But 2020 hasn't been without its redeeming moments too. I've made some new online friends that I chat with daily. Despite failing at gardening, we did manage to grow a few tomatoes and strawberries. My parents have a bumper crop of apples so we've been busy making apple butter this past week. I finally managed to run both my phone and my laptop down to the point of breaking so I got new electronic devices. I just got my new Chromebook this past week after being without a computer since May (shortly after my last blog post). I do apologize for neglecting this page.
With kids heading back to school soon, I hope to have more time to work on getting things back on track with the homestead and many of the plans we had for it.
So what are our plans for the end of 2020 and into 2021? Winter sowing for one. Its a bit early to be thinking of it now, but by February I want to have a small jungle of seeded jugs outside. Hopefully Toby will leave them alone. Last year I only put out two because he kept racing out the door and grabbing them and running through the yard like it was a toy. Didn't seem worth the effort to put any more out. I digress. Also on the "to do" list is getting the old Bonanza shop cleaned up and restocked. I've been making crocheted hats. This month I've made a strawberry, a watermelon, and I'm working on an apple hat now. Kind of an interesting creative outlet just to see where my imagination can take me. We are also having some discussions about livestock and where we want to go with that.
Big recent news, our good boy Moose passed away. He was only five years old and had only just two weeks before celebrated his birthday. He was playing outside, he gave me his tennis ball, I threw it, he retrieved it, but instead of bringing it to me he ran headlong into the fence behind me, went into a massive seizure and died in front of me. It was very sudden and unexpected. We buried him in the most beautiful place in the whole yard, overlooking the lake at sunset. I've planted a raspberry plant over his grave as a marker and have purchased some bulb flowers to plant around the raspberry bush to fill in space. Those suggest planting in September, so soon they'll get planted.
We have had four litters of kittens on the homestead this year - none of them were with our hairless cats though. Both barn cats gave us kittens and both of the indoor cats the kids kept from last years litter had kittens as well. Sixteen kittens total between four litters. We've decided to keep the spunkiest of the barn cat kittens as a third barn cat (Rowena), and #3 wants to keep one of the kittens in exchange for finding a new home for Martha (her cat she kept back from last years litter). That leaves fourteen kittens to find homes for. We found homes for Percy and Glimmer a couple weeks ago, and today we sent Anna and Clarissa off to their new homes. Now to find homes for Nona, Charlie, Marlene, Draco, Albus, Padma, Minerva, Nala, Kiara, and Sarabi. I'm asking $20 each for them, and all of the money raised will go toward getting the remaining cats here fixed. On last check the vet charged $75 per neuter and $125-$150 per spay. I am actively trying to downsize our cat population.
The kitten ad got flagged off of Craigslist after one person got upset that I wouldn't sell her a cat for her to use for breeding. I don't know how many flags it takes to get an ad pulled, but it seems pretty harsh that one offended person can make it next to impossible to find homes for them. I was trying to cut costs by offering them without any vet care. The older two litters are old enough now for rabies vaccinations, but if I'm going to go through the cost and hassle of bringing them all in to the vet for rabies vaccinations, their price is going to go up accordingly. So, if anyone is interested - now is the time to snag a cute cuddly kitten for $20. Otherwise the price will go up if/when they go to the vet.
Hopefully I can get back into the routine of blogging regularly. The other day I made a really tasty recipe with chicken thighs in the slow cooker and I hope to share the recipe for future use.