Once again, no surprise — it’s been another busy couple of weeks. Not overly busy in a stressful way, just… good busy. That’s the thing with homesteading. It’s not always busy in a “look how productive we are” kind of way. Sometimes it’s just busy because of the lifestyle we’ve chosen. There’s always something that needs doing. It’s not like we can just sit on the couch all day and binge-watch TV — although I’m sure we could try. The animals would have something to say about that pretty quickly.
There are expectations out here. If you don’t get up and go feed, haul hay, or top up water, it gets very noisy, very fast. Nothing like a chorus of animals yelling at you to remind you what your priorities are.
So yes… busy. But the kind of busy that comes with the life we signed up for.
It might say on the calendar that it’s the beginning of spring… but it definitely doesn’t look like spring out here. Well — sometimes it does.
Here’s the thing with the weather this time of year: it’s either a snowstorm or it’s mud and ice. That’s March. Snowstorm or mud and ice. You can get a foot and a half of snow overnight, and then the very next day it’s plus five and everything starts melting. Suddenly, the whole yard turns into a muddy mess where you could easily lose a boot if you’re not paying attention. And then, just to keep things interesting, by the next morning, all that mud freezes solid again. So now, instead of losing your boots, you’re trying not to trip over frozen footprints from the day before.
In a nutshell… spring isn’t my favourite season anymore.
It’s not all bad, though. Now that we have quite a few more duck hens — thanks to hatching some last year (and the ones that made it all turning out to be female) — we’ve been getting a steady supply of duck eggs. Some days we get five, some days three, sometimes two. It kind of depends on the day, but it definitely adds up. At the moment, we have about three dozen duck eggs sitting in the fridge… which is a good thing, because we really love them.
The yolks are bigger, richer, and creamier than chicken eggs. They’re amazing for baking, and honestly, anything you can make with chicken eggs, you can make with duck eggs.
They’re just better.
My absolute favourite way to have them is soft-boiled, with toast cut into little strips for dipping. Simple, but so good. So yes — even if spring is mostly mud and ice right now, it does come with one very nice bonus… Lots of eggs.
Another sign of spring, of course, is baby animals.
We don’t have any babies just yet — we’re still very much in the preparation phase.
The weather hasn’t exactly been cooperating with us when it comes to mucking out the stalls. Between the freeze-thaw cycles, everything is either frozen solid or a muddy mess, which makes cleaning things out properly a bit of a challenge. But it hasn’t all been a loss.
It did warm up enough recently to melt the ice that was holding one of the broken gates in place in the goat shed. So now we actually have a chance to fix that before the kidding chaos begins. Having that extra space ready will be really helpful — it gives us another area where we can separate a doe and her new babies if needed. That alone feels like a win.
If the weather still doesn’t cooperate between now and next weekend — which is Easter weekend and also our first expected due date — then our backup plan is simple: we’ll just keep adding fresh, clean bedding on top to make sure everyone has a dry, comfortable space for kidding. Because whether we’re ready or not… It’s coming.
And of course, just because we have a due date doesn’t mean that’s when they’ll actually kid. The goats tend to follow their own schedule no matter what the calendar says. But Tessie is first up, and she’s been pretty consistent in the past. So… we’ll see.
And speaking of due dates and Easter… that’s also when our rabbits are due.
Of course it is.
I did order some proper nest boxes from a Canadian company out of Quebec, and they arrived just in time. The only problem? They are huge.
Yes, there were measurements listed online.
And no, I did not go out and measure anything beforehand. I just assumed it would all work because, you know… rabbit nest box, rabbit cage — seems logical.
Is it fine?
No.
So, we pivoted.
We made a quick trip to Dollarama and found these clear, shoebox-style containers that looked like they might work. They’re about ten inches across on the short side, so we grabbed a couple with a plan to drill holes in the bottom for drainage, fill them with hay, and turn them into makeshift nest boxes.
