A Fond Farewell

This will be my last post on HC. As of this week, we have accepted on offer to sell our house and property.

Chickens, in a faint dusting of snow, gobbling grain earlier this week.

We're staying in the area, but moving to a bigger house on more land with a real barn.We move approximately 2 months from now. With all the hustle and bustle of selling and preparing to move, I will simply not have time to continue blogging.

That, coupled with the fact that in the short time I've been opining, I have certainly come a lot closer to fulfilling my mission.



Our goal has been to "turn our rocky, overgrown 5.4 acres into a flourishing, self-sustaining farm, and become just a wee bit holier while we do it." With all of the improvements I've made to the pastures, and in implementing "the system," I've certainly taken great strides toward achieving the first part of that. My spiritual life has developed well during that time, too. I can honestly say that, even though I'm not continuing my mission here at this property, I have nevertheless achieved my goals - at least as much as possible in the short time I've been writing.

 So, for this final post, I'll give one last Homestead Update, and add some closing thoughts after that.

More on Latte the Calf

I was able to get Latte the newborn Jersey calf to stand still for a few seconds.

Strike a pose, Latte!

Latte is a sweet, energetic, rambunctious lil' gal.

Brand New Calf!

Bridget had her baby this past weekend!!!!!

It was a healthy baby girl. We named her Latte.

Latte the Jersey calf, a mere 4 minutes old and yet unable to stand.
The chickens looked on in bewilderment.

The delivery was fast and smooth. She went from first presenting (in the front yard) to birth (in the barn) in under 2 hours. Thing #2 got to witness the whole thing. I caught most of it, as we were preparing for company later that evening.

Piglets!!

This weekend, we had piglets!!

They are so small and so cute and so pink-ish.

 Mama Piggie (aka, Poomba) gave birth to two healthy, happy, squeaky little pig babies. They are just about the cutest thing ever. Well, definitely top 2.

Mama and babies are doing great.

Guinea Fowl: Take 2

This week, i got 4 free guineas:

buck-WHEAT! buck-WHEAT! 

A friend of ours got them in the spring, and they're getting into his neighbor's flowers and causing a good deal of hi-jinks, or something like that. I have them in with the pullets, where they'll stay until December. By then, I hope they're trained to stay and roost behind the shed.

HC Stats

This is my 240th post.

To date, 15,381 people who are not myself have viewed my blog. Last month, 1,043 people viewed a page. The most viewed page I have is the first installment of my chicken coop on wheels project. It has been accessed 931 times. Besides the other chicken coop post, my homage to homestead donkeys is the only page that's topped 200 views.

All the stats that's fit to print.

Today's been a big day - 77 views. That's tops for the last few weeks. I had 63 in September one day. I think it's because of the metal roof post, which sits in 6th place. In my tag cloud, the words "Catholic," "chicken," "garden," and "food" dominate (and are intentionally not tagged in this introspective). And good ol' US of A Google searches are by far my biggest pipeline of visitors.

So what does this all mean?

Well, I've (potentially) touched over 15,000 people. I have 240 distinct, written thoughts to leave for the entire created world. Most of my thinking, at least as evidence by my posting trends, has been around ,my mission of achieving holiness through the transformation on my land into a giving source of food. And at least somebody's seen it beyond Wife and David.

I haven't hit 10 posts a month. But that's OK - this blog is serving its purpose. And also, 26.

God bless,

Recap of Chicken Butchering Weekend

On Sept. 20th of this year, we took 23 meat chickens from coop to freezer. By "we," I mean myself, the wife and kids, Wife's 7 siblings, and some of the siblings' significant others.

The experience exceeded our wildest expectations.

Two chickens, mid-pluck, proudly displayed by six volunteers and led by Thing #1 (lower right).

It was a beautiful day, everyone was excited, and we accomplished our goals.

WARNING: Very graphic depictions of chicken evisceration to follow.