our barn so we can pull our car inside during the winter months. We were hoping to have this task done months ago, especially before winter, but with the supply chain issues, we still don’t have an exact delivery date.
It would be amazing if the garage door would deliver before the holidays so we can get our car, boat, four-wheeler, and other machines inside the barn for safekeeping before winter strikes hard!
Then, the next task is to finish up the inside of our house addition and it will finally feel like we are truly moved in! Right before baby number two arrives too!
Thanks for reading and we will see you next month!
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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I love reading your monthly updates! I think being a homesteader sounds so rewarding. Currently, where God has led us, we can’t even have a garden as we are in an apartment, but one day I dream of having a least a small plot of land for a big garden and some animals:)
I was wondering if you ever thought of doing a farm tour/tiny house tour? I would love to see what your setup looks like! Thanks for sharing your journey!
Thanks Katilyn! I’ll pray that dream comes true for you in God’s perfect timing! And yes, we would love to sometime in the *near* future when we feel fully moved in/settled in and our house addition is complete…so stay tuned!