Small Homestead

The holidays are over and the ground is frozen here in Virginia.   It’s too cold outside to want to do more than the bare necessities and you would think that gardening would be the farthest thing from my mind.   I actually like to spend these cold winter days planning my garden.  As I have mentioned, [...]

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Rosebud is a very special mule.  She came to us as a rescue and was severely underweight.  She has been my project for the last 4 months.  Because of her age, it has been an uphill battle to put weight on her.  Randy has told me several times that it would be impossible to actually [...]

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It’s almost Halloween and I am still getting vegetables out of the garden.  I have to admit that I am tired of picking tomatoes.  I have frozen more than we will eat this winter and the extended family hasn’t wanted to pick anything.  I am also still picking cucumbers, squash and a few stray limas.  [...]

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R is home from the hospital and doing as well as can be expected.  He is pretty much house bound and hurting enough that he hasn’t complained.  He is managing to walk around the house a good bit though.  I am very glad not to be making the hour and a half drive to the [...]

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July has been a strange month here.  It was hot and dry for the first three weeks, so much so that we feared losing the garden altogether.  The last week and a half of July it rained just about every other day.  The rain gauge showed approximately 4 1/2 inches over that time period.
However, the [...]

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My Small Homestead was included in several carnivals this week.  I have found that carnivals are not only a great way for other people to discover my blog but also a wonderful way to find other blogs that interest me.  So this week, I decided to share some of my favorites.
The first post that caught [...]

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There is nothing worse than going into the garden and finding that something other than you is eating your vegetable plants.  There are a host of pests that will cause havoc with your vegetable garden and there are as many ways of combating them.
Squash Bugs
I have picked squash one day and gone out the next [...]

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My six year old grandson is visiting us this week.  I was worried about keeping him entertained for days at a time with very few games and toys.  We stay fairly busy at this time of year with animals, garden, grass and the normal repairs and don’t have time to really take a day off [...]

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There has been so much going on in my life over the past month or so that the carnival has gotten away from me so this edition is going to be HUGE.   I hope that you will check out all of the articles.

Canning
Carolyn presents The Barber Bunch: How to make Strawberry Jam posted at The [...]

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I envy people who have ugly, gross garden pests.  Some fat caterpillar or some ugly beetle that you could pluck off and smash without guilt.  Or sprinkle a little sevin dust on your plants and do away with the evil little beasts but no, I have to have sweet, cute, soft and cuddly garden pests.
I [...]

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