🌻Everything we did our THIRD SUMMER+FALL on the Homestead🪚

Stick a pitchfork in me, friends. I’m done.

My dad always told us growing up that “you often need tomorrow to finish what you started today.” What he didn’t tell us is that “today” and “tomorrow” are apparently nothing more than representative metaphors for a wide collection of time frames, only a handful of which remain faithful to the twenty-four-hour mark.

We weren’t homesteaders very long before I realized that my “Do-Today-Lists” had other plans to live their best lives as week-long agendas. Not to be outdone, our “Weekly To-Do’s” soon began making camp as well, boasting their squatter’s rights for a month or more.

But this summer’s project list stretched my dad’s old, standby saying to its breaking point.

“You often need tomorrow to finish what you started today?” Well, on the homestead, it can take all fall to finish what you started in summer. In fact, the finishing touches may even demand a postdated check signed “Spring.”

It’s not easy growing to accept that growing stuff is an ever-growing behemoth. Like a turnip. And yet . . . when I look out on the golden-frosted garden and glitter-glowing forest around, I can’t help but let out a steaming puff of satisfaction and tuck my thumbs under my suspenders, symbolically anyway, as if holding to these two hopeful thoughts:

First, it’s finally hibernation season, and baby, it’s cold outside.

Second, all the homestead gurus say not to quit until after year three. Well, this is it, folks. The end of year three. Buh-dee-buh-dee-buh-dee. I’ll update you in the spring either a fresh, dewy, blushing report of triumph . . . or I’ll blow the whistle on a bunch of gardeners and homesteaders out there with mud on their faces and fire on their britches.

But for now, here’s our summer slog that tumbled headlong into fall, with a few things tailing behind which we’ll head back for after spring thaw.

---

EVERYTHING WE DID OUR THIRD SUMMER & FALL ON THE HOMESTEAD:

If you want to see what biting off more than you can chew looks like in full size: click the post title for a better slide show experience! Also, if you’re reading this in your email window, you’ll need to click the link to see the entire post. As always, we hope you are able steal an idea or two and pace yourselves better than we did! And do. And inevitably will.

Painted & stained the house. Himself.

*FINAL AFTER PICTURES COMING IN SPRING!

“I’d rather paint the entire house with a toothbrush.” This was my hubby’s answer when given a few quotes for having our house professionally painted and stained. And wield that toothbrush he did. Well, at least that’s how it seemed. The whole ding-dang project was a beast. There were color issues and sprayer issues and roller issues and attitude issues. Ours. Anyway, if you’re a glutton for punishment, here’s everything we did for this DIY:

First, our nephew power-washed the whole house, focusing on the wood trim. Then, he and my hubby and my dad taped off the trim, windows, doors, etc. Then they primed the house with a professional paint sprayer that wasn’t so professional. At one point my entire herb garden sported an outbreak of white smallpox. It took some prayers of gratitude and a pot of hot tea to revive me. Next, my hubby, dad, and nephew began painting the actual color onto the house with the sprayer. After that, my nephew had to go back to school. Smart boy. Then my dad had to go to California. The original smart boy. My hubby sprayed on the second coat himself. Then he sanded off drips and bubbles and the palms of his hands. Finally, he rolled the entire house with an extender pole in a single testosterone-and-spitfire-driven weekend. This all required more than two months’ worth of after-work evenings, weekends, and joy. After some touch ups and tears, he sanded all the wood trim, wiped it all down, and started staining at last. But . . . the color was terrible. So, we guzzled about five hundred bucks of stain and got a new color that wasn’t like the coat of Clifford the Big Red Dog. Hot tip: test big, big sections with stain before selecting.

Anyway. It’s done. It’s beautiful. And we’re never doing this again.

*Paint color: we started with “classic navy” by Behr but had to alter it a lot to get the shade we were going for. Every single “navy” we sampled looked like a crayon color once painted onto the siding. So, we darkened it quite a bit and created a custom color. If anyone reading this wants the barcode, just send me an email! Always happy to share.

