Around The Homestead

This blog post started off as a winters project list update, but that wouldn’t make for much of a post. It’s been either too cold or too wet to tackle our outdoor projects, which make up the bulk of interesting things to blog about. Our project lists are never written in stone, anyway, and mostly used to prioritize. And that allows us a lot of flexibility to address whatever presents itself. 

One non-list project that took priority recently, was a cracked runoff debris clean-out tube, frozen and broken from our big winter freeze. 

We were quite fortunate that this was the only water pipe problem we had. Many others in the area had plumbing damage with their houses, but of our house and five rainwater collection tanks, this was the only breakage. Happily, Dan had another section of the right size pipe to replace it.

Of the winter project list, it’s been too wet to work in the garden, but we’ve gotten a few nice days and  made a little progress on the greenhouse.

The other item on the outdoor project list is fence maintenance and repair. Dan tends to tree thinning and limb trimming first, because these often create peril for existing fences.  

Branches and sticks end up in the wood chip piles.

On cold rainy days I’ve been tackling mending, which I’ve combined with my winter learning project. I’ve found numerous interesting videos on visible mending, and I’m especially impressed with Japanese mending, particularly boro and shashiko. These two techniques combine two of my favorite needlework arts—quilting and embroidery—with the utilitarian skill of mending. Here’s an example.

I’ve taken notes and am gradually organizing them into a blog post (which I’ll hopefully publish later this month). 

Not on the project list was an early start with spring cleaning. This came about because of the beautiful cross-stitch my wonderful daughter-in-law made me for Christmas.

I had to have it where I can admire it every day, and decided that my one free kitchen wall was the perfect spot. That meant taking down everything I had hanging there, and that meant that the wall needed washing, and one thing led to another, and so spring cleaning has begun. This, combined with my winter purge project is getting me off to a good start to an more organized, cleaner house. Once spring planting season hits, about all I can manage for housework is a lick and a promise until after the harvest is picked and preserved.

In critter news, I have four does all due in March.

Because the pasture was winter-killed last month, there is less grazing for the goats. So I try to take them down to the woods more often.