We've Moved!!!

Come on over to the new blog!!! An Unexpected Homestead!!!

Chicken Gyros with Homemade Tzatziki Sauce.

Are you ready? Cause your going down! To yum town that is! (I crack myself up sometimes.) In all seriousness though, these Chicken Gyros are a fresh and delicious way to use some of that Homemade Tzatziki that we made the other day!

Homemade Tzatziki Sauce and Our Dark Secret

Get excited!!! Super tasty Tzatziki sauce recipe and a deep dark secret. I hope you can forgive me after you hear this, but I just want to be honest with you. So I have to come clean.

Where Have You Been!?

Oh my gosh where have ya'll been? I've missed you! I can't believe you have been away for 2 months! What do you mean I was the one who disappeared off the face of the earth? Well... I'm sorry then. That was quite rude of me. We have been so busy out here on the homestead with gardening, meat chickens, naps that the sprout requires that I take, and everything else; I have let blogging slide down my list of priorities. I will work on it though. 

Let's do  quick catch up and then I will do some more detailed posts on some of the things with pictures...

Seed Starting!

Basically everything has happened in February. I don't even know where to begin with the updates. So we will take it slow. Seed starting is nice and easy. So that's what I did. We started tomatoes, cabbage, and peppers. Have you started your seeds yet? You know, the ones that are supposed to be started inside and not direct sown.

Seed Catalogs and Garden Plans

So... Have you ordered your seeds yet? Have you been staring at beautiful seed catalogs and neurotically adjusting your shopping cart at your online seed store? What? You don't do that? Madness I tell you! Don't you want a new way to incorporate a little excitement and stress into your life? Get with the program! Maybe it isn't really stressful for everyone. I just make up things to stress about. Stressing about EVERYTHING (no matter how small or nonexistent) is apparently something I excel at. Just ask my husband.

2015: A Year in Review

Well it's been a big year this year. We actually didn't have a ton of goals starting out other than:

• Get a farm.
• Commence farming.

So... Success!!!!! Obviously...

Comments and Housekeeping

The comments issue should be corrected. I have removed Google Plus and now you should be able to comment however you like(if you so choose) without having a Google Plus account. I had no idea that it was doing that.

Bonus Bug Dog. Have you ever had a 50lb cattle dog "work" traffic hard in the back of your SUV? It's definitely fun. :P

2016 Homestead Goals!!!

Finally we have our goals down and edited. Of course the first time we wrote them out we realized that we were a little too ambitious. Not saying we couldn't succeed. With enough time, energy, and money(oh yeah plenty of that stuff) we can force a square peg through a triangle hole. However, we decided that maybe a less ambitious and more realistic approach would be just the ticket. Some of these goals have "Sub-goals". I just didn't really feel that each thing would merit it's own heading(by the end of this year I may have changed my mind ha-ha). So here is our reasonable list of goals for the upcoming year.

Meet and Greet Part Deux

Now for the rest of the Homestead. 

The new laying flock. They are about 7 weeks old in this picture. That was about 2 weeks ago. There are 7 Black Australorp Pullets(hens). The Black Australorps will be excellent layers of large brown eggs. Also there are 7 Easter Egger Pullets. They are reported by the hatchery to be very good layers of blue or greenish eggs. Then there is the rooster who is also an Easter Egger. 

Meet and Greet

So... I've been thinking about it and you haven't actually met the members of our Homestead. I will commence work remedying that situation now. :)

The Usual Suspects:

Left to Right: Zoey (Yorkshire Terrier and Official Boss of the world/Cat Herder), Bug(Blue Heeler/Border Collie and The Keeper of Animals and Grounds at Hogwarts the Homestead. Ahem... and last but certainly not least, Rats(Chorkie and Keeper of the dirty socks.) I am aware that Rats is a blindingly clever and original name. I assure it's nothing but love for this Rat Fink TM.

The Farm Must Go On.

Well you will have read all about the losses of our layer flock by now. I've read those posts a hundred times before they were published. Until you're farmer, you can't begin to understand how it irks me (maybe me a little more than others in a psychotic OCD sort of way) when I fail. When you fail on a farm that means loss of real food for your family or worse loss of a life(or 10). When your making an effort to do this for real and it crosses the threshold from hobby to this manure just got real, things get serious serious quick. 

2 out of 12. Not too good.

