Our Second Year on The Homestead

Homesteads are busy but I truly don’t think we’d have it any other way! Life would be too boring if we didn’t have sixteen different projects going on at once. Kidding, only kidding…In all actuality, I keep kind of hoping we’ll get to the finish line of some projects and switch to more of a maintenance mode. Right now we are definitely in a building phase. Our first year on the homestead was a lot of necessary work, but let me tell you about our second year on the homestead which has been the best. 

A Baby

First and foremost, we grew one of the most important things this year- a baby! I missed a lot of blogging time and a lot of things fell off the rails because of this. However, a lot got done too! It forced us to prioritize what we had on the list to make sure our house was ready for a baby. We had a never ending list of things to do for awhile but it was worth it! Now she is here and our lives are forever changed. This is, by far, the very best part of our second year on the homestead. 

The Basement

Last year our goal was to gut the basement, which we did. It was a lot of really nasty work. We found a lot of not good surprises but overall it was much better once that was done. However, the work couldn’t stop there. Having a baby meant I needed to clear out a room and make space on our main floor for baby stuff. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that baby gear takes a lot of space. 

So, we decided to partially finish our basement. I knew at least one room would allow me to get to our goal. We add cheap carpet squares and paneling and it looks great! Now next year’s goal will be the ceiling and lights. 

Flooring

When we first moved into our house we discovered it had been smoked in. Which was heavily masked when we looked at it. I documented our efforts to get the smoke smell out in our first year. It’s officially gone! We’re happy with how it smells but there was still more carpet we wanted to remove knowing it’s been exposed to smoke. 

Well, for our second year on the homestead, we removed the next chunk. We replaced it with a gorgeous laminate. This is a project we could have hired out but decided to do ourselves. We had half the flood laid when we realized something was wrong with the flooring. It just kept chipping and looked terrible. We took a gamble and tried to return it. Thankfully, they were understanding and helped us out. The second brand was one we liked even more and laid much better. A small projected turned into a much larger one but it worked out okay in the end.

The Garden

One of my more disappointing updates is that our garden didn’t fare well this year. It started with a very dry season. It was a drought when we planted and it was very hard to get plants and seeds to take. Then we started getting pests. Something are my tomatoes and peppers multiple times. As things came up, they kept getting ate. Such a frustrating thing.

Then the weeds took over. I was super pregnant and just couldn’t care for the garden like I normally do. I couldn’t weed like I normally weed. This was also very frustrating for me. Our girl was born in late July so as you can imagine, the garden fell on the very back burner. It’s a bummer but I’m already looking forward to a new chance next year. 

The Roof

Early in the spring of 2023, a hailstorm moved through. I’ve lived in Michigan for all of my 32 years and it’s the largest hail I’ve ever seen. Our insurance agreed our roof was damaged, just like almost all of our small town. They agreed to replace it and the roof on one of our barns. This has been a huge blessing for us, actually. We knew our house would need a new roof in the next five or so years as the inspector warned us of that. We were running close so having that replaced from the storm saved us tons of money. 

The Tile

This is one of the most failed projects I’ve ever worked on. It still is not fixed. I’m not sure it can’t be fixed. I tried and tried and tried this year. Then I started thinking, maybe we should just rip it up. I genuinely think that pulling it up will work better than trying to fix it. However, if I’m taking up the floor, I might as well change my kitchen around too. This would be a good reason to redo the kitchen to make it more user friendly. Right now we have a small kitchen but that could be changed fairly easily. Who knows?! All I know is, the tile didn’t get fixed. 

The Animals

Another of the more disappointing parts of our second year on the homestead is that we didn’t get any more animals. I had high hopes to add ducks and goats to to homestead this year. Unfortunately, it just didn’t make sense. It was enough to care for all of our birds during pregnancy! Then once we had her I was so darn thankful we didn’t have more on our plate. Having a newborn and having two full time jobs has been more than enough for now. 

We did butcher a few meat birds this year. It was tough at 30 weeks pregnant. I’m looking forward to our next batch being easier.

Canning

Per usual, we canned our booties off. In a post about saving money by canning, I describe some of those totals. I don’t know if it was our bigger year but it was a good one. I feel very confident that between what we had left from last year and what we added this year we are going to be all set for our needs. Even with adding a mouth to feed soon! 

Fruit Trees

Probably my second favorite thing that we did was to plant a couple more fruit trees in our yard. These take time to grow so I’m happy to be adding some new ones. One of my apple trees was already hit by a buck though so we may be down one. My goal is to add a couple varieties per year until we have a good crop of fruit. Right now we just have apples and pears but I can’t wait for more!

What’s Coming? 

Well, I’ve been alluding to these as we go. My hope is to finish the entire basement in this coming year. Perhaps over winter since it’s an inside project. I’d like to change our bird coop to be one large coop so it’s less to manage and easier. That could allow us to add some ducks and potentially a turkey or two as well. Obviously, a better garden for 2024 with less pests and less weeds. More fruit trees! Hoping to add a peach tree for sure and maybe another apple or a cherry. Blueberries or grapes, too. They’re harder to grow because they require specific soil but it’d be nice to get them going here. Other than that, just focusing on our growing girl. There are bigger projects we’re considering like a garage and a kitchen but we’ll see how that goes…

In Conclusion: Our Second Year on the Homestead

Our second year on the homestead seems kind of boring as far as homesteading projects go. However, after battling through infertility, it was our most exciting yet. We’re so happy to have added our girl to the crazy mix here and I can’t wait to see her running around next year. It’ll still be difficult but I’m hoping to turn her into a great garden helper. It won’t be long until she’s running everywhere and helping with chores too, and life as we know it will change again.