100 Days of Growing Food Challenge: Days 20-25

Stay below 100%.

What does that even mean?

Bryce has been warning me for the past few months that we need to slow down. I have it set in my mind that I can do everything. “One more chore, one more responsibility, one more extra job…”

I’ve fallen into our Societal Lie that I can do everything and we should be able to do everything without fraying, and perhaps, just a little more coffee than what’s necessary.

But all those little tasks add up. Once your emotional, physical, and spiritual limit has reached its max, something begins to suffer.

In my case, it’s usually my personal health, and my relationship with my family. If I’m pushing myself to 125%, I have nothing left for my sweet boys throughout the day.

What am I really growing?

Yes, we’re raising animals and tending a large garden, but my most important job on this planet is to first serve Christ, honor my husband, and raise our sweet boys. Those are the most important needs that need to be met before anything else.

Downsizing

We have made some hard decisions for our homestead. Hard, but necessary for peace and self-care at home.

• Once our current pregnant rabbit does have birthed and their grow outs are at an age to be butchered, we are getting out of meat rabbits. There are many benefits to raising meat rabbits, and for a season, they served us well. We are currently at a point now with raising meat chickens and the hogs that we will harvest this fall, that the amount of meat we get from the rabbits doesn’t equal the amount of care they need. I am definitely going to miss the free manure. Rabbits produce cold manure that can be spread directly onto the garden as a fertilizer without damaging your plants. We do have some large piles of wood chips and lawn waste that have been breaking down for about a year and a half that will get spread over the garden late fall this year.
• Downsizing the goat herd. We initially were going to keep our two mother does, Oona and Edda, and sell two of the fawn-colored twin doelings. With much discussion with Stirling (and his complete approval), we have decided to also sell our little buckling, Cowboy, and will be trying to sell Oona as well. This decision isn’t because we don’t enjoy the goats, quite the opposite. I adore them completely, but my time and emotional load needs to be directed elsewhere. Edda and her doeling, Faidh, will be staying with us.
• We currently have 37 meat birds that will be butchered in about 7 weeks. The time and chores associated with the meat birds is quite minimal, now that we have a routine setup. We will continue raising meat birds next summer. The benefit with Cornish Cross are their quick turn around. After 8-9 weeks they have reached butcher age. You can raise and harvest enough meat in a few month’s time to last you the entire year and give you freedom in the other months to focus on something else. In the case of meat rabbits, the breeding stock needs care year round and their production stops during the heat of the summer and cold of the winter.
• Our egg laying hens will also be downsized when we butcher our next round of meat birds. Several of our laying hens are past their egg laying prime. The plan is to butcher several of our hens that are 3-4 years old and keep only the ones that are 2 years and younger. We currently have 3 Speckled Sussex roosters from the chicks purchased this year that will be either harvested or re-homed, one of our Silkie roosters, and the guinea hen.

This will definitely cut down on feed cost, and allow us to have better husbandry with our animals. Our boys will still get to share in the adventure of growing our own food, but not at the cost of loosing vital one on one time with mommy and daddy!

Food

We harvested about 19 lbs of rabbit meat last week. The garden is growing and is starting to come alive. Budding grapes, baby peaches, and ripening currants. I’ve got extra peppers, tomatoes, and a few cucumbers that are left over from starting seeds. This weekend, I repotted into larger containers to allow them to grow further before planting them in the ground. A few of the previously planted tomatoes will need to be replaced due to either squirrel or raccoon interference.

Stirling and I also planted an impromptu pumpkin garden this weekend. I started several different pumpkin varieties in the greenhouse this year and most of them sprouted! In years past, we haven’t taken the time to really create a space for our pumpkins. This is most likely the reason why we haven’t had much success in the past. We found a section of the yard beyond the chicken coop with plenty of room for the pumpkin vines to spread, laid down cardboard, rabbit manure, and covered with a thick layer of wood chips and planted in there for weed management. (A new Back to Eden space!)