Spring on the Homestead: ChicksThis spring has been very busy around our homestead!

I love all of the seasons, each one for it’s own reasons. Spring is such a special time of year. It’s a time of birth, sowing, growth, new starts, hope for the future, and expectation of abundance.

Our spring has met all of those criteria so far and we have faith that it will continue to. We’ve had a lot of excitement on our homestead this spring, it’s been very full and fun filled.

Spring on Our Homestead

New Life

Our spring started out with the excitement of new life. We got lots of baby chicks, both meat chickens and chicks for our laying flock. There’s nothing like a baby chick that just says “spring on the homestead” to me. We are looking forward to putting some homegrown chicken in the freezer very soon. I love growing food that will nourish my family.

Spring also brought the birth of baby goats for us. Five baby goats made their way into this world and our homestead. We were able to witness the births and it was an amazing experience. We have three little bucklings and two little doelings. The bucklings will be sold and will make other farms some very nice herd sires. The little doelings will stay here to be part of our milking herd.

Spring on the Homestead: Baby Goats

Garden 

We started our spring early with a large planting and everything was looking great…. and then, an unexpected (very) late frost killed it all. That was quite sad. All of our seedlings were destroyed. We waited a couple of weeks and started over. This time, we had success!

The garden is growing wonderfully and we are already starting to harvest. We’ve enjoyed meals of squash and zucchini so far. The green beans are being picked and will be canned this week and we even got one little cucumber off of a vine.

From the current look of things, we should have quite the abundance from the garden this year. I love that my garden will feed my family all summer and I can preserve food to last us all winter as well.

Spring on the Homestead: Zucchini in the Garden

Pasture

Spring also brings lush green grass for our livestock to graze on. This will help our steers to grow out nicely and provide us with 100% grass-fed beef. We already had one steer butchered this spring and he has served us well.

Our meat chickens are being moved to new grass regularly to provide them with plenty of forage to thrive on. It won’t be much longer and we will be able to butcher our first batch of the year.

We haven’t had to mow our grass in the yard because the goats are doing a great job for us. They’ve enjoyed being able to graze the yard and we’ve enjoyed not having to cut the grass. It’s a win win for both parties! They are also producing lots of rich, healthy milk for us with being on pasture.

As you can see, our spring has been very busy, very full, and very blessed. All of the goodness of spring ushers in summer and all of the abundance that it brings. We are looking forward to harvesting, preserving, and butchering our own food moving into the next season.

Our summer will prove to be just as busy as spring and that’s the way I like it on our homestead. I love to be busy at home, taking care of my family and homestead.