My Favorite Month.

Most people, it seems, sigh a collective groan in February. I get it. I mean, can you think of another month in which an entire country founded on rational thought suspends reality to anthropomorphize a rodent and infer his weather opinion? Yesterday it actually thundersnowed, Punxsutawney Phil. These waves of wintr’y weather the south has been blanketed with (predicted by the Farmer’s Almanac, I might add) makes it seem like it’s a long slog towards spring. Especially when the alarmists say things like “catastrophic” and “crippling” and things turn slushy; I’ve found that people everywhere have a special loathe for slush. To boot, I fear the mid-month love fest of Valentine’s Day can lose its sweet panache in slush, subsumed by Hallmark consumerism. I cringe a little when I see hearts and chocolates pushed just past New Year’s. Having been out (in the real world) infrequently this year though, and having no tv (and, would you believe it, no snow-shovel!), I’ve noticed less of that and am happy to celebrate the heart of it today, of course, for it’s lovely romanticism. I mean this IS True Love and Homegrown, after all! Annnnd, I was born in February, so in actuality I’m in the camp of February not being such a bad month at all. Don’t stop reading.

I am itching for spring, to be sure. And so I’ve searched for February’s signs of stirrings – listening for a green hum beneath all this white sog. For instance, I discovered the other day, a few little rootlets budding from the withered brown loop of hops that I’d hopefully dug up and carried from our old house! W was pleased – now we have to find a place to plant them where they can grow high! Our order of seeds came in from Baker Creek, and we’ve placed an order for several more fruit trees and flowering bushes (lilacs! hydrangeas!). Before this last snow hit, WV and I found strong green shoots (which WV trampled only a little) of either crocuses or daffodils beside the house – which just whets our anticipation of all the blooming and blossoming we will discover this spring at our new house. And, accordingly, we’ve been choosing spring reads…you know, to get the sap flowing.

So, think of it this way: February (in the Northern Hemisphere) exists to prove you’re strong. You can take it. You have survival in your blood. It’s a time to think and be creative (’cause flying piglets, sometimes you want to stay in to keep your snout from freezing). These cold moments will be interrupted with punches of warmth until all we have is spring coming on strong, with open windows, longer days, and fragrant breezes. Love your person today a little bit extra, or your baby, or yourself, or your four-legged friend, or whomever you think deserves a special reminder. And love ya, February!

This post was added to a collection at The Prairie Homestead’s Monday Homestead Barn Hop. and to Crafty Garden Mama’s linkup, Tuesday Greens.

Shed Updates.

One of the fun things about buying a house is that when you’re handed the keys, you are handed a blank slate. Whether that simply means you slap on a coat of paint, redecorate, or gut things, it’s your prerogative.

Our homestead came with four outbuildings – a barn (that needs some work), a stellar chicken coop (that we’ve revamped and filled with chickens), and two dilapidated sheds. We’ve cleaned out and filled up one of the sheds (it was a disgusting job – the former owner had used it as his duck massacring station…and had left it mid-massacre). We believe the other shed was formerly a smoke house – it’s got a chimney and rafters (currently from which snake skins hang). It’s 11 feet by 11 feet, has two windows which have been sided over, the floor is spotty in some places, and we believe it has electricity run to it (need to test that). So, what to do with this shed is a project that’s been on my mind – I’d like to un-dilapidate it and give it a new life. We’ve been tossing around ideas, but haven’t settled on anything.

These ideas include:

1. Secondary tool and gardening shed, womp, womp. This just isn’t what I want to do: have two sheds. We need something more interesting, unusual, with pizzazz.

2. Potting shed. I like this idea, but don’t really know if I need an entire shed devoted to potting – right now I already have a little outdoor potting area set up and it suits me just fine. Turning the shed into a potting shed mostly conjures up images of dank, musty, dirt. Hmph.

3. Green house retrofit. This would probably be the most work because it would require taking a significant part of the shed apart – including the roof – to replace with glass…although I guess we could do a partial roof removal. I think we’ll wait and build one from scratch, later.

4. Cozy guest house. I know, this seems impractical, especially since we have several in-house guest options. But isn’t this romantic? We could call it the The Shedroom!

5. Animal housing. On the other hand, this seems quite practical…however the shed is very close to the house and driveway, and I’d rather just keep filling the barn. W has been interested in raising rabbits, and this could be an excellent start to a large hutch/husbandry outfit. BUT I had pet rabbits growing up and just can’t imagine us venturing into rabbits for meat.

6. Restore it to it’s former glory: a smokehouse! Another one of W’s craaazy ideas. Do we need a whole structure devoted to smoking meat? Haha, I bet some of you will say “YES!” I guess if W starts hunting it would make sense…perhaps the electricity would come in handy because we could keep a chest freezer out there too.

