Honey and Planting

We packaged up some of our most recent honey harvest to sell. Now we just need to come up with a label. Below are some pictures of it. Mmmmm, delicious!

And, yesterday we started planting some seeds for our fall and winter garden. So far, we have planted cabbage, cauliflower, and spinach. This week we hope to get some carrots, lettuce, and broccoli planted too.

In the pictures below, Sarah, Elisabeth, Joseph, and Abby are preparing the dirt and manure mix in the plastic tubing that we cut into little pots to start the seeds.

Lastly, Dane got this picture of a ray of sunlight shining through the clouds. Isn't it pretty?

Evening sunset, or "moonrise" on the Donaldson Homestead....



Well summer is officially over here in the southern hemisphere and fall has begun. In this area, that doesn't mean much this early in the season; however, we did have a week with some cooler temperatures. Two weeks ago, the days cooled down to the lower 80's and the nights to the upper 50's and lower 60's. This lasted for a week and then the temperatures returned to upper 80 degree highs and upper 60 degree lows.

During the cold spell, the children thought it was really cold, so they all got to test out their new winter coats that their Grandpa John and Grandma Fran sent money for. Here is a picture of Joseph and David one early and "cold" morning. :)



Dane completed a new and improved chicken tractor for our laying hens. The hens didn't take long to make themselves at home.



We would like to expand our flock soon in order to have eggs and meat to sell, so Dane is currently designing a chicken tractor for meat birds and a brooder for chicks as well.

Dane's right hand man, Elijah, has been a big help lately. In the following picture, he is painting bee boxes.



Can you find Elijah in this picture? If you can spot the red shirt in the middle of the picture, that's him. Here he was harvesting bamboo for Dane's chicken tractor projects.

Joseph has been busy finding interesting things lately. In the picture below, he found a brightly colored flowering weed.

This is a picture of a beetle that he found and carried around on a stick for about an hour one afternoon.


And one night in the garden, Abby found this praying mantis.

Lastly, I had another doctor's appointment on Wednesday. The baby has dropped and the doctor doesn't believe that my pregnancy will continue until the 25th of April, so possibly my dates have been off, but we will see. No doubt we are ready to welcome our new little one, but all in the Lord's good time. We will update on any new developments as they occur.

Have a blessed day,

Jessica

Training Oxen

Dane began training our young bulls to carry the yoke on the 11th. He has continued working with them almost daily for an hour or more each day, and they are beginning to make some real progress.

This first picture shows the bulls when Dane first put the yoke on them. They weren't too happy about it either.

Here they look as if they are pouting. They certainly weren't sure what to think about this new contraption on their heads.

Teri, our calf, has been pretty interested in all the training too.

Here in the next two pictures, the whole gang encouraged the bulls to stand side by side.

Here they are getting a little rewarding from Dane for their cooperation.

Progress seemed to be interrupted for a couple days when the bulls refused to do as they were told; however, Dane made some modifications to their yoke, and this quickly corrected the problem. Each day, the bulls do better and better. They are beginning to understand their commands and Dane has taken them off the property and up to practice on the main road.

We will keep the bulls' progress updated and hopefully will be able to include some video of the training sometime as well.

Till next time,

Jessica

Long Time

Well I guess it has been nearly a month since I posted last. How the time does fly!

Things are moving right along here on the homestead. We have been busy doing this and that. Dane finished the fencing for the new pasture. Now the cows can wander around and let themselves into the other pasture for water at the spring whenever they want - it makes a lot less work not having to move them around all the time. We are still awaiting the birth of the red cow's calf. We were told when we bought her that she would calf in February, but here it is March and still no calf. She does look heavily pregnant though, so we patiently continue to wait. I can't wait to have the additional milk for making more yogurt, and hopefully we will have enough extra for making cheese too.