Now… will they actually fit into the rabbit cages? I don’t know. Have I measured the cage doors yet?
Also no.
But I do have wire cutters, so one way or another… they’re going in.
The good news is that we don’t actually put the nest boxes in with the rabbits until just a few days before they’re due to kindle — which is what you call rabbits having babies. That gives the moms time to line the nest with fur and get everything ready. So yes… baby bunnies are also expected Easter weekend. All the babies. All at once. Completely unplanned… but honestly, that tracks.
Now, speaking of babies and spring, I witnessed something for the very first time… Our turkeys are finally getting busy — if you know what I mean.
Now, Tom has always been quite the showman. He does the whole performance — the deep drumming sound from his chest, wings dropped low with the tips dragging on the ground, his little two-step strut, full tail fan, and of course, lots of gobbling. He really commits to it.
And up until this year… I had never actually seen his efforts pay off.
But the other day, I was coming back from feeding the bucks and wethers, and there he was — making friends, shall we say — with our youngest turkey hen, Turbo.
And let’s just say… it worked.
I stood there for a second like, “Well, alright then. Good for you, Tom.”
Now of course, that got me thinking — do I need to incubate turkey eggs? We have three hens and one tom, so technically we could. That was always part of the original plan — to eventually breed them, grow our flock, and maybe even produce our own ground turkey. But at the same time… I might actually be leaning toward getting out of turkeys altogether.
And while it’s very tempting — because let’s be honest, putting eggs in an incubator and watching baby animals hatch is incredibly fun — I don’t think we’re going to go that route this time.
Tempting…
But no.
The only other animal update worth mentioning — because everyone else is doing really well — is our tiny little kitty, Lola.
She’s about three years old now and still under five pounds. Last we checked, she was around 4.75 pounds. She’s from the same litter as Garfield, who is… not tiny. He’s a tank!
Because she’s so small, we had put off getting her spayed for a long time. I was honestly nervous about it — it’s an internal surgery, and she’s barely bigger than a kitten. Turns out… yes, they can.
So we finally booked her in, and she had her surgery. She did really well according to the vet, but her recovery has been a little slower, probably because of her size. She absolutely hates the recovery onesie we bought her. Like… refuses to function in it. So I ended up switching her over to vet wrap around her middle to cover the incision, and she’s doing much better with that.
It’s only day two, so we’re still watching her closely. She’s eating really well — especially if we bring the food to her — but I haven’t seen her drink yet, so we’re keeping an eye on that.
But overall… she’s doing okay. And I’m really glad we finally got it done.
On to some updates inside the house — other than Lola, who, by the way, is doing great with the wrap.
Inside, we’ve actually managed to fix a few things, which feels like a big win.
The first one is the oven.
Finally — finally — I was able to track down a replacement baking element for our in-wall oven. This oven is original to the house, built in 1980, so it wasn’t exactly easy to find. But we found one locally for under $50 — compared to over $300 online — which was amazing. Addy picked it up, installed it, and we now have a working oven again after about eight months. The first thing I made? A giant cabbage roll casserole. And honestly, it feels so good to have a full-size oven back.
Speaking of adulting… we also finally figured out our dishwasher. Turns out, it wasn’t leaking at all — we were just opening it too fast and water was spilling out the door. Weird… So after not using it for about three months… we now have a dishwasher again. Another win!
Another thing I love to cook this time of year is soup.
We’ve been trying to use up what we have in the freezer, and I found one last duck from last year. Now… I don’t love how our ducks turned out for meat, but instead of wasting it, I turned it into a rich duck broth. The dogs got the meat, and I used the broth to make a potato soup. It turned out so good, especially with sourdough bread that Addy brought home. Another cozy, snowy spring meal… in a snow storm.
Another thing that was on our wish list — and you’re going to laugh — is a burn barrel. After two and a half years out here, we finally got one. Because everything comes in boxes. So now we can clean up and have a little fire at the end — which makes it way more satisfying.
