The HomeGrown Mom

Some days don't go as planned.  And when you live with an unseen illness that sometimes acts like an autoimmune disease, some days it just knocks you down.  I've learned to listen to my body.  Yes, it's frustrating.  But if I allow my body to take it easy on the days it's screaming at me, then my body recoups that much faster.  Thankfully I am able to work from home as a homemaker/homesteader.  Yes, there are still routine things that have to be done, like feeding the rabbits, making meals, general clean-up, but the extra things on my list like deeper cleaning and organizing, extra things in the garden, or even using extra brain power to learn new skills are all things that I can put aside while I let my body rest.

I thought this round of a Lyme flareup would go quickly.  After all, my body has already done the hard work of fighting it off once...and after having it for likely 15+ years before it was realized.  So shouldn't a simple flareup be a fairly quick and easy fix?  Well, yes and no.  It's fairly "easy" because I now have routine appointments and we are able to catch it quickly.  However, true to it's nature, my body has to take some of the treatments slowly.  For this round, that looks like a few extra days of taking 1/3 of the dose I am working up to on my immune-boosting, body detoxing supplement.  But that's ok, because I know that I'll get there and that my body is doing what it needs to do, even if it is a little slow doing it...and makes me feel very blah in the process.

I am thankful that I am able to allow myself these slower days and that my family is fully supportive of me during these times.  I'm also thankful that I have things I can do while taking it easy, like computer work, crochet, reading.  It's very important to find things to do during this time.  It makes it so much easier to believe that I'm not being lazy, but that I'm healing.  As a mom, that seems to be an extra hard thing to believe.  

These days of rest aren’t easy, especially when the world keeps spinning and responsibilities don’t pause. But I’m learning that rest is not a setback—it's part of the journey. It’s a necessary rhythm for healing, especially for those of us with bodies that have fought long battles. If you're in a similar season, please know this: you're not lazy, you're healing. Give yourself permission to pause, to breathe, and to trust that the work you're doing—both seen and unseen—is enough for today. 💛

Our homestead is still growing, despite us having no land of our own.  But we are determined to keep moving forward.  We are actively looking for land to call our own.  In the meantime, we are doing our best to find ways for our homestead to pay for itself.

We currently have 29 goats, 4 rabbits, 1 beehive, and a garden...and a couple of cows we share with a friend.  We have a plan for teaching different classes such as canning, making kombucha, baked goods, apple scrap vinegar, how to crochet, and whatever else we can think of.  We will be teaching these locally for in-person classes.  But we will also be making these into online courses.  So if you aren't local and are interested, stay tuned!  Good things are coming!!

I am also, on a local level, making home-baked goods like jumbo muffins and healthy granola bars.  These are things I make for my family on a weekly basis, so it makes sense to just up my quantity and sell the extra baked goods.

My guys have also built a variety of things for our homestead, including a bunny tractor, dog feeder (to keep the goats out of the dog food), garden beds, and more.  These are items that will be made and sold locally, but we will also be putting together the plans in a pdf form for purchase so that you can build your own.

Trust me when I say that no matter where you live, you can build your homestead one step at a time.  We may be doing this whole thing backwards...after all, we still tote everything around in our mini-van, even goats!  But we are making our dreams come true, one goat, one homemade muffin, one online course at a time.  

Here's to No-Land Homesteading!

We have been wanting bees for quite some time now.  After all, who doesn't love fresh, local honey?  My family just can't get enough.  Thankfully, we were able to get started with an established hive.  And, as with everything else on our growing little homestead, attaining these bees was quite different than you might think.  The only vehicle we had to transport them in was, you guessed it, our minivan.  

It was just over an hour long drive, so we wanted to ensure that the bees stayed where they belonged. My guys were on the mission. They properly closed up the hive after dark, then used a tight mesh fabric to keep them all together in the chance that some of the bees got out.  Where there's a will, there's a way!

Since it was so dark, and a storm was about to hit, they placed the bee in a temporary spot.  However, we can only move the bees a little at a time (3 feet to be exact) unless we are moving them onto another land all together.  I think at this point, we have now moved them about 3 times, a few feet at a time.  

We live in south central Oklahoma, which means lots of storms and high winds.  Not only that, they also share a field with some cows that frequent the path.  Needless to say, there are a few good reasons to make sure our hive is secure.  We started out with just a few cinder blocks, then we strapped them down.  This last time we added a metal frame to give them a little more stability.  

