Homestead Happenings!

Our homestead has been growing like crazy this past year.

Last spring, we added a bee hive. We haven't harvested honey yet because we wanted to give our new hive the best chance of overwintering- surviving over the winter- as we could. We did just add a new honey super, so when the nectar flows this spring and they fill it up, I am hopeful we will be able to harvest this spring.

The hive right after we installed the nuc. A nuc is a small already established colony of a queen and 5 frames of brood, bees, and honey. 

A corner of a frame, can you spot the queen? 

The next time we open the hive to inspect, I will record it and post on our Facebook page Hindrichs' Happy Homestead!

Another change we have made is adding a Livestock Guardian Dog, a Great Pyrenees/Anatolian mix named Sylvie. She is now 6 months old and roughly 80-100 pounds. 

Last summer, we also tried our hands at raising ducks. The bad news was, out of 4 ducklings, we ended up with 3 drakes. Since you can't house male ducks with hens when they don't have their own wife, we had to rehome 2 of the drakes. The third was the mate to our only female duck. Unfortunately, our hen died of an unknown cause, so we butchered the male. Now that we have moved and have a creek in our back yard, we may venture into ducks again because the kids loved the duck eggs. We will see. 

We now also have quail! We currently have 38 quail chicks in the brooder. Our plans are to hatch our own, then butcher them for food. Once we get enough production going, we plan to sell the eggs, the chicks, and processed quail locally! If you are local and interested in eggs or meat, we will be offering them in the next 3 months. 

15 of the quail chicks on the way home

I am working on a post about the quail, how we house and feed them, and eventually how we butcher them.

The last thing, is our chickens. Our oldest, Landon, has started his own flock of Polish chickens, he plans to hatch the chicks and sell them. Our mature flock has changed considerably when we moved, we had 30, now we are down to 11 hens and a rooster, Micheal. We severely underestimated the predator problem here in the woods. For several days, we lost a chicken a night. This is the big reason we got Sylvie, since we have had her, we have had no chicken losses except 2 that she killed being a puppy. 

In the brooder, Landon has his 8 chicks, and as I type, we have silkie chicks hatching in the incubator! Plus, a mama chicken is sitting on 3 eggs in the coop outside, but time will tell if she is successful. I will have a post all about the silkies after they hatch and I get them out of the incubator for pictures. 

Polish chick

So what's in the future for us? We want to plant a small orchard. We are also planning our garden and have 50 tomato plants growing from seeds almost ready for the ground. We are planning to sell quail, chickens, honey, eggs, and possibly other goods from our home and at the farmer's markets around the area. If you are local and interested in any of our products, send me a message on our Facebook page or leave a comment! 

Okay. Okay. Okay.

HERE I AM!

Did you miss me? It has been a while. A long while. My laptop kind of crashed out on me. And who likes using a desktop? Not me. Besides, I have to fight with the boys to use the desktop. Youtube videos, anyone?

We ended up getting the me the kids a chrome book to use for school work. That means it is usually not in use in the evenings! Yay for me!

Let's see, where did I leave off? Disney trip. Long story short, that was 2 years ago now. We had a great time. I probably (read: will never) will not get around to finishing my trip report. Sorry. It was a while ago, and so much has happened since then.

Since Disney, I have lost 160+ pounds! Go me! We have become more involved in our church and I am so glad to say, we finally found 'home'. We got bees! We moved! Again. Probably for the last time. More on that later. My dad died this past October. And the biggest news? Which, if you know our family, probably isn't surprising:

Fifty Little Piggies!

Baby #5, Lincoln Phillip will be joining us in mid-June!

Psalm 127:4

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, are children of one's youth

I am working on posts about: my dad, our bees, our other animals, my weight loss, homeschooling, kid updates, and homestead updates. Hopefully, a home tour of our new home will come soon as well! Keep checking back for new posts! Don't want to wait for new posts to see pics? As always, follow me on Instagram at thirtylittlepiggies

Disney Trip Day 3- Animal Kingdom!

Our third day there, we had to do something, even though Lena wasn't feeling her best because we wouldn't have time to finish everything before we had to head home.

