This weekend, we are happy to say that Homestead Fresh officially celebrates it’s 1-year anniversary! Now, we didn’t start the website right away. That didn’t happen until a month later – but we had already begun our journey at that time.
This past year has been a whirlwind of activity, and it seems to have flown by so fast. What started as “let’s get a goat”, has evolved into a new outlook, a lifestyle change, and a business. We have personally evolved as much as our homestead has – if not more.
Aside from the fact that Jeff already knew most of the animal care duties, we have both learned a lot.
We now understand that 2 loofah plants create a LOT of loofahs. We have grown veggies, and leaned that our Draco (our bearded dragon) is a very effective horn worm killer. We learned that IBC totes make great goat houses, but if using totes for water-catchment you should take torrential rain into account when elevating them. I learned to milk goats, something I never would have thought to be a daily chore if you had asked me 13 months ago. We have tried our hands at having two kids dam raised, and another two we bottle fed. We experienced breading bunnies, building fences, learning about and installing electric fencing, have come to understand to NOT touch said fence. We have learned loss from a baby bunny passing away, an adolescent bunny turned Houdini, and have easily came to terms with selling an overly aggressive goat buck (this for the benefit of my now bruise-less legs).
I have not only learned to make goat milk soap, but learned to formulate my own recipes and now sell this soap as part of our business. In addition, I have learned to make many of the household cleaners in a more natural way. We have learned about the benefits of essential oils and the dangers of chemicals that are in the items we used to purchase for our home.
We have spent the last year taking in all the advice given to us by other homesteaders. These Tried-and-True ideas have proven very helpful and, in many ways, necessary. We have also learned that we can also put a Fresh spin on some ideas and provided our own Fresh ideas to other homesteaders.
Our sincerest thanks to everyone that has helped, given advise, and supported us for the last 12 months. This last year has not only been amazing, but we are happier than we have ever been. We are looking forward to learning even more and can’t wait to see what we will be able to write about on our second anniversary!