It’s tomato time! Now that it’s July the tomatoes are really taking off. This year I am growing these adorable Spoon Tomatoes – they’re cute and tiny – pictured here with regular Cherry Tomatoes for a size comparison.

Happy 4th of July!!

Weston grew beets in his garden bed this year and he had a decent little harvest – enough for pickled beets!

He ended up with 4 quarts and 1 pint of pickled beets and they are delicious – we opened the pint jar after a few days.

Green bean harvest. My plan was to only plant in my new garden this summer but the lower garden tempted me a bit and I ended up planting corn and green beans down there. The cows got into the corn and enjoyed it and the weeds went crazy but I managed to get a decent little green bean harvest – enough to can 7 quarts and still have some for fresh eating!

In late June my grandmother passed away and we traveled to Virginia in July for her funeral and to spend time with family. Our family is standing on the front porch of my grandparents home. So many wonderful memories were made in this beautiful house. It’s still surreal to think that both my grandpa and grandmother have passed away and that their home will soon be sold.

While we were in Virginia, Haddon turned 9 months old.

Weston has been finding all kinds of bugs on the homestead all summer. It’s always fun to see what he finds! This one is a katydid.

I went out at sundown one evening to harvest tomatoes and Laura came out dressed in her jammies and boots to help me. She picked tomatoes and carried in a heavy bucket. She’s such a sweet little helper and a hard worker.

Matching with my girlies!!

Cecilia picked this lovely flower and wanted to take my picture. I spend quite a bit of time snuggling this sweet little love and I’m thankful she chose to capture this moment.

On the 23rd, Lady, our goat had 2 kids!! So exciting!! She had a boy and a girl and they’re beyond adorable.

Here’s Laura with the little girl!

The next day, July 24th, Buttercup had her calf. She had a heifer and we are all so excited to have a girl!!! Laura wanted to name her Lollipop and we’re going to call her Lolly.

The back of the homestead. So thankful for this little piece of property.

Goodbye July!

 

June is one of my favorite months of the year. Our days are carefree with no school, lots of free time, swimming, spending time with friends, Bible school and beginning to get goodies from the garden.

The garden on June 11. Things are growing and everything is green and beautiful.

Haddon was 8 months on the 14th. These months are flying by and he’s growing so quickly but what a joy this baby boy is to our family.

We went blueberry picking! All together we picked 4 gallons – we ate a bunch, froze several bags and dehydrated a quart jar worth of berries.

We have turkeys here on Arrow Hill Homestead. We put them out on pasture on June 19th.

This picture is my favorite to acknowledge Father’s Day. My children have a wonderful father who loves them and teaches them. Here he is teaching the boys how to change oil. Laura is right there with them learning too!

This is how I’m getting things done inside and outside these day. Thankful for this baby carrier – I’ve been using this one for  9 years and 4 babies now.

We’re experimenting with water glassing eggs this year. I filled up 2 gallon jars with our abundant June eggs. Hoping these will help us through the lean months in late fall/early winter when the chickens nearly stop laying.

Our first big garden harvest of the year was on June 25th. It’s still fun to go “grocery shopping” in our yard!

The big kids have been foraging blackberries here and on their grandparents property. They gathered enough to make a couple blackberry cobblers this summer.

We’re looking forward to what July brings – hopefully lots more garden harvests and canning!!

Here are some of the highlights of May 2021 here on Arrow Hill Homestead.

We have been working on creating a “play island” on the circle area in our driveway. We already had the fire pit and large swing in the tree but this month we got a new (to us) swing set up for the kids. So far, everyone is loving having the swing set!

Sweet little diaper laundry helper.

Laura turned 4 on May 12th! Here she is enjoying some of her birthday gifts – a new ‘look and found’ book (she adores these books currently), play dough and new shoes made her one happy birthday girl!

Weston helped out in the hay field by driving the tractor.

Laura even helped – she may be little but she’s strong enough to flip bales to move them!

 

We have a variety of soaps for sale:

lye, lye + oats

activated charcoal

coffee bean

pumpkin spice

pumpkin

cinnamon

 Soaps are $3/bar or 4 bars for $10

We also have 2 sizes of lavender salve

$5 for 1 oz or $7 for 1.5 oz

*All of these soaps are made from lard rendered from pastured pork.