To say that I am enjoying having bees is an understatement.  At first I really just thought I'd be letting my guys handle them and bring me all the goods.  But I'm realizing that I find it quite relaxing to visit the hive.  

Yes, we are properly suited up...at least mostly.  At the very least we are fully clothed and use a bee hat and veil.  

I can't wait for our first harvest!  Our bees have been quite busy.  They seem to be thriving.  We plan to add a few more hives as soon as we can.  And, as is common on our little homestead, we will use every single bit of honey, wax, propolis, and anything else we can from our busy bees.

Meet Rooster.  This lil guy now has his own pen, which soon will be shared with Billy so that we can keep them apart from our does.  He was caught being a little too friendly with one of our younger does, who we prefer to not breed just yet.  So a pen was quickly put together using the cattle panels we used to create a shoot when loading the goats into a trailer.  

It was a quick fix yesterday evening, using only what we had out in the field.  We still live about 20 min away from the field, so there was only so much that could be done on the spot.  Also, time was an issue because it was Wednesday and my guys needed to be back home in time to eat dinner and be ready for Bible class.

This morning, my youngest and I headed back out to the field with the proper tools, and set Rooster up a bit better.  We made the pen a bit bigger, made sure he had the proper shelter (thanks to our make-shift pallet shelter), a place for hay and for water.  We had to wait out a rain storm to get it done, thankfully it worked out just perfect!  

Next up, we need to catch Billy and add him to the pen with Rooster.  This has been our plan for a while now, we just hadn't been able to make it happen.  These days it seems like the only things we can get done are the things that we deem urgent at the moment.  I suppose we work best under pressure.

Yes, we know Billy can also breed our younger does, but so far he hasn't been caught in the act and so far he seems to not be "in season".  But since Rooster was caught, I'm sure Billy will be soon to follow.

Just another day on our crazy, no-land, homestead.

Let me just take a moment to say how thankful I am for my 3 guys.  My husband and oldest son work their full-time jobs during the week, then come home to tackle whatever needs to be done for our homestead.  My youngest is busy working on the weekends and doing homeschool and VoTech (for welding) during the week.  They all work super hard. I'm very proud of all they are able to accomplish.

In the months of January and February, we had some really cold days/nights.  Too cold for new borns to be out in the weather.  We ended up with 6 bottle babies, after having so many losses.  We just didn't want to go through all of the losses again.  It was a great learning experience for us.  Since we live 20 minutes away from where we keep the herd, it was really nice to be able to look out our back window and see the little goats.  After about 6-7 weeks, we had decided to bring home one more male goat.  He was 6 weeks old and doing well, but we wanted him tamed so that we could keep him to breed.  Just look at him...isn't he a beauty??

Anyway, fast-forward a few more weeks.  It's time to take the babies back out into the field.  We felt Choco (our beautiful buck pictured on the right) needed a little more time to get use to us.  So we left him and 2 other males behind.  We took the other 4, 2 bucks and 2 does out to the field.  They were quite a bit smaller than most of the other babies we had out in the field.  That mother's milk just makes them so much bigger!  The herd didn't quite accept them and pushed them around a bit if they got in the way, which was to be expected.  It was hard to leave them there, for a couple of reasons.  One, we didn't want to leave them.  We had grown used to having them at home with us. And two, because they tried to follow us out of the fence.  Since they are so small, they slipped right through without being shocked.

By afternoon, when it was time to feed the goats, all 4 of the babies were accounted for, but still weren't really merging with the herd.  When morning came and the goats were fed, we were missing one of the babies.  To make matters worse, it was one of the does we had.  Her name was Girlie.  We had nursed her through pink eye and bottle fed her most of her life.  She was super sweet and had really cute floppy ears.  To say we were sad is an understatement.  

We looked for her a few different times that day.  At one point all 4 of us were out there searching the woods and calling for her. We found no trace of her anywhere.  That night before my son came home, he was being followed by the remaining 3 babies.  He watched 2 of them go through the fence, following him to his car.  At that point we decided to just bring them back home.  

So now, here we are with 6 goats in our yard again.  Still missing Girlie, but not wanting to take a chance on loosing the others.  We are in planning mode to try to figure out how to get these 6 out in the field and keep them safe.