INTRODUCTION
Homestead Roots Newsletter - 10/17/2024

I am writing today from the beautiful state of Florida as we enjoy some family time away from the homestead. We postponed our trip a week due to the recent hurricane and are glad we did. That extra week on the homestead was a gift. The days and weeks leading up to our getaway were jam packed with work and fall projects. While we absolutely LOVE our home and all that it means to our family. This periodic time away is a massive blessing. We are all catching our breath and looking forward to this time. Of course… life has changed a little bit as we have some added challenges with the baby but it is all good and we are finding our rhythm with her as well!

HOMESTEAD UPDATE
First Fires, Butchering is Done, Fall Harvests

The biggest news over the past couple of weeks was the reduction in animals on our homestead. On the 4th of October we did a big chicken butchering event. We processed about 90 birds for the freezer. We were a crew of 4 for the butchering with me doing the kill, scald and pluck and 2-3 people doing the gutting. Ingrid also stepped in to help with quality control and bagging which sped things along for us. We were able to knock out most of the work in 4 hours. It is a long 4 hours but good to be among friends and see the fruits of our labor in the freezer! The following day we welcomed some new homesteaders to our place to learn the butchering process and did some ducks. We processed 7 ducks, 5 of which were part of Elias’ muscovy flock. They are big birds!

As the first frosts of the season approached we got all the apples off of our trees. This brought in about 3 full bins of apples for the walk-in to be processed when we return and then an additional maybe half bin of apples that looked perfect for us to bag and save for fresh eating. It is important to only bag up the perfect apples for long term storage. The saying, “one bad apple” is very true. One bad apple in a bag can turn the whole bag bad. We had a pretty solid apple harvest. There are still things we can work on to get a few more clean apples in the future. Organic orcharding isn’t for the faint of heart, but it is good to see it is still possible to get a harvest even when you aren’t perfectly treating them.

We picked up the pig trailer a couple of days prior to needing to take them in to get them acclimated and hopefully get easier loading. After backing the trailer into place we took a few measurements and got to work building a ramp from their pen to the trailer. In our experience the ramp is an important piece of the puzzle. We wanted that first experience in the trailer to be a good one so we withheld feed from them that morning. Espen and I build the ramp and got it in place, after putting some food on the trailer all 5 pigs sauntered right up our ramp and into the trailer! This has never happened! Espen and I discussed the positives and negatives of locking them into the trailer and decided that was our best option. Just because the pigs loaded easily that day didn’t mean they would in the future. So we shut the door, got them some fresh water and hay and made them comfortable. We kept them well fed during their trailer stay, with lots of treats and got them to the butcher right on time. We use our local ag focused university for the butchering and this year the pigs were used as a demonstration for some of the students. We should have pork back in a few weeks!

In other news, Ingrid and I, enjoyed a nice dinner out and time together for our 21st wedding anniversary last week. It is a blessing to have a like minded partner in all I do! We finished up the cross country running season with a few more races, the races and practices certainly made for a busy fall but the kids love it and we love to cheer them on. Some friends raised a steer that we will be splitting up between them and one other family. We are bartering a half a pig for part of our portion of the beef. They did an on farm slaughter that I got to be present for, it always a fascinating learning experience. I was so impressed with the guys who did the work. Our food system desperately needs more small scale butchers. They are an integral piece of the puzzle for local food.

MARKET GARDENING
Closed Down!

The unofficial end to our farmstand season has come. As we left for vacation we let customers know that we wouldn’t be open for awhile. It was a fantastic year for us as we saw growth in a bunch of areas. There is still so much to learn in this space and areas where we can improve. Growing food isn’t for the faint of heart but we look at the challenges as opportunities for future growth. Already planning for next year! 🙂 

We had a killing frost in the garden earlier this week. That frost did take a out a few items but many cold hardy crops continue to grow and certainly our high tunnel crops are still going strong. The tomatoes have been just wild and I am sure we will have a boatload to harvest when we get back. The busyness of the fall season kept us from optimizing a few things in our high tunnels prior to the colder temps but overall we did pretty good.

We will likely do a few more big harvests for our farmstand and open for a few days and then nurture a few plants along for our own family through the fall and winter. The goal will be to eat our own salad through the end of the year. We will see if we can make it happen!

CLOSING
Winter Slow Down

Winter means a slower pace for our family. We are looking forward to embracing it! There is something really cool to living more seasonally and tuned into the what is happening around us. Today’s world is very “climate controlled” work for most of us can continue uninterrupted in any season and any weather! Our future generations of course were much more tied to the seasons. There were seasons of heavy work and seasons of rest. We like that cycle and look forward to following it in a more focused way in the future.