2014 was an eventful year for us! We had so many new experiences with animals, building, and just living the simple wholesome life :)
Our first big experience of 2014 was in the beginning of March, a local farm was advertising that they had goat kids for sale. So our whole family headed up to the farm to "look" at them. If we were going to decide to make the jump to being goat keepers...we only wanted one goat. However the woman at the farm persuaded us to get two goats. So that day we put dibs on two goats and about two weeks later came back to pick them up and bring them home to our homestead.
Now, before we brought Sassy and Clover home we built a stall down in our basement. But we knew they would out grow it real soon,
So we planned out our pasture, the cost of the materials and everything you could think of.... and soon we were all starting to build it.
Our homestead is full of shale so digging the post holes was not that easy. We rented a post hole digger to help out but it could only do about half of the holes we needed. We used shovels, we used a hand post hole digger, we used a pick ax and some of the holes didn't even budge. Needless to say it was hard work.
Once we sunk all the posts in quikrete it was finally time to put the fencing up. Putting fencing up is not as easy as you may think...but we got it up in one day. It was such a relief when it was done.
The next thing we tackled this year was building the pole barn for the goats.
It went up rather quickly after all the planning. It's not completely done, we have a few things to add on to it come spring. You could say it's rustic ;) You definitely appreciate things more when you build or make them by hand. Hard work went into this and the goats LOVE it. :)
We also expanded our flock by about 22 chickens.
We ordered all different kinds of breeds from our local farm supply store.
Golden Comets, Red Sex Links, Welsummers, Barred Rocks, Cuckoo Marans, Buff Orpingtons,
Black Australorps, Silver Laced Wyandotte, & some Araucanas. The newbies haven't started laying yet, but hopefully in the next few months.
This year we also put all our work into building our gardens. In the past years we had always done gardens but never really kept up on it.
We bought good dirt/compost plus we used some of our own compost. We also got some free horse manure as long as we loaded it.
We increased our growth space significantly by building 4 - 4x16 raised beds to add to our original 16x30 garden.
In the spring of 2015 we will be adding 1 more 4x16 raised bed and possibly a pallet garden as well.
With all the room we had added we were able to grow a few new items in the garden that we hadn't grown before. Such as 2 varieties of green beans, carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, cherokee purple tomatoes, and all our herbs apple mint, chocolate mint, spearmint, lemon balm, chamomile, lavender, thyme, rosemary, and sage.
In 2014 we also founded our facebook page Woodpecker Willows Homestead. We are so happy that we have over 400 people that are interested in following our homestead journey. We love interacting with so many other homesteaders and farmers, and we love being able to share our knowledge and receive knowledge from experienced homesteader & farmers.
There were lots of other things that happened throughout the year, such as us adopting our pups Riggy and Rebel, us taking care of 4 wild baby rabbits, repurposing a old cast iron sink into a outdoor garden sink, and trying our hand at being a bit self-sufficient. In 2014 we made our own washing detergent, made goats milk soaps with essential oils, and even made some apple cider vinegar from our apple scraps.
2014 was a productive and special year for us and we can't wait to see what 2015 has in store!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
"And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer." - Paul Harvey
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