Even though it doesn’t really feel like spring yet, we are definitely starting to look ahead to gardening season. We’ve already picked up a bunch of seeds — which I might have mentioned before — and we’re slowly starting to make a plan.
One of the ones I’m most excited about is loofah. We should have started those already, honestly… probably last weekend. But you know how life goes.
We also picked up something called raspberry spinach. It’s a spinach plant that produces little red berries, which is just wild to me. Addy actually came across it in an ad on his Facebook feed, and next thing you know, we’re ordering seeds.
We also grabbed a couple of varieties of amaranth. It’s a grain crop, and one of the varieties can grow up to two metres tall, so we’re planning to plant that toward the back of the garden. If we get grain out of it, amazing — and if not, at least it’ll look impressive.
We’ve got some interesting cucumber varieties we want to try as well… although to be clear, we haven’t actually planted anything yet. Right now, it’s still very much the planning stage and a growing collection of seed packets.
Addy has brought home some pepper seedlings from his work at Earth to Belly, and he’s been taking care of them in our grow tent in the basement. It’s actually a pretty great setup — tall enough to stand in, with grow lights running. He’s looking into adding a fan to help move the air around because it gets pretty warm in there. If we want to have any real success with peppers here in New Brunswick, we’ll need to finish at least one of our high tunnels. I’d really like to focus on the biggest one, up where we planted tomatoes last year. There’s so much potential there.
We could dedicate one side to peppers, the other to tomatoes and use grow bags down the middle, and even hang things like cucumbers and strawberries from the structure in hanging baskets to make the most of the vertical space. It would really help extend our growing season.
As for the rest of the garden, I’d like to do at least three types of tomatoes this year — an Amish paste, a slicer, and a cherry variety. We also want to try watermelons again, along with green beans, yellow wax beans, purple beans, and of course, potatoes. Not to mention the herbs and teas I’d love to have!
We did miss the window for planting garlic this year, so that’ll have to wait until fall. Right now, it’s a lot of planning, figuring out where everything is going to go, and trying to make the most of the space we have. We also have a couple of projects tied into the garden itself. Well… I do, anyway. We’ll see what Addy thinks.
I’d really like to finally finish the gates around the garden. There’s still a large opening at the front as you come up the driveway that doesn’t have a proper gate, and at the back, we’ve basically been using pallets as a barrier — mostly to keep the dogs out.
So, finishing those gates is definitely on the list.
All in all… lots of garden plans happening.
I’ve also been spending a bit of time using my Cricut lately, just practicing and making some paper crafts.
It’s been really nice to have something to keep my hands busy in the evenings, so I’m not just sitting there scrolling on my phone… and then suddenly it’s bedtime, and I’ve done nothing. So I’ve been cutting out some pretty intricate designs on cardstock and putting together greeting cards — birthday cards, general cards… do I need one right now? No. But I’m sure we will at some point, and it’s nice to have them ready. I also tried something a little different and used the Cricut to cut out some detailed wildflower designs on this really pretty holographic vinyl. It’s got this purpley-blue-gold shift to it, and it catches the light so nicely.
I used that to make a wrap for one of those glass “pop can” style cups, and honestly… it turned out so good. It just made the whole cup look really elegant. It is permanent vinyl, so it has to be hand-washed, but it’s worth it. It looks so pretty when the light hits it. So yeah — just keeping busy, making little things, and learning more as I go with the Cricut. I think it’s the Maker 4? I honestly lose track of all their versions now. But I’m really happy with it.
So that’s life lately on the Funny Farm — a little bit of mud, a little bit of snow, a whole lot of planning, and just enough chaos to keep things interesting.
If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this update, thank you. It really does mean a lot that you’re following along with our little corner of the world.
I’d love to know — have you started any seeds yet this season? Or is there anything you’d like to see more of from us as things ramp up around here?
Until next time!