*Salves contain lavender infused coconut oil and beeswax.

*LOCALS message us to place an order/arrange a time to shop here at the homestead!

 

Haddon was 7 months old on the 14th. He’s pulling up and starting to get curious. I did the final wood stove ash clean out  and he quickly found the ash bucket and had a little bit of fun. I’m amazed that he’s *only* 7 months old and already acting more like a toddler than an infant!

First lettuce harvest on May 19th.

My new fenced in garden. We’ve worked on this new garden spot in our free moments for about 2 months now. We put down cardboard, soil in the beds, wood chips in the rows and John David has fenced it in and built a new little garden shed out of salvaged materials. I’m loving how close it is to the house and foresee lots of time spent in this space.

Ready for a day full of farming.

Our Kune Kune sow had a small litter of piglets on the 22nd. They’re adorable.

We celebrated 15 years on the 27th. Thankful for these years we’ve spent together, this family and lifestyle we’ve created together. And, John David also celebrated a birthday on May 31st! May is a fun month for our family.

This picture of Laura sleeping seems like an appropriate ending to a blog post. May was full and fun and we’re looking forward to summertime!

March – my favorite month of the year! March 4th is my birthday, Cecilia’s birthday, daffodil season and the first day of spring! We begin doing a lot more work outside to start prepping for the gardening season and we just spend a lot of time outside since March days are typically lovely. 

How does one fall asleep like this? I don’t know but it sure is funny!

New garden shed in progress! John David salvaged wood from our play set and a little bit of other wood we had around, salvaged metal from a friend and purchased salvage rafter for the roof. Total cost was about $80 for this shed. 

Five months. 

Evening chores with mama. 

Daffodils. My favorite flower. Weston knows I adore them and he enjoys picking me bouquets as long as they’re in bloom!

Cecilia turned 7 on March 20th! Oh, how we love this girl of ours.

She wanted a lemon cake so I made a lemon pound cake with a lemon glaze and topped it with dum dums! Such a fun looking cake!

John David went out of town one weekend. So, when the cats away the mice will play or in this case when the farmer is away all the animals decide it’s the perfect time to get out of their fences. Buttercup enjoyed selective grazing. 

And the little piggies did too!

 

We started February with a light, light, light dusting of snow but it was just enough for us southerners to ooh and ahh over (and hope for more!)

Sweet kiddos eating breakfast at the play table. The girls were feeding their babies. 

Howe we’re currently getting our lessons done. Haddon is content if held!This is what our table looks like by noon every day. A happy mess!

Pioneer girl Cecilia with her rag doll made by her great grandma. 

Sweeties. 

4 months old.

My new shelving in our little pantry! John David salvaged this wood and made a few shelves in the back of the pantry to maximize the use of the space. 

Sourdough sandwich bread rising. 

And baked. So good!

Paxton’s romper says “Rise and Shine It’s Farmin’ Time”. We were gifted this romper and it’s one of my very favorites!

Nothing spectacular but the fog on the mountain was lovely this morning. So thankful for our little mountain view here!

We’ll start the recap of January with a picture of our pantry since we did a pantry challenge the entire month of January.

We didn’t got shopping at a grocery store a single time in the month of January – we shopped our pantry and freezers. We ended up spending $100 out of our grocery budget. $88 of that was a small Azure order (stocking up on dish soap, corn meal, a few pantry staples and some seeds) however we didn’t use any of those items in January! The other $12 was spent buying eggs from Paxton.

Most of the money we saved went into our grocery envelope for bulk food purchases in the future and some of it went towards a mortgage principal payment!

We butchered pigs in January so I rendered fat on butcher days and made several batches of soap to stock up.

Sweet little ones enjoying early morning snuggles. 

Making sauerkraut. Such an easy and inexpensive way to get probiotics.

Sausage and potato soup made entirely from foods from the homestead. Sausage, potatoes, cream, chicken stock, cheese – it’s still fun when we make a meal comprised only of things we’ve grown!

Laura wanted to match Haddon with her star shirt. Love these littles. 