7. Studio/craft space. Turn it into a retreat where we can craft (all those reupholstering jobs I have on my to-do list). This is rustic, re-purposed and glamorous all at once (and a tad more grande than our actual shed could probably accommodate, oh Pinterest!). I could bring my craft closet out there. I could set up my sewing machine. Buuut, then I wouldn’t be in the house, so what would my little guy do while I crafted? And if he was napping, would I really want to leave the house to go to my craft shed? Yea, no.

So, what do you think? What have you done to re-purpose an old shed or structure on your property? Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance for your input!

I’m linking up with The Prairie Homestead blog for another Homestead Barn Hop.

Fill-The-Barn-Fever

W and I are serious about using our new home and land to homestead, as it aligns with so many of our personal values. In and of itself, a complete (and long!) post, so I will leave the “why” for later and get straight to the point: we got pigs. Yep, sweet, little, strong-willed piggies. Frankly (haha), on my part, I’m sure being pregnant opens up a depth in my heart where things which before were cute now are achingly so, so I don’t pretend to be absolutely level headed about them (for example, I’d entertain knitting them a sweater, as per the influence of my friend N). I’ve got W for the level-headed part, and he was the one who found the Craigslist ad.

We’ve been planning on adding a milk cow and perhaps a steer to raise for meat to our burgeoning livestock, and almost did, this past weekend. But I messed up the time we were supposed to meet the farmer and later, some breed advice from W’s brother’s girlfriend, who is in vet school, made us happy we did. She pointed out that the two breeds we were to pick from – Jersey and Holstein – were notorious for unpredictability in males or used for meat by Taco Bell. Clearly, neither of which we wanted. We’re still looking, and plan on talking to our nearest neighbor, who has about 20 head of mixed colored cows and steers. We learned quickly from a chicken acquaintance that we definitely don’t want the trouble of raising a bull (our initial idea, we’re learning here) just to mate with a cow and then use for meat – there are far easier AI options; we’ll ask our neighbor.

Saturday night, W showed me an ad he found while browsing CL and the pig idea was born (did I ever doubt we’d get a pig eventually?). We spent precious hours in the wee part of the morning doing extensive research on the breeds and found they – Guinea Hogs and Kunekune – are literally the gentlest pigs you can find. The Kunekune is a New Zealand breed, which is exciting to me because, as some of you know, all of my graduate field work was in New Zealand and I have a great affection for the country. Both Heritage Breeds are exceptional for raising as family pigs because of their temperament and because they are not porkers, so to speak – they are smaller than the average hog.

We drove out to the farm in Providence Forge; 4 acres of happy pigs with a trailer in the middle. The older couple who lived there were so nice and pleasant and very knowledgeable – giving us lots of tips and tricks on where to get free bedding shavings, bread, and milk for their feed. All their pigs were named, and the woman kept saying things like, “Violet, stop shoving,” and “Stella where are you?- S-T-E-E-E-E-L-A?!?” Her ad had said that they only had 15- and 8- week old males, no females, but it turned out they did have females, and we on-the-spot retooled our plans: get a breeding pair (the litters were unrelated), and keep them to breed. We’ll keep a pig or two from their litters for meat and sell the rest.

Three days in and we’re in love. For now they are situated in our large chicken yard/coop (they are very social breeds and enjoy inter-species company). The little boy is twice as big (15-week litter) than the little girl and much more headstrong. He lives for corn treats and will not stop “snurffling” me until I give them to him (he figured out right quick there’s always corn in my pocket). The little girl eagerly follows him around, wagging her little piggy tail, and paying attention to the finer details – where he uses his snout, she uses her brain.

On their first full day here WV and I went to play with them early in the morning. We ended up panting over our misadventures. According to what I had read, they are natural and adept foragers, preferring grass in most cases to other food (perfect, we have a lot of grass and intend to fence off an acre to be used by them and the goats that are a-comin’). “Oh, I’ll let them out and they can follow us around on our usual red wagon rides while eating grass.” Wrong. The internet lied. And piglets are not kittens (oops!). They preferred freedom to grass and lit out across the field towards the woods with downright surprising speed! Dang, little piggies can run! I saw our investment melting away should they reach the forest, so I hauled my pregnant you-know-what after them, managing to reach them at our property line, and herd them back up the slope. Thank goodness I had corn in my pocket. We need a fence.

So, welcome to our new little piggies, Abe R’Ham and Beth L’Ham. We’re so glad you can help fill our barn with endless hours of amusement and generations of sweet little piggies, just like yourselves.

We’re linking up with The Prairie Homestead blog for her Homestead Barn Hop today! Head on over there for great recipes and self-sufficiency tips.