Well, regardless of a global pandemic, life does not stop here at the homestead. In fact, since I’m out of a job at the moment, life has been moving along faster than usual! I get the amazing opportunity of a lifetime instead. I get to stay home and get a jumpstart on all of our Springtime things! I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, we work WAY harder at home than we ever have at a job in town. I’m whooped, and sore, and exhausted, and sun-soaked, but life is so rewarding here at the ranch.

So, let’s see, here’s all the things we’ve been accomplishing so far this Spring:

R built a pond for the girls! It has exponentially increased their quality of life, and we created a wildlife watering hole! We got turkeys and robins and doves and all sorts of wild birds enjoying it too. Plus we get to sit down there just outside of the “splash zone” with a beer at the end of the day and enjoy the shenanigans too.

We built more fencing at one end of our property, parallel to the road. Mainly because I worry about loose dogs coming after the girls when they are out foraging. Having another barrier up is huge for our peace of mind.

Staining. Staining. More staining. I’ve spent hours and hours and hours staining everything. The deck, the house, the beginnings of a front porch, the fence… Then the weather got weird there for a couple of weeks, so took a break from staining. But there’s still more staining to be done… oh so much staining. I actually don’t mind it, it’s one of those brainless activities that I kind of enjoy. There’s just SO MUCH OF IT.

I started skirting our house for skunk-repelling purposes. We got a ton of free brick from the town last year and now we’re finally putting it to good use. Man, this shit is a lot of work too. Digging, leveling, moving bricks, more digging, more leveling, oop, gotta take that section apart because it shifted weird, do it again, more digging… etc. Luckily it’s one of those projects that once it’s done, it’s DONE.

(I was unable to get a couple of photos uploaded for this section for some reason… maybe in the next update!)

We started on an outdoor shower! Since we don’t have running water and all, normally we would shower in town at the community center or the hot springs resort… but… everything is closed now. And our wonderful neighbors don’t mind us using their shower, but their water pump needs some TLC, so while we wait for a new pump to arrive, we decided we’ll get super-homesteady and build an outdoor shower for us anyway!

We’ve been doing a bunch of general clean-up around the property. We’re calling it Beautification Project 2020. Lots of dead brush has been accumulated, limbing trees, raking up bark and duff and all kinds of crap. Also Loki destroyed a bright orange frisbee last year sometime and I’m finding little tiny pieces of bright orange plastic everywhere… so that’s fun.

Also Loki and I played arts and crafts one day…

I made homemade cinnamon rolls from scratch! If you’ll refer to the time I baked bread here a few years back, baking anything here is a whole logistical nightmare. But, a fun nightmare? Anyway, so it was a 4 hour process making cinnamon rolls here, and I had a good time doing it. The recipe made 18 rolls, and 12 of them turned out great, the other 6 I burnt to shit… oh well. Can’t win ’em all.

This weekend we’re adding thousands of girls to our family! We’re bringing home two packages of bees! I’M SO EXCITED I CAN BARELY STAND IT.

We’ve been watching bee videos, we assembled some frames (that was a ridiculously-intricate project, but they turned out awesome), getting feeders ready, stocking up on sugar… I can’t wait until we get them home.

Then there’s the usual perennial stuff is coming up in the garden, garlic we planted in the Fall is growing nicely, and we’re getting ready to plant a bunch more stuff this weekend, both colder-hardy stuff outside and start our other seeds inside.

Ok, that’s all I got for now. I’m going to stain more today. It never ends. Til next time!