Summer Solstice Summary

House and Home

Meg has a new job!   It's just a contract job for 6 months, but it's such a good thing for her to be back to work, and it might even lead to a regular full time job if she doesn't have something better in the works by then.

Water Purification  Our well water has always gone a bit yellow in the spring with the flush of tannins coming in with the heavy rains, and we decided to do something about it. Our new resin tank takes out the extra iron and tannins which leaves us with crystal clear and delicious water year round. (It's also better for the animals because too much iron can interfere with calcium absorption.)

Beginnings, Endings, and Close Calls

Chickens:    The spare went to the stew pot as expected, but we also lost Romeo. He got sick with a cold and recovered with some TLC in the hospital crate, but in the mean time Junior had established himself as cock-of-the-walk.   Romeo was in the mobile coop until I could safely reintroduce him, but he died from algae poisoning. I didn't realize why he was looking paler for two days and thought it might be reduced testosterone from not being able to get at the ladies. I felt horrible about it. There's always births and deaths on a farm and this season had quite a few in comings and goings.   On a brighter note, Marsha is broody and sitting on a dozen eggs. They're due to hatch on June 25th.  She wouldn't let me take a look so I don't know how many are viable and we'll just have to wait to see how many chicks she winds up with.

Kelly came down with a case of blowflies. It was horrible, but she is recovering quite well. She is even laying eggs and should be able to go back outside soon. Goats:   Star had her babies at the end of April. Three white lil boys that I had a hard time telling apart at first. There's one with wattles on his neck (just like his momma), one with a grey spots on his right wrist and head, plus a smear of grey on his tail. The third I can only tell apart by making sure he isn't one of the other two. :-)  Star's had a hard time keeping up with milk for all three so Spot has become a bit of a bottle baby with all the attention he's gotten while I'm trying to keep him healthy and bring him up to weight. Star protects him and everything, but the other two always got first dibs on milk. Honey's boys from last spring are now (just a little) taller than she is.  I've been trying to sell or trade four of the five boys and, although I've had one offer to trade all four for one milking doe, and one offer to outright buy two of the new babies, both conversations have slowed to a stop and it's not clear how this will play out yet. Kitchen Projects

I've also tried quite a few new recipes in the kitchen. In addition to cheesemaking, I made marmalade from our Calamondins, goat stew from grocery store goat (to see if we like it before filling a freezer), coq au vin made from the spare rooster. With so much eggs and dairy on hand, plus a freezer full of pork from last year, it's too easy to slip into an unhealthy eating pattern. Now that everything is greening up, I'm trying to remember to eat more plants. In addition to the obvious salads and roasted roots, I've been experimenting with adding more plants into our meals in new ways (eg: TVP to bulk ground nacho meat, a handful of buckwheat in a soup, some lentils blended into tomato sauce, etc)  Greenhouse and Garden

This year got off to a slow start with all the animal births and illnesses and deaths distracting me. I did get some radishes and beets and turnips planted in the greenhouse and there's plenty of green onions and basil growing from last year's plants. There's also a bunch of tomato plants starting to bush out and I've just cleared the old kale to make room for more plants.

On the left is the garlic and the broccoli and cauliflower that just got transplanted. On the right, the brown patch is potatoes. In the center will soon be corn and sunflowers. Solar Our solar system has been treating us well. There was one panel that either lost connection or broke but they did come out and fix it so we're back to full capacity.

Generation on 2026-06-20 Usage on 2026-06-20 2026 Generation 2026 Usage.

The biggest thing about the battery bank has been the outage security. Knowing that we can keep warm through an outage has provided so much peace of mind. If and when we get around to installing an Electric Thermal Storage unit or similar, we'll be able to switch to time-of-day rates and save a bunch on our bills. Emailing directly has been a hit!

This journey into weekly writing has shown me that I really do like writing, and I've got a few replies over the past several weeks telling me that folks like reading.  :-)    In the beginning I wasn't quite sure how everything would go, but I've got it all sorted out now. The Weekly Witters go out each Monday, and the Seasonal Summaries go out in their place on the closest Monday to prevent overwhelm (eg: a Summary on a Sunday and then a Witter the very next day.)  I'm proud about sticking to this. Before, I was having a hard time because, not only was there not an actual deadline, I was leaving it for 3 or 6 weeks between updates and that made it really hard to remember what happened let alone what I had already shared.

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