Farm Life Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Our Homestead Adventures

Embracing the “F” Word: “Failure”

Failure can create valuable lessons on the homestead, workplace or life. This homesteading adventure that we’re on is opening up all sorts of opportunities to face the “F” word… “failure”. In life we try to avoid failure, no one likes to be labeled a “failure”. It’s a brand that’s hard to shed from the psyche.…

Pumpkin Planting Experiment

Few things make me smile the way a pumpkin makes me smile. I know, it sounds weird, but I just love pumpkins and have this dream of someday growing a state fair champion pumpkin. In the meantime, we’re doing our best to have a real pumpkin patch this year and are experimenting with a way…

Canning Made Easy

How to do boiling-water processing or water bath canning If you’ve never preserved fruits and vegetables by canning, this is a really easy way to get started. You just need a boiling-water canner, which is a large pot with a lid and a rack to help you manage those hot jars. You can also purchase…

Restoring Order in the Chicken Coop

Order in the Coop Last October we hatched our first chicks in the coop, “Thursday” and “Friday”. It was extraordinary to watch our little chickens grow-up. We discovered at about 4 months of age that our distinctive young chickens were roosters. We knew we would not be able to keep them, especially since we still…

Perspective: Every day something dies so you may live

Where our food comes from has new perspective after butchering our first chicken. We rose well before the sun. It was raining, we couldn’t see the orange glow had we gotten a later start anyhow. But as we prepared to butcher a chicken for the first time, we were met with a range of thoughts…

Unearthing Farm Artifacts in the Garden

An evening planting digs up questions and farm artifacts. This evening over an hour was spent digging two holes to place a couple of melon plants. Breaking ground was easy. It was when the earth was turned over that remnants, artifacts of moments long forgotten where discovered buried several inches to a foot deep into…

When Life Gives You Ice, You Fish

It’s not often that it gets this cold in Kentucky… but boy was this winter frigid. The gentleman who used to own the farm told us that they had not had ice on the pond like this since the late 1970’s. So when Chris noticed the ice was getting pretty thick, he unpacked the ice…

Farm Family Finds Buried Treasure

It started when our son tripped on something sticking from the ground. We’d lived on the farm for about a year when, one warm spring day, our oldest son came running into the house. He said he’d tripped on something metal sticking from the ground near the pond. Chris went to check on the mystery…