*Stain color: New Cedar by Cabot

Laid down weed barrier cloth and chipped away at the forest. That is . . . until the woodchipper tried to chip away at us. Literally.

The weeds were winning. Bigly. Our garden was becoming carpeted in green and not in a good way. Reluctantly, we made the decision to lay down weed barrier cloth over the entire ground surface other than a few key spots where we plant potatoes or have strawberries growing. Everything else we grow in Birdies raised beds. My hubby and nephew tacked down bolts and bolts of the cloth. Then, our nephew was directed to let the chips fly. For weeks he strapped on inmate orange chaps, armed himself with a chainsaw, and tore off with my truck and trailer down the driveway. He’d come back with a heaped dome of Rocky Mountain Maples, the weed tree of the woods. Then, he’d run them through the chipper into the garden.

Everything went beautifully until the day a blade the size of a brick whizzed past my hubby’s head. Our nephew was at the chipper. Our son, the Captain, was heading out to ride his bike. Long story short, cutting out my panic and terror and rage against an inanimate object, here’s what happened: the blade successfully tore through the four, giant screws that held it in place inside the chamber. Then, the blade tore through the siding of the machine like it was made of butter, shot past our nephew, our barn, my truck, the front of our house, my hubby’s head, then landed with a clank next to Yeti’s kennel. This was a distance of about fifty yards.

The company very kindly offered us a replacement woodchipper. We very politely declined the offer. No, we wouldn’t like another flying guillotine, thank you. They gave us almost a full refund which was fair enough but they have yet to pick up the weapon of mass destruction. Anway, we are back to ordering very expensive loads of woodchips and keeping our skulls intact.

Thankfully, the garden is looking great. 😆

Started project “Snow Globe”

We’re adding on to the house to make room for some more beds . . . grow beds that is, and maybe a hammock or two.

The back of our house faces south and lets full sun in all winter. So, we decided that it would be amazing to build a sort of sunroom/greenhouse onto the basement and build the deck out further over the top. We’re calling it “the snow globe,” and while it won’t be a true greenhouse, I will be able to tend to my (hopefully thriving) seedlings and overwintered plants without putting on a jacket or snow boots. Plus, we’ll bank some family time in there whenever we start showing symptoms of cabin fever.

That’s the plan anyway. So far, all we have to show for all this dreaming is a big frame covered in Zip siding, a literally green and very drafty house. Lord willing, it should be finished and ready for my green thumbs by later winter.

Planted, weeded, watered, and watched it all grow. Then weeded again.

The incredible growth come summer always astounds me. But it’s been different all three summers we’ve been here. The ecosystem seems to be adapting to the fact that the new property curators (us) refuse to use chemical warfare anywhere on the property. My perception of it is that the clearing is visibly detoxing. Wildflowers have truly gone wild and are closing in on us, but so are the weeds with them. The thistles this year especially have been taking advantage of the situation. We also planted a few wildflower meadows in the spring, and that’s been its whole own thing. But I’m pleased to report that two of the four are doing surprisingly well. It’s taking a lot of patience and trust to allow everything to find a harmonious balance. I’ll keep you all posted. In the meantime, I’ve been collecting all the wildflower and annual seed heads (poppies, salvia, calendula, echinacea, to name a few) and scattering them thick as well as far and wide.

Every time I toss a handful of flower seeds into the air, I’m filled with the thrill of a blooming dream. I see the blooms, the bees, the birds, the butterflies like the turning of a kaleidoscope in my mind’s eye and I wait another year for the tiny miracles hiding under the snow.

As for vegetables, this year we grew: peas, carrots, beets, kale, chard, spinach, lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, eggplant, butternut squash, cucumbers, cilantro, basil, chives, onions, garlic, green beans, and rhubarb. In addition, we had tremendous amounts of herbs, flowers, and strawberries.

Picked, processed, and stored away.

