More Homestead Happenings

Today has been another great day on the homestead. I just love discovering new aspects about this property. The excitement for today centered around Sarah seeing a kangaroo on our property and Sam almost getting eaten by a bird.

Shawn took Sam and Sarah out on a walking tour of the property today so I would have some time to get the kids' bedrooms more organized. They crossed several small creeks that developed from the recent heavy rains and made their way out to our pond. They climbed up the hill to the pond and reached a point where most of our property can be viewed. It was at that point when Sarah excitedly exlaimed that she could see a kangaroo. Somehow, Shawn was never able to pinpoint exactly where the kangaroo was, but Sarah was adamant that she saw one today.

Then, on their way back, Sam decided that he did NOT want to go the same way that Sarah and Shawn were going, so he proceeded to squat on the ground and have a crying fit. Apparently, a large bird heard my heathen child's fit and mistook him for a small wounded animal. The bird commenced to swoop down to see if it could eat Sam. After several very close and intimidating swoops, the bird must have decided that eating Sam was not worth the effort because it then flew away. Seeing this sure did get Shawn and Sarah pretty excited, but Sam was oblivious. He was very absorbed in his wailing and never noticed the bird at all.

I was excited to use my clothesline twice this week. It's just another way that I'm trying to save money this month. I've found that, despite being bitterly cold, our laundry does get dry if I put it out early enough. I have been putting it in the dryer for about five minutes to fluff it a bit. I'm hoping to see a dramatic decrease in our electric bill by drastically decreasing the amount of our dryer usage.

Yesterday Shawn built a fence. There was one area on our property closest to the house that was missing fence, so Shawn spent most of the afternoon constructing it. It was important to us that we have the area around the house completely fenced in to keep children and chickens inside. Shawn succeeded at the fence-building and did a great job. He also spent some time today planning a new structure for trash burning. We have chosen not to pay for trash service out here. We do recycle and compost what we can, but we're still left with some food scraps and paper products that we're going to be burning. Shawn came inside yesterday evening and said, "You know, I was miserably cold out there building that fence, but there was just something really great about being out there doing that kind of work." That's the same way I feel when I'm out there in the cold hanging wet laundry on the line...This isn't fun, but I'm still glad I'm out here doing it.

We're really enjoying being homesteaders and learning all there is to do out here.