So, it has been a long time since I have blogged. It’s been a long time since I have shared. Honestly, life has been tough. Things have not been what we would have wanted or expected. I guess that it how life goes though. No one knows what will happen the next day, the next month or the next year.
We have been through a lot of tough times. We have had a lot of personal struggles. Over the past year we have had health issues (and yes, some of them related to COVID). I had 2 miscarriages. We faced lots of financial burden. We have dealt with many heart breaking things that I cannot share.
Through it all though, I have learned that my faith in God is what will give me the strength to make it through each day. It is the love for one another that we have that gives us the ability to lean on each other when the days seem unbearable. It is my faith that God has better plans for our lives that gives me the ability to still try to hope!
So today, I am sitting here remembering a close friend of mine. When I think about a conversation that we had not too long ago, I think about how he used to call me and tell me “get to work” and then he would laugh. He knew that I was already working on something. He would tell me “not everything can be bad! Girl, tell me what’s good!”
So today, I want to talk about what it good as I am getting ready for my friend’s calling hours. This year we have three beautiful buckling goats that were born. They are growing really well. I am also really excited about having extra milk from one of the moms. I was able to use that goat milk to make my first batch of goat milk soap. This is something that we are hoping in the future to be able to offer for sale off of our farm.
We also have done our first winter bee hive check. We added honey to a few hives but for the most part our bees are looking good….even though they do not appreciate their hives being opened right now. We were given a few bee boxes this year and are looking forward to splitting out current hives in the spring and having honey available for sale from our farm as well.
This is one of my favorite times of the year as we are starting to plant our seeds. I am getting the basement ready for all of the herbs to start growing and for the tomatoes and peppers. Growing plants always makes me happy. I have kept going through the winter with my aero garden and with growing my spouts from a mason jar this year. We are definitely looking forward to produce season.
We are excited that our four calves are off bottles and are growing well. We are talking about the idea of keeping at least one of them for milk. We usually raise them for meat but have a jersey female and are thinking she might be good for milking. That would give use another soap and lotion product that we can make ( I absolutely love making all sorts of crafts).
We are looking forward to making our raised beds for the herbs. We are looking forward to getting our grape vines staked up and pruned in the spring. We are excited about the blueberries and seeing how they are growing. We are excited to prune and thin out our strawberries and transfer some to new beds where we can continue to grow more.
We have a lot on our farm to be thankful for and a lot that we are looking forward to. So today while I remember my friend, I am going to think of the good things. Jason, this is what is good!!