Winter Weather Advisory= Time to Start a Garden

The National Weather Service in Sterling Virginia.... 

Has issued a ***Winter Weather Advisory***....

QUICK... 

Your probably thinking get the toilet paper... get the milk... 

Here at the Homestead we say QUICK Plant a garden....

Mom called this afternoon insisting she needed Ruthie's "help" to make some Thanksgiving Treats... So I jumped at the chance to work in the garden a bit before we get up to 5 inches of snow later this week. With 70 degree temperatures here in Maryland today, I jumped at the chance to get my cold frames up and running  as this may be the last glimpse of growing weather I see for the foreseeable future...



A cold frame is super simple and any homeowner can quickly build one.Dad built some for mom in their lean times their 1st few years of marriage so I wanted to give it a shot myself. I bartered with Dad that I would do the Wright Farm chores tonight if I could borrow the truck, have those old windows in the shed, and 5 bales of straw....

There is something special about a rickety old farm truck... the scratched CD on repeat in the radio tells me Kelly was at the wheel not long before me, and I am always in awe of the myriad of varmint slaying  objects, animal health supplies, and the fact that you always come out of that truck dirtier than when you got in it...

Snug against the foundation of our 1890's farm house I took old storm windows and put them over a "frame" made from straw bales. The straw acts as insulated walls,  holding in the warm sun that the old windows let through.It's that simple... I then rescued the last of my standing herb plants a sage, and a parsley and moved them to their winter abode, scratched the dirt a bit and planted some lettuce and some spinach. This is on the sunny side of the house so it will stay nice and toasty when that warm sun hits it for the better part of the day, and if all is right in a few weeks I'll have fresh table greens!

The last of the Sage I harvested next to the wood stove onto my vintage drying rack Nate got me at a yard sale for my birthday. I so love that he knows  that I'm all about the practical and that yard sale gifts fit perfectly into our budget :) Sage is an essential ingredient in our deer meat we grind each year so this will all get put to good use come deer season. More on that later...

As for me...

I've moved to a warmer climate inside my cold frames.... come get me in the spring...

With love and sage,

AVR

Homestead Engineer...

4 months ago we made an EPIC decision... Nate quit his job to become our full time Homestead Engineer,the title we give since "stay at home dad," doesn't quite do justice to what it takes to be at the mercy of a 100+ year old farmhouse, a hungry wood stove, 2 dogs, 10 chickens, 3 turkeys, 20 cows, oh... and  1 wide eyed little girl.

We had priced daycare... and the monetary price tag would be almost all of Nate's monthly pay, but the emotional price tag of a stranger with our child 9 hours a day, 10 months a year, with values that would probably not be the same as ours... that was not a price we were willing to pay! 


As I like to say... She's only going to be little once, we've only got 1 shot to do it right! Most importantly,I want her to live at a child's pace, not my pace!


To say we live on a shoestring is an understatement... it's more like used dental floss... a little frayed, and flavorless at times... but we get the job done!

I must admit though that every single sacrifice... every time I don't have even the change to stop for a coffee, 

or the car gas tank isn't just on E, it's on LOW E... 

I just need pictures like this to remind me why we chose this path.

Feeding Milk Cows with Gramp

Playing with Daddy on the Chesapeake Bay

Checking Tobacco with Auntie the Great

Feeding a new litter of pigs with Aunt Kelly

                                                                        

Helping excavate for the new silo.

I was a blessed little girl to know the love of my grandparents, and had I known then that they would all be gone by the time I was in my early 20's there is no doubt I would have re-prioritized. I want Ruth to know that love and that adventure that only comes from Grandparents... and lucky for her Great Grandparents too! In fact each week Ruthie has a lunch date with her Great Grandparents a treat she looks forward to while jumping yelling "MOM MOM, MOM MOM!" when she realizes that today is the day.

They always say that when you become a parent you want to give your child the World.... In my heart I am 1000% convinced that our sacrifices for her to be able to stay at home with Nate are giving her the world, allowing her to see the world, experience the world, taste, touch, smell, and laugh at the world... 

The chronicles of our journey continue and there is no way I'd rather spend it than here at 2950 with The Foreman (Ruth), & my beloved Homestead Engineer (Nate)!

Much Love!

AVR