Spring is in the Air!

Hi Everyone! I am happy to report that spring is here! At least for yesterday and today! It's 70 degrees outside and wonderful! I opened up all the windows in the house to get that winter stuffiness out, it's so refreshing! With spring comes blooms.  Our tulips are coming up, but no flowers yet.  Some perennials are showing their green and the garlics we planted late fall are up and rising!  Of course, so are all the weeds.  How is it that some plants will die off during a harsh winter....but not weeds!  They are persistent, year after year.  I have crab grass growing in my strawberry patch, and in random places in the garden.  This weekend, some spring cleaning is on the list.  We also have to start getting together our camping materials.  We found a cheap, retro hardtop camper for sale that we purchased and will be taking to our land next time we are up.  It's not deluxe by any means, but has what we need.  Bed, storage, stovetop, and heater.  The heater was the biggest thing since it will allow us to spend nights on the land when otherwise we would have to stay at another place about 30 minutes from the property.  We'll post some pictures once we get it up there, we are pumped to get everything together and go up for our first weekend where we can spend all day and night at the land!

Anyhow, back to spring - here's a picture of the garlic coming up and also of the dogs playing outside! 

Homesteading...away from home!

It is officially fall here in Wisconsin. Blue skys, sunny days, but blustery with a temperature hanging in the 60's during the day. Perfect in my opinion! Last weekend was probably the last chance to do some unoffical camping. As you know, we've had a few staycations this summer, camping in the backyard. This time we took it offbase, and went to visit family in Western Wisconsin. We were really looking forward to it since they have something similar to our dream property. I believe it's 80 acres that they have. It's part farmed/open area, part forest/treed area. They have groomed trails throughout the property and ponds with wildlife. We camped by one of the small ponds. The dogs absolutely loved exploring the property, and so did Tim and I! We walked the trails several times and got a good tour of the property, describing much of the work that went into creating it and developing it to the way it was today. We also fully enjoyed the garden! A little bit to a lot of just about everything was growing! They have an area of fruit trees, grape vines, turkeys, and they even bee keep!! Wow, Tim and I were in heaven, dreaming of our own real homestead we plan to have someday. We came away with many practical ideas!

Roxie and Doug were very helpful in sharing a lot of what and how they do things on their organic homestead. We were really spoiled, eating several wholesome meals while we were there. We were only there from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, but it felt like we accomplished so much more. Not only was it great to visit and learn so much about homesteading, but also to see family! Also, Roxie sent us home with fresh foods from the garden that we helped pick. Tomatoes (which we made 4 jars of sauce with), carrots, jalapenos, raspberries, and eggplant. We have been eating well this entire past week, cooking together the tomatoes, eggplant, and carrots, and serving it over bulgar, or whole wheat pasta. Yum! Since we have quite a few eggplant, I'm also going to try something new. I found a recipe for "Eggplant Meatballs", so I'm going to give it a whirl tonight. I'll post the recipe if it's anything worth sharing.

It was a great weekend away and we look forward to visiting again! It was helpful to understand their homestead so we can help plan ours. -L

Cora's Birthday!

Yesterday was Quigley's birthday, today is Cora's!  Since we don't really know when her birthday is, we chose June 1st, the day after Quigley's (not very original, I know).   We've had Cora for 2 years now. We don't know how old Cora is since she's from a rescue and has no history.  She can be a real handful, but she's a lover at heart (we think!).  Cora received her gift this morning, a plush elephant.  It has a squeaker in it, so we figured it would be destroyed in minutes.  The "indestructible" one we bought Quigley has officially destroyed already.  We left to run to the grocery store today, and we give Cora what we are calling her "Elephante."  Since it's her birthday, she got to go on the bed while we were gone.  We figured elephante would be destroyed, but he's perfectly in tact! As long as Boomer or Quigley don't get at elephante, hopefully he'll last!  We'll see, I give it one more day :)    -L   

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CORA!

Quigley's Birthday!

Today our Quigley turned 3!  Of the 3 dogs, he is the only one we know of his actual birthday.  We got Quigley from a breeder in IL and Cora and Boomer are both rescue's.  Quigley came first, and we've had him since 8 weeks old so he has a special place in our hearts.  

We got a coupon in the mail from Petco for his birthday, so we took his spoiled butt there to get the free treats and let him pick out a toy.  The picking out a toy part wasn't as easy as suspected.  I mean, he's a dog...did he even know he was supposed to pick one out? :)  Probably not.   Basically he sniffed out all the toys on the bottom shelf.  He also gravitated some rocks for a fish tank, haha!  Finally, we just picked something out (NOT the fish rocks).  He likes what we picked out - and nonetheless, it was a nice trip to Petco!  

Since Cora's birthday is tomorrow we picked up a little toy for her to tear apart, it's a plush elephant.  If it's plush, our dogs will destroy it.  Not even the wolf sized nylabones (which as as close to indestructible as possible) last in this house!   -L  

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY QUIGLEY!