Video: May on the Homestead
For years, I wrote a little weekly update about the happenings on our homestead, what was going on in the garden, the silly antics of our animals, and what our family was up to called “Homestead Update.” It was really fun to write and share! I stopped because our lives became so incredibly busy living on a farm, and while I do not think I’d be able to keep up with a weekly schedule like that again, I’d like to start sharing more family updates with you all again.
Instead this time, I made it into a little video for our Youtube channel, which you can watch right here on the blog at the end of this post. I would love if you subscribed to our channel, if you have the chance!
The month of May came in and out like lightening. I cannot believe that we are already into the third week of June. How did that happen? I suppose I won’t have a great June update for you for that reason! My life has become almost a complete blur within the past few months. Having a baby around will do that to you, though I feel like I was more aware of the things happening around me with Tad. Perhaps that just goes to show what it is like having your first baby compared to your second. I was hyper aware of what Tad was doing, constantly showing him new things and living through his first experiences. With Dean, while I am with him almost every single second of the day and I absolutely love showing him new things and watching him make awe-filled discoveries… it is just not the same. I have an older child to look after as well, things to get done like laundry and cooking. He is in no way more neglected, but the second child is not parented in the same way, as many parents of multiple children will understand. And that is okay!
For me, though, I feel as if I was just in December, blinked, and woke up the middle of summer. How did that happen?
I feel as if I have spent the better part of spring tackling and managing my own disappointment, forcing myself to move on quickly, and use my resourceful nature to “make it work” so that we may push forward. We’ve been building up our new garden, a small formal raised bed space. Kyle built all of the beds and leveled them, we hauled dirt and filled them up, and I have been planting and leveling the ground to add in brick and flagstone walking paths.
It is nothing like I originally envisioned. It’s absolutely beautiful to me… some days. I have plenty of days where I walk in and think, what is this mess I have created and how am I going to manage it?! It’s not always wonderful to me. In fact, it rather feels like this big mish mosh of collected items that can seem to bury me alive. But then I step back and see how far we have come, when it was just grass, when it felt like there would never be any garden there at all.
It does not help that I feel as if I am consistently late for everything in life lately. Somehow, with the end of the pandemic (is it officially the end yet? It sure feels like it in our part of Iowa!), we became the most busy we have ever been with social gatherings, sports practices and games for Tad, church events and groups, and family visiting for the first time in months and months. I am sure many people can relate as places reopen and families are feeling the itch to finally go do something - enjoy their summer together again. It has been both wonderful to feel the freedom of not having a mask, of not being deathly afraid to live life, and overwhelming to say the least.
As we enter mid-June, with the hottest weather I can remember since moving to Iowa, I am looking forward to taking a step back from the rush of planning and prepping the garden, to simply tend to it and watch it grow. We have lots left to finish, in terms of stylistic things, but the crops are planted. All we can do now is wait and hope for good weather.
Our homestead feels different this year. Many things feel rushed or not done soon enough. I can only hope we produce enough to store away for winter.
xoxo Kayla
