The Weekly Digs #217

I’ll be honest, it was a bit of a rough week. I finally got over my cold on Monday (thankfully) and we did a little garden work in the morning. We mulched a row of our raspberries and picked veggies to make pico de gallo for a Labor Day party we were going to later in the day.

We had a fun rest of our Labor day and went to the lake and visited friends! 

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Tuesday and Wednesday, Cam caught what I had and was sick. Since he was down and out, I took over some of the errands and driving kids here and there, and I was not able to accomplish as much as normal with homesteading things.

I did work on finishing up the latest Youtube video though. I watched it through a couple times then I made a last minute change to part of the voiceover and didn’t rewatch it from the beginning because the video is a long one!

Several hours after uploading it to YT on Thursday I realized I accidentally left an extra audio clip in there that wasn’t supposed to be there. 

Youtube is interesting because the only way to fix a mistake is to reupload the whole thing, you lose all the views and any ad revenue. By the time I noticed, the video already had about 12,000 views so I didn’t reupload it. But it did set off my anxiety because I’m kind of a perfectionist (I wish I wasn’t) and really wanted to fix it! I still wish I could even now.

If you saw my video, just tell me you didn’t notice it or it wasn’t a big deal 🙂 That will help me feel better. 

[Editing to add]: I fixed it!! I had a reader let me know it could be edited in YT studio after the fact. I’ve never used it before so I didn’t know. Yay! You guys are the best!

It did make me realize though that maybe it is time to outsource my video editing. Cruz has expressed interest in it and I told him if he learned how and edited all my videos I would happily pay him. He is taking a class about video editing right now in school. If he takes over, it will help me to spend less time in front of the computer and more time enjoying homesteading and family! 

A video takes me anywhere from six to twenty hours to edit so it will really help.

In the Garden

It definitely feels like Fall is right around the corner now that the weather is cooler. We are hard at work on another big project, but I can’t talk about it until the video comes out because it is being produced in partnership with another company.

It’s also a product so new it’s not even available for purchase yet. But hint, hint, it will help us grow vegetables through winter 🙂

Aside from that, I did get some lettuce transplanted, and we made a new batch of soil mix. 

The garden harvest is shifting to different things now. Paste tomatoes are pretty much done, beans are winding down, and we pulled out all the lemon squash and melons. 

Luckily we have succession plantings of zucchini, cucumbers, corn, and lettuce coming soon. The zucchini is starting to give us a harvest. 

It’s the first time I planted zucchini in maybe 5 years because squash bugs usually kill it before I get anything. I always grow lemon squash because it’s more resilient. So far zucchini looks bug free.

I’ve been harvesting some handfuls of blackberries and raspberries. I think we will have a ton of blackberries next year if I can get them all trellised soon.

Preserving

We finished up the first batches of grape juice but I’ll go to the farm stand again this week to get some more grapes. I want to make at least 50 jars of juice, we have 13 quarts so far.

The Terrible Rain Storm

We had an awful thunderstorm that happened in the middle of the night and went on for hours on Friday morning. It was not in the forecast and caught us off guard. 

The temperature plummeted and I went out to find some of our new chicks had died in the night. Talk about feeling like a terrible steward! Their food was in the only place that was not protected from rain, and since these are meat birds, they put eating above their own well being sometimes and they were all soaking wet.

We warmed the rest as best we could and took out the ones we lost and put them in a box. Later that day four of them literally revived from being almost dead! What amazing chicks! 

We still had some that didn’t make it, but for the ones that came back from the dead, it was quite miraculous. I feel like maybe I should order more chicks just in case, since this is proving to be a tough year for raising chickens!

We did buy one of those heat plates and put it in there after the chilly rainy night but I forgot to take a picture of it. So far it’s working well.

More Blog Posts!

Oh and one last thing. Now that things are slowing down outside, I’ve decided to commit to updating my blog more. My goal is one weekly digs update, and then one more researched and informative or helpful blog post per week. I haven’t decided on a day yet, but I hope to keep on a schedule.

The blog is where I started with sharing all about our homestead several years ago! Then I later added Youtube and Instagram.

Over the past few years I haven’t been able to keep up with writing the more informational articles during summer but usually pick back up again in winter. I’m starting back up again a little earlier this year.

The reason for that being Cam and I are working towards our goal of making The Seasonal Homestead our full time job, instead of Cam working off the homestead. We loved both of us being home during his paternity leave. My mental health improved so much during that time. It was kind of unreal!

We’re still praying about it a lot so the goal could change but at least for right now it feels like the direction to go.

For those who come to my blog and read each week, thank you! I know ads can be annoying but it does help me to keep the content free for you and yet it still brings in income on my end.

I’m working on a blog post about cover crops right now because I get asked about them ALOT. If you have any requests for blog posts, let me know in the comments, I’ll add them to my list!