This week on the Half-ass Homestead | May 31-June 1, 2020

The week Brian Sr. came home from his brain surgery and we were blessed with so much help on the Camp Farm from mowing the yard to delicious dinners. Honestly, I haven’t had to think about dinner all week. It’s been glorious, and super helpful as I pick up Sr.’s activities. So. much. laundry. We are so thankful for the continued support. Check out these awesome cookies my friend and colleague, Kyle made and sent to us from Houston!

As for Sr., it’s been pretty rough with severe nausea and pain. Mornings are the worst for him and walking is still pretty taxing as his neck is regaining strength and balance is still off. He’s supposed to work up to walking 5 miles a day. The first day he could gather strength to get out side and walk, he only made it across the street and back. We have a long way to go but each day he makes it a little further down the neighborhood and this weekend, he was able to walk with out his walking stick.

Ella and Grace have been playing entrepreneur all week, with an “Amazon delivery” adventure and having lots of meetings. It’s quite the business of the future. I don’t even have to order the items, the just show up in bags with “invoices”. And they are things I love, like my favorite books or high heels from my closet. 🤣

Little Miss Grace has gotten quite good on a bike and earned herself a shiny new one! And Jr. finally earned enough to get his new bike–thanks to his cat sitting job and helping in the yard and garden.

The hens continue to grow and have proven themselves capable of being able to roam free in the back yard mostly un supervised… I guess this means they’re now free range!

In the gardens, plants have been loving the sunshine this week. We’ve seen tons of growth in both the house gardens and big garden. My favorite peonies came into bloom and Ella and Grace helped me make a trellis for the peas and to support the green beans.

With all the extra sun, the soil in our growing rows was starting to dry out and crack. We hadn’t gotten around to adding mulch to the rows, or even deciding what kind of mulch we’d use, so I added grass clippings from our last mow. I’m hopeful this will be a good, free, solution.

Grace found our first strawberry and the girls helped me pull seeds out of a few melons and cucumbers for later planting since our first round of them didn’t take after all the heavy rains a few weeks ago. My sweet friend, neighbor, and fellow gardener, Amiée, brought us a few of her extra cucumber plants as well as a few extra goodies! I mean, I couldn’t be more excited about this book, y’all!


Our First Strawberry!

by Grace, age 5

Yesterday I was in the big garden with my Mom and I found a strawberry! It was not attached to the plant anymore, I guess maybe Vinny picked it. I don’t know how it could have grown not on the plant.

Our first strawberry!

The strawberry was a little bit tiny and red. We took it inside and washed it off. Mom said it was a little too ripe and we shouldn’t eat it. I’m so excited for more strawberries to come! And for the peaches and blueberries to come too! The blueberry bushes have lots of flowers that are almost going to grow to blueberries. We don’t have peaches yet but Momma bought some at the store.

Me by our peach tree with my strawberry

When we get more strawberries we will wash them and eat them. We can make strawberry pie, strawberry cake… I had strawberry cake for my graduation. Did you know I graduated pre-school?! I’m going to Kindergarten next year! I’ll get to ride the bus with Ella and Brian. I’m so excited!

Okay, bye!

*This post was dictated with an app by Grace and edited for spelling and punctuation (and a little bit of clarity) by Mom.