Eight of my friends and I enjoyed a fall retreat weekend together in October, and a massage therapist friend paid us a lovely little visit. As I was helping her pack up her massage table, she told me “wow, you and all your friends have really, really rough hands.” I couldn’t help but laugh. Yes, yes we do. And at the end of the summer, especially so. For weeks all my fellow homestead gal pals and I had been harvesting, washing, peeling, seeding, stripping, snapping, chopping, stirring, straining, and who knows how many other hand-roughening verbs. The results of my labor, to say nothing of my friends, is a year supply of the following: tomato sauce, salsa, tomato soup, apple sauce, herb butter, herb oils, pumpkin puree, all things potato, and homegrown herbal tea.

My hands can hibernate now. They’ll be ok.

Planted our own, hopeful “Blueberry Hill.”

Among the Captain’s favorite books when he was very little was “Blueberries for Sal.” A few years later, it became a favorite comfort read of Goldilocks as well. And truth be told, it’s been a favorite of my hubby’s and mine as well. It’s no wonder that our whole family now loves berry picking. And much to our delight, we have endless access to huckleberries out the back of our property. There are few things we like to do more than pack up the side by side on a summer’s day and scour a hillside for wild huckleberries. However, huckleberries require a lot of time to gather, which is something we are almost always short on in the summertime. We like to gather plenty for some summer cobblers and freeze enough to make a special dessert for Christmas and Easter. And that’s that. This hardly meets our family’s berry demand for the year. We go through bags of frozen berries a week as a family. Yes, I blame the charms of Robert Mccloskey.

Anway, we went for it and planted our very own, very hopeful “Blueberry Hill.” This is our second attempt at growing blueberries. While raspberries just go wild no matter what you do, we have found that blueberries like to stunt their growth and discolor anytime you look at them. We hope and pray that they will be happier on this very babied hillside we have given them.

How we prepared “Blueberry Hill”: First, my hubby and the Captain hacked away at the very brambly hillside with machetes. Then, we had a load of topsoil dumped on the spot which we all raked and spread smooth. Then, we laid weed barrier down leaving very small slits of earth to plant the berries. Next, we popped in twenty-four blueberry plants. Finally, we had a load of wood chips dumped next to the site and the Captain and I competed in a bucket-run for who could spread the most before dark. I won with 56 bucket loads and the reward of screaming shoulders the next day.

Heaped, spread, mulched, and tarped.

Just when you start to feel relieved at the end of the harvest, the prep for winter week arrives. Here’s what we do each year to put the property to bed before the first snow:

First, we pull up all the non-perennial plants and heap them on the compost pile or into our “greenfills.” The sunflowers we leave for the birds through the winter who repay us richly in much-needed bursts of color. Then we rake the garden beds smooth, adding chicken manure and worm compost. We sow a few beds full of lettuce seeds and a few others with garlic, all of which will come up in early spring. Wood chips and mulch are put around fruit trees, strawberries, blueberries, lavender, and echinacea. Tarps are secured over equipment and the skyfort playground. Hoses and drip lines are pulled and put away into the shed. Weed piles are burned. The last thing I like to do is spray any weeds still coming up in the driveway or anywhere else with 70-90% vinegar. Supposedly, this is the best bet for organically combating weeds prior to spring. I’m still waiting for that victory.

Welcomed the fall color, the frosts, and the winter birds.

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest;
sun, moon, and stars in their courses above
join with all nature in manifold witness
to Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
all I have needed Thy hand hath provided:
great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

---

Check out all our seasonal highlights posts here:

🌱Everything we did our FIRST SPRING on the Homestead🌸

🌻Everything we did our FIRST SUMMER on the Homestead🦗

❄️Everything we did our FIRST WINTER on the Homestead🛠️

🐞Everything We Did Our SECOND SPRING on the Homestead🐓

🐿️Everything We Did Our SECOND SUMMER on the Homestead🐈

🧄Everything We Did Our SECOND FALL on the Homestead🐓

🍄Everything we did our SECOND WINTER on the Homestead🌱

🌸Everything we did our THIRD SPRING on the Homestead⛰️

Thanks so much for taking a peek at our homestead today! If you enjoyed this post, please share with another homesteader or hopeful! 🙂

Love, Candace Arden