Happy New Year, everyone! What a wild ride 2022 was for our little homestead. We had so many ups and downs, and the last few months of the year were difficult and stressful. (If you didn’t catch the last update, you can find it here.) 2022 Recap Last January, Calvin and I came up with
It has been a long time since I posted anything here on the blog or on Iveyshire’s social media pages! I never intended to take a three month break, but life has been an absolute roller coaster for our family since September. Updating the blog didn’t really have a place in survival mode. The main
Have you ever heard of purslane? I didn’t know anything about it until this spring, but now I can’t get enough of it. I first came across it while weeding in our veggie garden. Every once in a while I’d see a tiny plant that looked like a succulent. I had a feeling it wasn’t
The first flock of chickens we raised here at Iveyshire made quite a dramatic exit. Something was getting into the coop, and some of the hens turned into cannibals. It was a messy and gruesome ordeal, and we went from 24 birds to 0 real quick. But we aren’t quitters, so this past week we
Many, many hours of this summer have been devoted to gardening. Living on the Cumberland Plateau means dealing with wild summer thunderstorms, and temperatures that differ from the surrounding areas of Tennessee. It’s been interesting to see what grows well here, what does okay, and what was a total bust. Here’s an update on how
To cut right to the chase: there isn’t a single chicken left here on our little homestead. In my last post, I mentioned that the poultry situation here had turned a bit chaotic. Unfortunately, the craziness continued until just a few days ago, when our very last chicken bit the dust. They were dying inside
The majority of this past month has been spent gardening and tackling other outside projects. My current favorite days are the ones where the kids and I head outside early, and come inside late. Between all the outside time- and a family vacation thrown in the mix- I haven’t been posting much. Time for a
A response my husband and I often get from people when we share our homesteading journey with them is an immediate, “I could never do that!” People are interested in what we’re doing, and many even wish they could try it themselves. But instead of pursuing it, they automatically focus on all the reasons why
The last couple weeks here at Iveyshire have been packed full. Between the usual mom-of-three duties, working on the garden, spring cleaning inside and out, and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life, I’ve been pretty consistently exhausted. Maybe it’s my personality, or anxiety, or the combination of too much coffee and too
After four months, and 4,000+ pounds of food, our little Christmas piggies were sent to the butcher last week. Raising these pigs was such a fun experience! I learned so much: how they grow, what they need to thrive, and their eating and drinking habits. When we first got them, I didn’t really know anything