Pictures Today Around The Homestead - SUMMER IS HERE! 📷 [PICTURES INSIDE]
A SunFlower Makes You Happy!
We have sunflowers scattered around different parts of the garden. They're just little plants of sunshine that make you happy when you look at them in early summer. In the last week, they have started to bloom.
Sunflowers are not the only thing coming into season around here. I spotted my first blackberry today while in the garden. We have a whole hedge of these amazingly mass producing plants in the back of our garden. All of our composted humanure saved for the past year is spread on them during the fall and winter seasons and they grow like crazy. So I guess you could say there is more to that berry than meets the eye! LOL. I ate it soon after the photo was taken.
The first spicy jalapeno on a young pepper plant was spotted today. It's still got some growing to do but it won't be long before it makes its way into Jaimie's kitchen and then perhaps a taco salad or jar of salsa! Or maybe fresh pico de gallo!
Construction projects are always underway here at the homestead. We have a long list to go yet. But this is our latest. It's a multiple stall shower house that will be used for guest who come to stay on our homestead in the fall. Each fall, we have a large feasts and have around 100 campers staying on the property. We want them to stay clean. :)
Speaking of projects. Here are a couple from the past. We built the brick fired pizza oven about a year after moving here. We use it for all kinds of cooking including roasted turkeys, chicken, bread baking, squash, roasting sunflower seeds and yes PIZZAS! The other building is our outdoor kitchen where we will be doing most of our pressure canning this summer very soon as the garden produce starts getting harvested.
My oldest, @thehomeschoolkid mowing the lawn and keeping up on his chores. This is his first year cutting grass and he's doing a great job.
WOW! This was our garlic harvest today! They are laid out on 3 folding tables on our deck to dry. This has been the best garlic harvest so far on the homestead. Now they just needs to dry and we will clean them up a bit and then braid them. Chances are, we may give away a garlic braid to one of our patrons. They look so pretty hanging in the kitchen making them ready to use whenever the chef needs one.
Hope You Enjoyed The PHOTOS!
Tell us which photo was your favorite!
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Thank you for sharing your content. The homestead life looks ideal to me and my wife but we are locked into a piece of property in town with an area of 75'x175' we have a very modest garden and run into problems with city ordinances from time to time. Bureaucrats are the hindrance to self sufficiency and self reliance.
Peace to all and have a great day!
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Why are you locked in? Get out and move to the ozarks!
We are locked into our lot because it is 100% paid for and my wife is happy here. and researching our property we found a copy of the original land grant. The certified copy we got from the bureau of land management has a lot of interesting wording. The grant was created in 1834 and Iowa was still called the Louisiana purchase, before it became known as the Iowa territory then later Republic Of Iowa. We are still researching the document and it is still listed with the BLM as active. Interesting what you find if you look. Explanation of the whole thing can get lengthy and take more time than this comment. I'll be posting a blog post on this topic at some point but Cognitive Dissidence might keep you from believing it. If I could get five or ten acres for a homestead in the Ozarks I would be happy, we just do not have any liquid assets at the moment to make a move like that.
A homestead with that history must make you feel rooted in place. That's not a bad thing since being happy where you are counts for a lot. Better there than to try and survive on a place you don't have roots on.
This property I am on at the moment is a 75'x175' lot sectioned off the original 160 acre homestead plot. Eight people that received a 160 acre plot land grants that bordered each others property got together to form the town in 1830 that my property currently is located 4 blocks from the town square. And my property is only a sliver of one of an original plot. I was thinking of buying up all the property that made up the original grant then make a formal claim and update the grant. which according to the wording in the grant would mean the county and state government would not be able to charge property taxes on it since the owner came forward with proof of claim.
My wife and I talked last night at length about @mericanhomestead 's comment above and we have decided to give a full year to steemit to see if my blogging would produce enough income that we could purchase 10 acres if that happens then we would go for it.
I have always given highest priority to adding any land that adjoined mine. When a parcel was placed up for sale, we made every effort to acquire it. It was a stretch at times, but once it was joined to our original purchase, we could almost feel the additional "breathing room" and have never regretted the five additional purchases over the years. "Lebensraum" is living room for the soul!
A friend of mine owns 100 acres about ten miles from me, he did the same thing. Purchasing his original acreage then as the neighbors hit hard times, he would make a deal with them for him to buy a portion of their land, so they could keep their house. If they sold to him he in exchange gave them permanent permission to hunt all his land and rent the grassing pastures from him as needed.
That is a great way to keep neighbors in place and to make deals that may otherwise not have happened. None of my additions had homes on them: one major piece was nothing but stumps and mutilated landscape. After ten years and a lot of work, it is smooth ground covered by pine and sweetgum. It's satisfying to compare then and now.
I like the photo of the pizza oven and the outdoor kitchen the best. It has up close and distant elements to look at. It's not a Norman Rockwell painting but I never liked his art anyway...your yard is more about getting stuff done. I can appreciate that any day.
LOL Thanks!
I vote for the beautiful sunflower! I would love to learn more about homesteading! I am looking forward to reading more from your page. :-)
Thanks for the comment! We will post these kinds of pictures once a week but we usually have videos up every day. Enjoy!
this is so fresh...homely...and sumeery!will be waiting for some more pictures like this...:)cheers!
Yeah, I will try and do pictures once a week or so. THANKS!
thanks for your response..and try to follow my posts as well if you find it interesting!:)
yup sure..please try to follow up some of my articles as well
I sure hope you go into more detail on the shower house, like how it will operate. I have to figure out one for my property in South Arkansas. It looks awesome so far, looking forward to more.
Yeah we will do a video on it when its complete! Thanks for watching!
The sunflower gets my vote for artistic beauty with the outdoor kitchen and oven a close second because of the interesting content. Great post, thanks.
Thanks for posting and following! You are appreciated!
Great post and I enjoyed these pictures! Good work!
THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! It means a lot!
The shower house is coming along, love the cedar floor! Wish I still had some young ones to cut the
grass...LOL
I vote for the garlic and sunflower! Both are most fun to grow, harvest and eat! I love it!
thank you for sharing
Your welcome!