Well honestly things haven't worked so well with our poor backyard chickens. We were pillaged by a red fox.  Ol' Red got 2 out of 4 of our remaining chickens. My two favorite chickens. Miss Henrietta Featherbottom and Miss Minerva Louise McGonagall. They started laying much earlier than the others and their eggs were big and brown with nice dark orange yolks. Oh and they would come when called and ate out of my hand. So of course the fox went for those.

Red Tomato Jam or Swanky Ketchup...

Ya know, whenever I get a hundred pounds of tomatoes to can, I often wonder if I should seek immediate medical attention. I have to be nuts to do it. It's a mess. It takes forever. Blah blah blah. When I'm done with them though, I am always glad I did. So I call for another 50 or so pounds haha. The produce lady has my number though and suckers me into another fifty pounds everytime. She knows I'm cheap. Frugal. Whatever. She knows that I hate spending money. Passionately. I sweat in check out lines. If I'm in a checkout line this immediately implies two of my most disliked things. Close quarters with people and letting go of the green stuff. So she knows when she says I can have 50 pounds of tomatoes for $10 bucks I can't say no.

When Life Gives You Lemons

When life gives you lemons, maybe one of your chickies will lay her first egg.

~Ancient Proverb~ 

Ahem. Me.

Dust bath anyone?

Finally.

We are finally moved. Thank God.

This transition has been a pretty rough period for our little homestead. 7 out of our original 12 chickens have been killed. By our landlord's dog. So that's awesome. Otherwise, we are finally here. So we can finally begin to clean up our new farm and get to work. I am just a little frazzled from the move. It wasn't far we just have so much stuff and the place wasn't move in ready at all. But we are here and finally ready to begin!

Just Checking In

Yes we are still alive and this blog thing is still happening. It's just happening a little slower and less frequently than initially intended. However, I think we are finally at the climax of our hectic situation. So it has to get better right? Here's the thing we will be moving a homestead for the second time on short notice in 60 days. It's a mess I feel like we have livestock strewn over half the county and what's with us is ummm a little cramped. I like to think of it as efficiently positioned. Haha whatever it takes right? So basically we are in a limbo state waiting for our new place to be ready. We already have horses and some stuff there but we have everything else crammed into a very small space with us.

Delicious Garlic Dill Pickle Chips

 Well Folks, now that we have what we need for water bath canning, I think we are ready to try a simple recipe. This recipe is a small batch, fresh pack Garlic Dill Pickle Recipe. I am excited to try these pickles out as they seem to be a pretty simple and low ingredient way to fill the pickle quota for our larder.  Now I understand that the appeal associated with a myriad of subtly married spices caressing the palate like a thousand silk butterfly wings; however my little family thoroughly enjoys simple yet well rounded flavor profiles and it doesn’t hurt that it’s a whole big bunch easier on the wallet.  Anywho! Onward with our Garlic Dill Pickle Chips!

To Can or Not to Can? You May Have Few Questions.

When I was younger I remember canning summer harvests with my grandmother.  I remember tons of tomatoes, pecks of peaches, spicy salsa, gallons of green beans... You get it. A lot of produce went into beautiful Mason Jars and then we got to chow down on it all year long.

Returning from the trip down memory lane. I don't really remember recipes or cautionary tales of Clostridium Botulinum more lovingly known as BOTULISM! Oh yeah! The big B! But seriously botulism is terrible and has horrendous side effects and isn't a hard thing to can if you don't follow tested recipes, instructions, and safety guides to the letter. So enter "The National Center for Home Food Preservation!!! This nifty site allows you to look up the stringent safety guidelines for canning at a very basic level. I purchased my first canning book "The Ball Blue Book Guide to Home Food Preserving" I feel like it's a solid foundational canning book with many tested and confirmed recipes.

Hi ya'll

Welcome to our Unexpected Homestead!!!  This is going to be a blog/record of our triumphs and failures as brand new homesteaders. I grew up riding horses, hunting, covered in dirt, and working on our farm in Tennessee. We raised our own beef, pork, chickens, and a huge garden; however it's been a while. It's the kind of life some people were born to live and even though it's been quite some time since I've lived this way it never left my system.My husband was raised in Tampa, Florida and has always wanted to farm and be self sufficient and now that we have found each other we are taking the initiative together. Come join us on our Unexpected Homestead Adventure!