INTRODUCTION
Homestead Roots Newsletter - 5/9/2024

We've had a little illness in the family but things continue to move forward on the homestead! All the baby animals are growing nicely as are the weeds in the garden! With the plentiful rain weeds are a problem. In organic farming there is really one option and that is to pull them and see we've been working to keep up! Enjoy this weeks edition of the newsletter!

HOMESTEAD UPDATE
Selling Ducks and Goats, Homestead Garden

Pretty status quo on the homestead this past week. We are into a good rhythm with chores and the kids doing their tasks. The pigs are now enjoying their full paddock area and tentatively exploring the space. They are still spending lots of time in the hub so I want to continue to try and lure them out to explore. Elias has had a great season selling his ducks and has just a couple sales left for the spring cycle. His ducks are now mixed again as he isn't focused on the breed specific eggs.

We have found a buyer for one of our wether goats and he will be going to a new home later today. We are still looking to list a few of our mom's and babies this spring and find some new pastures for them.

On the list this season is figuring out some runoff issues we are dealing with. I need to find a way to divert some water in areas so we don't continue to erode away our paths and walkways. No real plan in place just a knowledge that something needs to be done!

We are making some good progress in the homestead garden. We got the beds spaced out and some of the beds tilled. We need to add compost next and then get them planted!

ORCHARD MANAGEMENT
Our Organic Orchard Plan

The orchard trees have really been putting on a display! If we get good pollination we are going to have a lot of apples! Already the pear tree blossoms are starting to close while the apples and cherries are still in full bloom. These days we only really do 1 spray on our apples. That is a mix of kaolin clay and fish emulsion. The fish is like a fertilizer for the tree and clay acts as a deterrent for pests. The clay is a super fine powder that we mix with water. We then thickly coat the tree with the watery clay. When the work is done the tree is basically white! That fine clay makes it uncomfortable for the bugs that would like to get after our apples. The trick is that timing needs to be absolutely perfect for it to work. I need to get the spray on the trees just as the petals begin to drop and the baby apples begin to form. This is when some particularly nasty bugs like to get after the apples. Last year my timing was perfect but I didn't get a thick enough coating on the trees. We still had a lot of nice apples but I think we can do better!

I do a spray of the clay product on our pear trees as well but the pears have far less pests looking for them so it is less of a concern. For the cherries we don't do anything. All of our cherries have a nasty disease called Gumosis. It is a problem with stone fruit trees. We've already lost a dozen of our trees to the illness and the rest will eventually go as well. So we just enjoy each cherry we get from them! Long term we hope to plant some bush cherries which shouldn't get that same illness. We still have 9 cherry trees left so we are hopeful for a good harvest!

MARKET GARDENING
More Irrigation Issues

In the market garden we've been busy keeping up with harvests, planting and weeding! The farmstand has been busy which is excellent and we are keeping up on veggies which is even better. We are already starting to flip some of our first beds over to summer crops. We are also finding that our timing in some areas of the garden is off a bit meaning our plan is calling for us to plant the next round of crops in a bed but that bed is still full of the previous crop. A reminder that in the spring things grow more slowly. Hopefully we will be able to stay on track and make notes and adjust the plan in the future.

My irrigation woes continue. After scraping completely my first attempt my second attempt is also leaking more than I would like. I don't know if the components I am using are just not up to snuff or what? Maybe they just can't handle the pressure? It certainly seems like they should be able to. I am certain there is some user error in there too.🙂 At this point I am unsure if I will scrap this one completely again or try to make adjustments to what I have to make it work.

CLOSING WORDS
Aging Gracefully Through Challenges

I was reminded of my age this past week as we started our softball season. Baseball was my sport growing up and something I played through college and even post college for some amateur teams. These days I am enjoying coed softball with friends. It is a ton of fun but the pain I endure after the fact isn't so fun! This time around it was combined with a nasty cold that I picked up. Those two combined had me feeling like an old man, moaning and groaning as I sit and stand up and do anything strenuous. So that bears the question, why continue to do things that hurt or bring you pain or are challenging? Wouldn't it be easier to quit?

There is an online health and wellness influencer named Gary Brecka who says, "Aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort." When I first heard that it really resonated with me. As we get older we just want to be more comfortable, over time we remove the challenges and work hard to make our life easier. But is this a healthy thing to do? I would say no. This means sometimes to fight off aging we need to pursue things that challenge us. One of the things that we find so encouraging about the homestead life is that it keeps us active. Everyday there are new challenges that exercise both our brains and our bodies. It certainly isn't the easiest path forward but I don't want to chose the easiest path. I think "easy" has gotten the human race into a ton of trouble! Easy food, easy pharmaceuticals, easy money. There is something about working hard for your food, and for your health and for your work. So this is my encouragement to stay active and do something that makes you uncomfortable every day.