Homesteading fun!

   I am once again joining Homestead Revival's homestead Barn Hop. We have had a lot of fun "homesteading" activities this week, for the most part in thanks to my parents. We are so blessed to be able to live near them and get to enjoy their homestead with them. They are way more advanced in "homesteading" than we are and we enjoy spending time over there and are blessed that they share much of the harvests with us too.

My Dad's goats having been kidding (that means having their babies) the last couple of weeks. I believe there are 13 babies so far. Last week we went over for a morning so the kids (my human ones) could have fun playing with and helping name his kids (the goat ones).

 Megan wanted to hold a baby. I helped her get it in her arms and then it decided to suck on her ear. She wasn't too fond of that but found it rather funny when Grandpa told her that the baby was trying to find some milk. That baby had "lost" it's mother. No mother was claiming it and Dad had been very busy when the goats were arriving (with church work) and so had somehow gotten mixed up on which baby went with each mother. The baby goat (who Megan named Daisy Flower) is now getting bottle fed.

Mara got to help give Daisy her first bottle.

 All of my kids have fun holding the babies. They each named one and left the others for cousins to name.

   With the coming of baby goats, my parents now have goats milk again. We are very blessed to have them share with us. When the goats are dry I drive 20 minutes (each way) to a natural dairy farm to get milk but I am happy to have that chore over with again for a while.  Mom and Dad also share eggs with us. Farm fresh eggs taste so much better than the ones from the store! Also in the picture is garlic which also came from Mom and Dad's. They raise a big crop.

 I took a picture of the meal above because I had fun thinking about how I knew where basically everything came from. The milk is from Dad's goats, The chicken were raised at Mom and Dad's and the kids and I helped to butcher them, The broccoli came from Mom and Dad's garden, The potatoes we gleaned at fields in our area, The wheat in the bread came from our area and I ground it, the bread also has pureed Swiss chard and pumpkin in it which both came from Mom and Dad's gardens.

 My seeds came last week! I will be starting some inside pretty soon. The beginning of the gardening season is always so exciting!

Today we went over to my parents to help some more (we had gone over at the beginning of the season too) with maple syruping. Today was our first boiling day. I would guess nearly 100 gallons of sap has been collected so far (today and earlier) and it was time to boil.

  We cleaned up the boiling pan, set up the wood stove and then poured the sap in.

 The boys and Megan enjoyed working on the fire.

 Mara thought she would try a taste of the sap.

 We did a lot of hauling! It was so fun to get out in the sunshiny weather and get some exercise and fresh air.

Those are some of the fun activities we have done in the last week. We have more fun things lined up for this week. God has certainly blessed us with a wonderful life.

If you have kids that love to read (or if you would like them to love to read!) don't miss my current giveaway of two Imagination Station books!