Sunday morning started as usual – a leisurely wakeup before heading out the door to take my dog for a walk. My first thought when I stepped outside was how beautiful this property is; the steam rising from the goldenrod and field grass as the sun just begins to rise. My second thought was: why is there a horse standing in my front yard?
Winnie looked at me as if to say, “where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you to get up!” She seemed no worse for the wear, so I let my dog finish her business before heading to open the gate – which was closed and locked, by the way. Winnie followed me to the gate and headed right into her paddock.
I unravelled the mystery later by following her manure trail. She apparently got out at the far edge of her pasture (more on that later), and then traveled through the front field, by the garden, and around the front of my yard. She tried to get back into her paddock but couldn’t, left manure directly in front of the gate to convey her feelings on this matter, and then headed around the back of the house to continue her investigation. When I still hadn’t gotten up to help her, she decided to eat the front yard and wait.
As a reminder, I organize my week’s accomplishments according to my ultimate goals for this homestead property. Here’s what I got done this week:
Food Production
I hired someone to brush-hog part of my property – specifically, Winnie’s pasture and a portion of the front field. The overgrown goldenrod, aster, milkweed, and field grass are gorgeous and home to a ton of wildlife, so I preserved several acres for that purpose. However, it hasn’t been maintained in years and I need to get a better idea of what my property contains, especially in the horse pasture and the area that I intend to turn into a garden next year.
With Winnie’s pasture now free of 5 foot tall brush and bramble, I was able to walk the edges of the fence-line for the first time. I was surprised by how weak some of it looked, but knowing it has held for years, I wasn’t too concerned. My mistake – I suspect that Winnie was eating and exploring with her head down, wandered too close to a portion of the fence that was missing its bottom line of electric tape, got zapped by the top line, spooked forward through the fence, and then found herself on the other side with the original tape lines still in tact. To fix this, I stapled extra tape in the gap to discourage her from making the same mistake again – but to be honest, she seems scared straight. I don’t expect a repeat incident.
I also had the brush hog cut a portion of the front field. Part of this will be developed into the sprawling garden of my dreams. There is quite a lot of work to do to prepare the ground, and I will need to put up fencing to discourage the deer, but with the brush gone, I can envision the final product and it’s going to be incredible.
The newly flat field wildly improved the ease of spreading woodchips. A couple weeks ago I received 20 cubic yards of wood chips for free, which I’ve been using to carve out the garden space I had previously cleared using a scythe. With the rest of the field now gone, I was able to use a UTV with a dump bed to move and spread a lot more wood chips in order to start preparing for a blueberry patch. My #1 goal for the winter is to figure out how I can save for and afford a UTV of my own in 2026 – the usefulness is out of this world.
Resource Acquisition and Preparedness
Earlier this week, while riding my horse, I caught a waft of the distinct smell of ripe Concord grapes – a surefire sign that it’s time to start foraging. On Friday afternoon, I gathered about a gallon’s worth before a thunderstorm rolled through and cut my picking short. This is just the midst of the first wave; there will be plenty more wild grapes to pick in the next couple of weeks. They make the BEST jam.
My neighbor is in the process of moving and has been putting stuff on his curb. I got plant pots and stands and garden trellises among other miscellaneous items, but the most incredible find was a pair of sawhorses! This has been on my thrifting/garage sale wishlist all summer because I’ve been sawing things on a couple of buckets, which has been precarious at best. These have definitely seen better days, but they will serve me wonderfully.
Aesthetic Utility
I hung one piece of art. I’m sorry if my productivity makes you feel bad about your own to-do list.
Energy Independence
I’ve slowly been splitting a few logs a day to fill my small wood rack. Now that it’s nearly at capacity, I really need to build a larger one – I learned a lot the last time so I know what to do, I just need to find the time to do it.
I also acquired a rain barrel for free, and set it up by the garden so that I don’t always have to drag the hose 100 feet to water my cold frame and garden beds. Now, I just need to set up some kind of rain catchment system with more surface area – a tarp, perhaps. I have a half-baked vision in my head, I just have to figure out how to implement it.
Moving Forward
My first week back at school was great – I’m excited about my courses and schedule this year, and my students seem lovely. As I made my transition back into the working world, I found that my weekday productivity on the farm ground to nearly a halt – so almost everything that I accomplished this week was done over the weekend.
Moving forward, as I get my ‘teaching stamina’ back, I hope to use my weekday evenings to chip away at farm tasks so that the weekends can be at least slightly more restful.
Upcoming tasks: rainwater catchment, wood rack, spreading wood chips, and like four hundred other things. Stay tuned!
KC