Spring 2020 Update

Well, as you know, 2020 has been a weird year.

Besides the whole virus/pandemic/quarantine situation, we’ve experienced another challenging thing.

The Bad.

In January, my husband Rory hurt his back. We didn’t know at the time how serious or debilitating this would end up being for him. It is now the end of April and he is still not able to function fully. He is seeing a specialist and seems to be headed in the direction of healing, but as any of you with back problems know, it can be a slow process.

Some days he is in a lot of pain and not able to do much at all. Other days he is feeling better but doing much runs the risk of flaring it up again, so he obviously ties to avoid doing things that could aggravate it. And then there are the days that he tries to do things and ends up in pain and down for the count for the next few days.

This is pretty much how the last few months have been.

It is such an awful feeling watching someone you love in pain and not being able to make them feel better. The only thing I can really do to help him right now is to try to take care of everything I can so he doesn’t have to worry about doing as much.

Homeschooling and taking care of three kids ages 6 and under in general keeps me pretty busy. I try somewhat unsuccessfully to manage the chaos and mess having a ginormous house and three kids creates, cooking practically all of our meals for the past several months because of the stay at home orders, and the mountain of dishes that come with it. I’m attempting to stay somewhat consistent with our homestead blog and Instagram (sorry!), trying to keep making progress creating products and listing them on our online store (1 thing up already!), all the inside chores, all the outside chores, the list goes on…

It’s been tough, I’m not going to lie.

But here’s the thing…

It has also been really nice.

The Good.

Of course I don’t want Rory to be in pain, but after an adjustment period, I really enjoy having him here with us all day every day. He has been able to spend more quality time with the kids, which they love. He has been teaching Leon to read and they are working so well together. He follows them around outside while they play with any number of fun things we have to do around here. He sets them up with arts and crafts and reads them books.

Not being able to go out and do fun things means we are coming up with more things to do at home. The kids have been getting bored, and that’s a GOOD thing! They are getting the opportunity to use their imaginations and come up with new games and activities. It usually involves a hose. Or pillows.

Our yard looks great.

I’ve been spending large amounts of time in my potager garden.

I’ve listened to almost an entire audio book already (Wild + Free) just while I mow the lawn. (We have a big lawn.)

You see, it hasn’t been all bad, but my kids miss their cousins. Video chat just isn’t cutting it anymore. We are ready for life to return to normal, or whatever our new normal is going to be.

(Just to be clear we live in Washington state and have been under mandatory stay at home orders.)

Ok, lets get to the good stuff.

What’s happening on the homestead?

I’m a real go getter in the spring garden. I plant most of my garden before anyone else I know. We have a lot growing in the garden already, carrots, radishes, peas, potatoes, onions, cauliflower, romanesco, kohlrabi, beets, spinach, lettuce, chamomile, strawberries, some other flowers I can’t remember the name of, rhubarb, rosemary, mint, parsley…yikes. I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but you get the jist, we have a lot growing.

We are about to harvest our radishes, which will be the first thing we are eating out of the garden this year. Except for the random bites of herbs the two year old insists on chowing down on.

Out of the 6 fruit trees I planted last spring, one is doing well, two are doing ok and the rest very well might be dead. Imagine me making my not happy face right now. I know, I know, I should have put fencing around the trees BEFORE the giant deer population around us decided to make them their breakfast.

I’m not even going to pretend this is the first time I made this mistake. Some lessons are worth repeating, I guess. You better believe though that any fruit trees I plant in the future will be immediately surrounded in fence. This whole I plant it they eat it song and dance is getting old.

The kids and I have been foraging wild goodies. Our favorite, of course, the good ol’ dandelion. My favorite flower. There are so many uses for dandelions, I couldn’t possibly list them all here in this post. I’m personally drying these dandelions to use in an oil infusion to make a pain relieving salve for Rory’s back. I will let you know if it provides him any relief and you will also likely see this salve in my store in the coming months.

I have also been collecting and drying stinging nettle for tea. I think I should also try to make nettle bread. I mean, I’m already drying nettle and I already make bread, why not make nettle bread? Sounds legit. Nettle tea is my absolute favorite and I dry large amounts every spring to get me through the year.

I tried collecting and drying purple dead nettle for the first time. I’m not so sure about that one just yet. I know it’s supposed to be pretty astringent as tea, but whew! Maybe I will see what else I can use it in and give that a try.

The chicken drama.

Lets see, our chicken flock is now rooster free, for the first time in a long time. I think there was one other time we only had two Icelandic hens, but then they hatched out eggs we got from the local barter fair and we ended up with like three more roosters.

The kids have been loving having more freedom going in and out of the chicken area now that there isn’t a rooster giving them the stink eye and making Mom nervous. We have always had a problem with kids around roosters, even before we had our own kids. As soon as a kid does something unpredictable, like kids often do, the rooster sees them as a threat and then from that point on wants nothing to do with being polite. For this season of our life with little kids, I think we are just better off without a rooster.

BUT if you have been successful having a rooster with little kids, please give me some ideas how we can manage that down in the comments section below. I would love to hear from you what your experience has been.

I think that is it for tonight. I spent nearly 5 hours working on the yard today and my body is not happy with me.

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying your spring, wherever it is you are reading from.

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