Homesteading With a View

Now, this is not something we do for just anyone! Hive removal is hard work and holds its own bag of liability so we choose to only do it for friends and family and in very special circumstances. Most beekeepers charge big bucks for removing a hive especially one that is as established as this…

Dryer balls are a great natural alternative to dryer sheets which contain chemicals and fiberglass shards. These handcrafted felted wool balls will decrease drying time and make your clothes soft and fluffy! A few weeks ago I posted about how I cleaned the raw sheep’s wool in my post Cleaning Wool.  Since that post, I have…

This past weekend I was out of town for a wedding so before I could leave the homestead for a few days I had to make sure all the critters had adequate food and water sources. The bunny moms and their litters were easily going through two regular small critter water bottles a day and…

Who’s enjoying this second spring we seem to have been gifted? I know I certainly am, the additional rains are allowing me to do chores besides watering the garden and flower beds. Lukes’s sister over at the Fiesty Farms sheared her sheep herd last week which led to this spinning fool getting two bags full…

I am getting very nervous about the market, only 10 days away! So over the weekend, I put the muscle to the hustle. I unpacked my bath bomb making tools and laid them out on the kitchen counter late last week to entice myself to get to work on inventory. There is something to be…

Over the weekend Luke and I started expanding the bee yard with some more hive stands in preparation for our 25 queens we ordered. Once the queens arrive we will be splitting our current 11 hives. So we wanted to be ahead of the game and have the stands already out of the way. We…

Woah! Can you say “Boom of a bloom!” The wild flowers are coming up in shades of yellow, pink, robins egg blue and white absolutely, everywhere. No wonder why the bees have been having a frenzy as the queens work to build the colonies large enough to take advantage of this nectar and pollen flow….

Last year was not the best year for my garden.  I battled hauling in water to the homestead and an onslaught of moles. This year I expect a 180-degree transformation. The well is pumping out crisp clean water and I finally finished putting raised beds in my garden. As all the sprouts begin to fill…

Luke found me a secondary spinning wheel at a huge deal back in January, it was missing some small parts but overall it was still in working order. After much TLC; Luke refinished the wood, put some rust kill on all the metal components, oiled her up and added a new tension band and break….

Our first order of Nucs arrived last weekend and we spent Saturday picking them up and installing them. We drove a little over an hour to the pick-up site and veiled ourselves and put on gloves as a precaution. As we approached the flatbed trailer full of nuc boxes we and all the other beekeepers…