Dear Diary,

When does April end?

For real though.  I feel like we are stuck in Twilight Zone.  Life has slowed down for us here at Thistle Dew, like many of you I am sure.  Initially, when this pandemic really kicked up, my husband was still going to work every day.  The stress of that alone made the entire household a bit tense.  He would leave the house with anxiety and I’d be home with the kids anxious about him coming home and potentially bringing something with him.  Thankfully, he’s now home 3 days a week and we’ve gotten ourselves into a sort of schedule that works.  Let me tell you though…I am NOT cut out for homeschooling.  We have 3 small kids and even the toddler wants to get in on school but makes it VERY hard to teach the others what they need to learn.  Often times, he becomes a distraction.  I’ve resorted to giving him tiny pieces of paper and a glue stick and letting him go to town.  That usually buys me about 10-15 minutes until he’s bored.  God bless all you moms who CHOOSE to home-school.  Share your voodoo secrets.  I kid I kid…  

 

Speaking of KIDS!

 

Let’s check out what the heck we’ve been up to here at Thistle Dew.

 

In February, we added another Nigerian Dwarf goat to our little herd of three.  Cleo was a pregnant doe we acquired from the farm where Ollie, Odell, and Poppy came from.  Cleo had triplets…two boys and a girl.  The girl will be returning to the original farm and the bucklings will likely head to new homes when they are weaned.  Cleo will stay here at Thistle Dew Farm.

 

 

In the beginning of March, back when he had first spring(I think were on like 4th or 5th winter now), we built our own green house.  We’ve wanted one for a long time and finally had the chance to build one.  In early April, a windstorm came and we had to take the plastic off so not to risk it being shredded.  We got it back up and replanted everything so we’re back in business.  It’s been about 3 years since we had a garden and we’re so excited to get it back up and going.  My kids eat WAY too much fruit not to grow our own at this point!

 

Our flock of chickens keeps growing.  We lost 6 guineas to a hawk attack in a span of 3-4 days.  Guineas are great for tick issues and that’s why we have them on our farm.  While they are great for tick eating, they’re not the brightest crayons in the box and tend to NOT sleep in the coop.  We tossed some eggs we THINK might be guinea eggs(they’re small and kinda pointy at the top) into the incubator in hopes of hatching some, but the more I look at them, the more I think they’re just regular chicken eggs.  Oh well!  I did candle all 7 of them and they look like they are developing quite well so we shall see what happens in 14 days.  Maybe some chicks!  This is how chicken math works people…it’s a slippery slope.

 

All in all, we are finally getting settled into our new homestead.  The kids are enjoying the property.  Since we’ve all been quarantined, we took the time to set up Gym class outside.  Santa brought the kids  a zip line and a slack line so we found spots for them and got them all hooked up.  Luke isn’t a big fan of the slack line but all three kids are obsessed with the zip line.  It truly was like Santa knew we were gonna be stuck home for a while!  

I’m hoping to get back into blogging about our family and farm so stay tuned for what’s to come next!

 

Everyday is a new Beginning.  Take a deep breathe, smile, and start again!