It looks as if we are going into the bee business as a joint venture with our friend, Mr. Reed, who hopes to move to this area from Mexico sometime in the not so far future. Dane purchased five new bee colonies from a local bee man and the materials for making several more boxes. He has gotten all the new boxes assembled, painted, and the new bees moved from the bee man's boxes into the new boxes. This brings our bee colony total to eight; however, when the bee man, Mr. Nevendorf, visited he thought that our farm could support thirty colonies, so we hope to add more soon. Also, Dane harvested the honey from our original three hives that he harvested about four months ago, and came home with eight more gallons of honey. Believe it or not, we finished the first harvest, which had been about twelve and half gallons last week. I did this by replacing all of our sugar consumption with honey. I know that sounds like a lot of sweets, but when you make everything from scratch and don't buy anything sweet, it isn't so difficult to do.

This is a picture of some of the new boxes that Dane assembled before he got them painted.

Dane has also been working on a new chicken tractor. I don't have a picture of it yet, but it is going to be a much improved model over that the last version. We are anxious for its completion.

Here is a picture of Dane trimming the pine tree in front of our house. He put his tree saw on a piece of bamboo in order to reach the branches. With his super long tree trimmer, he has been able to trim all the pine trees close to the house.

Sarah and I went to Buenos Aires for a two day trip the last week in February to complete some paper work for Joseph at the Embassy. We also got to visit the zoo, eat at McDonald's and Burger King, and do some shopping. It was a fast and busy trip, but we were able to purchase new winter coats for all the children and I, some socks and underwear, new belts for the boys, sweats for all, and work t-shirts for Dane and the boys. It was fun, but we sure were glad to get back home!

Well the children and I have been busy working in the garden trying to hoe down all the waist high weeds that took over in many places. We hope to finish that this week and then start planting our winter garden. The following week, we want to harvest all the corn and black beans from the field.

And speaking of black beans, we have been picking them for several weeks now, and compared to the store bought dehydrated beans, they are much more appealing to the eye and even more delicious. Black beans are a staple in our diet, so we are very pleased at the results we have had with them. Below is a picture of some that we had just finished shelling.

The children are learning so much and become bigger helpers all the time. Here are some pictures of a couple of our helpers. The first one is of Abby and David (David is hidden behind Abby) scrubbing laundry, and the second picture is of Sarah making tortillas.





I ordered the childrens' new text books last week, so we hope to get started on our new school year within a month. We have enjoyed our break from our studies, but everyone is getting anxious to hit the books again soon. After spending a few weeks to finish up some things from last year, Abby will begin the seventh grade, Sarah the sixth grade (Sarah completed her curriculum last year, so she gets to jump right into grade 6), Elijah the fourth grade, Elisabeth will complete first grade and begin second grade, and David will start Kindergarten.

On another note, I had a doctor's appointment and sonogram last Wednesday. Praise the Lord, the baby looks healthy! The doctor estimated that he/she weighs about two kilos (4. 4 pounds) already, so it looks as if this baby may be a good size seeing as he/she still has a little over six weeks to grow.


Pretty things around the farm......

Abby planted a few unknown seeds that she had collected from our neighbor's farm a year ago and these beautiful plants and flowers grew. Can anyone identify them for us?



Also, Dane found this really cute and hairy caterpillar close to the creek. He brought him up to the house for us to see him, but when he was touched his hair came out really easily, so in the picture he has about a third less the amount of hair that he had originally. He was still really cute though.

And lastly, a heads up for those of you who are preparing for an economic crisis by storing food. Rotate your food stock on a regular basis. Dane came across this MRE that he had in his camping/hunting gear up in the attic and since it is probably more than twelve years old, we opened it to see what was inside.

Mmmmm..... don't those M&M's, or I mean powdered somethings, in the little green bowl look good? Apparently M&M's will turn into dust all on their own. The chickens wouldn't even touch them!

And the cute little bottles of black, not red, Tabasco sauce?

And just so you know, given enough time, cheese juice will dissolve it's own packaging and just about anything it comes in contact with.

Needless to say, we didn't feel that anything was edible, except the chewing gum, but you can't survive on that.

Have a blessed day,

Jessica