Super excited for Disney!

So that morning we headed out to the Animal Kingdom. Luckily, Lena seemed to be doing better, smiling and eating a bit and keeping it down.

The kids absolutely loved riding the tram to the actual park. Alta says that was her favorite thing the entire time, silly girl. The first view of the park for the kids was wonderful, they were in awe of everything to see.

 Immediately, they saw Chip N Dale and Rafiki, though they were on their way into the park and not signing autographs at that moment.

This is his suave face.

We headed into the park after our bag searches and ticket scans. We walked around a bit just taking in the sights until it was time for our first fast past. We spotted Daisy Duck and since she had a short line, she was our first character meet!

After Daisy, we meandered over to Africa to get in the FP line for the Safari.

Kilimanjaro Safari was excellent! It was a guided "jeep" (aka large bus/jeep thing, seating 5 or 6 people per bench) driven around the safari part of AK. We saw several types of animals. They seemed like they were all in an open area, but if you looked close, you could see there were barriers.  But Disney does a good job at hiding it. Some of the animals can come really close to the jeep, we had a giraffe standing within 10 feet of us.

After the safari ride, we walked over to It's Tough To Be A Bug, while waiting for our next FP.

Unfortunately, by now, Lena started fussing and became restless and just not a happy girl. We toughed it out in Bug, and once the show started, she chilled out a bit.

When we finished at Bug, we walked over to Dinoland USA because our next FP was for Dinosaur. We stopped and ate our packed lunch, while waiting for the FP time. Meanwhile, Lena started running her fever again and became listless. We decided that I would take the girls back to the hotel and take a nap and depending on Lena, we would come back that evening and catch Lion King with them, or I would just pick them up at park close.

While we were napping, Sam and the boys rode Dinosaur, Expedition Everest, and Kali River Rapids. They also caught Lion King, and the boys were called on stage to participate it the show! I am so sad I missed that! That is the tough thing about being Mommy, having to decide which child's needs come first. Obviously, Lena's came first in this scenario, because health was at risk as opposed to the boys' emotional health. Lucky for me, Sam recorded the entire thing, so I was able to watch them.

The girls and I went to pick up the boys and we came back, had dinner and relaxed.

Missed days 1 & 2? Click Here!

Disney Trip- Day 1 & 2

I guess it has been a while since I last posted. And by that, I mean months. Oops. I'm busy. Really busy. I thought homeschooling would lead us to a more simple life. Instead, we are going from Cub Scouts, to 4-H, to church, to visit friends and family, and on and on and on. Add that to schooling and caring for the kids, home, and animals, I'm a busy mama. But I guess, this is the time of our life. I wouldn't change a thing.

Our family just got home from our very first real vacation. We've only been camping or in a cabin or visiting family before. So this was different. And big. We did our first vacation in a BIG way. We spent 11 days in Orlando at Disney World, Lego Land, the beach, Ripley's, and swimming. It wasn't all fun and games, Lena became really sick during our trip and landed herself in the ER, but after she got better, we had a lot of fun.

DAY ONE:

We packed our bags, and left our house around 5 pm on April 15. Our plan was to drive through the night so the kids would sleep most of the time. Great plan. Except the night before Lena started running a fever and threw up once. On our way out of town, we stopped by urgent care at her pediatrician's, and had them take a look at her. They decided it was teething, but gave us an antibiotic in case she started pulling at her ears or anything. He gave us the all clear to head on down a have a good time. So off we went!

Driving through the night was a great idea in theory, but with a sick and fussy baby who isn't a great sleeper to begin with, it was torture. She cried and fussed 85% of the drive. The other kids did great, sleeping most of the time and watching DVDs the rest.

We got to our hotel around noon on the 16, and they allowed us to check in early, which was wonderful! I have nothing but great things to say about the hotel. We stayed at the Royale Parc Suites (Quality Suites) in Kissimme, FL. It was clean, family friendly, and very nice for a budget hotel. That evening, Lena seemed to feel better, so we went to Downtown Disney.

Parker was having the time of his life in the Lego Store, you could see his mind working on all the new things he could build.

Can you guess which one belongs to which kid?