One of the things I typically do during the winter months is bake. It’s cold out and we want hearty, comforting foods. I did some experimenting with sourdough this month with success!

Snuggle, snuggle, snuggle.

My sweet little kitchen helpers. 

Haddon wearing his homestead pajamas! I adore these pjs with fruits and veggies all over. 

He’s the sweetest.

Living his best life. Paxton loves reading. This is my idea of a relaxing evening.

This is what our bed looks like most mornings. Laura typically finds her way in between us in the very early morning hours and Haddon wakes between 6-7 to nurse and then he goes back to sleep for a couple more hours.

Sweet, sweet 3 month old baby.

Oh, how we love December!! The girls were so excited about their new holiday dresses for their dolls that my grandma sewed for them. 

The best gift of 2020. So thankful for this sweet baby boy!

Merry Christmas from our crew.

Weston turned 9 years old on December 22! It’s hard to believe this boy is half grown. We celebrated with family. 

Haddon’s first time milking with mama.  Loving these sweet baby snuggles.

Winter evenings are perfect for playing cards. 

These two. 

I spent some time inventorying and organizing our freezers. They had gotten a little bit sloppy from the past year of me dealing with morning sickness, not caring about details like organized freezers due to pregnancy and tiredness and then having a newborn. It as time to get them back in order – plus we’re planning to do a pantry challenge for the month of January so I needed to know exactly what we have on hand.

Anytime I’m outside doing work (or a lot of times when I’m in the kitchen), this is what I look like with Haddon snuggled up. 

I spent the last week of December planning for our spring semester. I always enjoy sitting down and planning the things we’re going to study in the upcoming semester. Looking forward to learning alongside my children.

We’re looking forward to 2021 and all the things we’ll grow here on the homestead.

November was full of lots and lots of baby snuggles. 

Our sweet little farm girl. She loves helping her daddy milk.

Laura loves “squeezing the teats”. 

Sweet baby Haddon and his first cow.

This sweet baby who doesn’t even really look like a baby – he looks like such a big boy!

Haddon was 1 month old on November 14. 

I picked up this precious little gown for Cecilia at a local consignment sale. It’s such a classic, old fashioned gown. 

Love these five children.

We still had zinnias blooming on November 24th! These were sheltered by our mailbox and never had frost damage them. I was just amazed!

 

 

October was baby month!!! The countdown was on. My due date was October 11th but my last three babies were born 9 days, 11 days and 9 days early so I thought it was likely that the baby would be born at the beginning of the month. We were all nesting. Almost everyday Laura wanted to look at baby clothes!

We had all of our newborn neutral clothes in the dresser but I had 2 boxes of baby clothes we’d thrifted – one box of boy things and another box of girl things that the girls loved looking through – especially the baby girl things!!

The kids and John David spent time in late September and early October helping friends chop silage. While the kids were in the fields, they ‘salvaged’ ears of corn. They borrowed a corn sheller from them and had a shelling operation going on! It was fun watching their work/play.

The week before baby’s due date, John David and his dad were in the hay field! I drove the truck two days and we were hoping during that time that baby would wait!

October 11 – 40 weeks! This was the very first time I have ever reached my due date – there’s a first time for everything.

He’s here! Our son Haddon arrived on October 14th! Birth story to come!!!

So thankful for this new baby and all FIVE of our children!!

Soaking up some sunshine and newborn cuddles on the beautiful October days!

Everyone is completely in love with this sweet baby. 

Haddon’s first walk around the homestead.

There was a recent trend on social media of “how it started and how it’s going”. This picture of Laura and her daddy popped up on my memories and they just so happened to be dressed alike that day so I couldn’t resist this little comparison. This girl has been a daddy’s girl since day one. 

Aunt Jill made Haddon an Arrow Hill bodysuit.

He’s so little.

Cecilia is loving having a baby in the house. She loved wearing him.

Happy Halloween from our crew. There were no celebrations of parties attended due to the realities of life in 2020 but they still dressed up and had fun! Paxton was Percy Jackson, Weston a football player, Cecilia was Moana, Laura was Cinderella and Haddon was the sweetest baby in the entire world.