DTD was nice, not as great as I expected. It was pretty overpriced and under tons of construction. We stopped at Candy Cauldron and the kids got character cookies and Sam and I shared a Mickey cookie. We then window shopped a bit until we got to the Lego Store and the kids loved it. Especially Parker, he was in his element! Prices weren't too bad, I may even hesitate to say, they were cheap (for Legos). They had build your own mini figs 3 for $9.99, so each of the big kids built their own mini fig. After the Lego Store, we walked around some more and found the dancing waters, and since we were getting ready to leave, the kids played and got soaked. Lena started fussing really badly, so we came back to the hotel to get ready for bed.

All the dancing water pics are terrible, the kids were running around like crazy.

DAY TWO:

That evening and night, Lena got worse, she started throwing up and refusing to eat as well as running a fever. After being up all night with her, we pushed our first Disney day back and tried unsuccessfully to find a doctor to see her. Our insurance would not cover any convenient care down there except Walgreens or CVS, unfortunately, they wouldn't see her because she was younger than 18 months old. Again, I called her pediatrician, and asked for zofran to get her hydrated, she refused and again said it was teething or a bug and she would be better by the next day. So instead of Disney, we went grocery shopping, got the kids' some souvenirs, and then went back to the hotel and I took the big kids swimming while Sam stayed with Lena in the room.

View of our hotel courtyard

Our hotel had a kiddie pool, plus a big pool which was awesome for this mama!

Sick baby Lena.

Check out Day 3!

Happy 6 Months, Lena!

Lena is 6 months old today! She is such a happy little girl. I am not sure what her stats are because she doesn't see the pediatrician until December 3, but I'm guessing she is around 20 pounds. She is our biggest baby by far! 

She can army crawl anywhere she wants to go. She can roll both directions, which she does all the time. She started saying "dada" yesterday. She sleeps pretty well about 4/7 nights, usually only waking twice.

She cannot sit unassisted yet, she can only tripod for a few seconds before falling over. She is a smiling and laughing baby, but for whatever reason, as soon as the camera comes out, she will not smile or laugh. She's a stinker.

She loves her family, especially Landon. They have a great bond and he loves to tote her around and show her things, play with her, and generally love on her. 

She has started sampling food. So far she has had mashed potatoes, avocado, yogurt, shredded chicken, and bananas. She has loved it all and has done well with it. 

She is also still breastfeeding. She is definitely getting more formula than breastmilk at this point, but she is still getting every drop I can produce. I am hopeful that we will make it at least a year. 

Two Months!

Lena is already two months old. I can hardly believe it, but yet it feels like she has been here forever. She fits in perfectly in our family. She is truly a blessing.

At her two month appointment, she weighed in at a whopping 12 pounds, 3 ounces and was 22 inches tall. She is not petite like big sister Alta, but she is "average" on the charts. I am very happy with her size, I would much rather have an average sized baby than a below average sized baby any day, no specialists for her!

Lena can roll from her tummy to back anytime she wants. She can roll from her back to tummy with a little help, I think it won't be very much longer before she can do it by herself. She smiles at everyone but saves her big eyes lighting up smiles for her family. She loves to coo and talk to us. She likes me the best, but that is to be expected right now. She loves to nurse, but we do have to supplement with formula (stupid non working boobs!). She loves all of her siblings, but Landon is her favorite, he can get the best smiles from her. She is trying to laugh, and sometimes she can, but so far no big belly laughs yet. She sleeps fairly well at night now, going down between 11pm-1am and sleeping until 5 or 6, then eating and sleeping until 9.

Perfect little Piggies

She is a pretty happy baby. When she cries she can usually be calmed down easily. But she does hate car rides. I think we are very lucky to have her in our lives.

She was done taking pictures

PS You may notice "ThirtyLittlePiggies" on my pictures now and that you cannot right click to save my photos, this is because there have been pictures stolen of other babies lately, and since it has already happened to me once, I would rather it not happen again. Please note any and all photos used on this blog are property of ThirtyLittlePiggies, unless otherwise noted, and taking these images and using them as your own is a copyright violation. Thank you.