Homestead Happenings — Thanksgiving On The Homestead

Homestead Thanksgiving prep

What goes on on the homestead in late November? Thanksgiving prep and celebration, of course!

This year was on the smaller side. Covid. As a pretty good-sized family, though, it’s never what one might call “small.”

Getting Ahead by Prepping Ahead

When you grow much, most, or all of what you eat, holidays like Thanksgiving can take a bit longer to prepare for than they might in a more conventional household. A lot of these foods have already seen some prep early on in the year during canning or preserving. Here on our homestead, I don’t pre-can things like pie fillings, and seldom are sauces (cranberry sauce, for instance) canned ahead.

I do grow pumpkins and squash and love to make homemade, completely from scratch pies with them (in fact, I’ve been years tweaking commercial recipes to get one “just right” for homegrown pumpkin pie—we will talk about that in another post). Pumpkins and winter squashes store so well that I don’t usually put the time and utilities into preserving them (it’s not really considered safe to can pumpkins and squash as a puree so if I do preserve them it’s in the freezer, which I find a little less preferable to freshly cooked or roasted–too watery).

The bottom line is that if it’s not coming out of a can or off a grocery store shelf, it’s going to take a little more time and effort to turn those homegrown goods into your holiday meal. The results, though, are oh, SO worth it!

Fresh Turkey for Thanksgiving

Some of our homesteading was sidelined a few years ago due to a catastrophic injury in the household. During that time we did not give up, but we did scale way back. I made pains to keep some semblance of backyard farming going in an effort to maintain a lifestyle that was recognizable to us, a lifestyle we’d always enjoyed, and also to maintain the mental health of the household. And so, we have not raised our own turkeys here on the homestead in at least three years.

We do, however, have excellent local farms for whom household members work part time, and so we were blessed with the gift of appreciation in the form of a farm-fresh turkey. This nearly 24-pounder was one of the first prepping projects when he went into the brine. And he was worth the extra time and effort.

As for the rest, the pictures can take over the talking. As always, though, comments and questions are quite welcome.

Hoping your Thanksgiving was a delicious and blessed as ours on our homestead, and that the remainder of the year and the upcoming holiday season is full of peace, joy, and tranquility!

Early November Homestead Happenings–Goodnight Garden and a Good Cup of (Elderberry) Tea

with Special Thanks to the next Veal

By November in New England, many of the outside tasks of homesteading are coming to an end. We’ve had some frosts and even some snows, though it seems Mother Nature cannot make up her mind, and here I sit inside trying to keep myself seated and not out playing in the mid-60 degree weather.

There is always something going on on a homestead or backyard farm. As the winter starts to settle in, those tasks and chores are sometimes less obvious. As a writer and homestead information publisher, this is the time of year that I “get down to business” a little more steadily. I try to refocus my time on writing, publishing, and information sharing, which is one of our means of support that carries us through the more active warm weather months. Still, some final gardening and harvesting tasks remained before the coldest temps set in.

Final Garden Harvest 2020

Walking in New England in November

I’m not going to lie. By the time September and October roll around, I’m looking forward to a frost. I don’t publicize that secret wish and it’s not something I say out loud in local circles with friends already whimpering over the snow and cold that lies ahead, but by that time I’m a little tired of weeding, harvesting and tending the garden.

There I said it. And the best way to get out of gardening? A good, hard, killing frost. It seems those frosts come later and later in my area these days, though.

Does this make me a bad backyard farmer? A hypocrite homesteader? An imposter gardener?

I think what it makes me is someone who appreciates the cycle of life and loves a good set of seasons, ready to move into the next season…which will eventually grow old, too, just in time for me to get the itch to garden and tend and grow again next spring.

So what HAS been happening on the homestead this week? Final garden harvesting, digging some herbs to grow inside this winter, working on an Elderberry Tea book, submitting my first article as a contributing blogger to Mother Earth News (waiting for a link to share!), and saying “Thanks” and goodbye to the veal–humanely raised, not in confinement, respected, well-treated, and appreciated. Today, though, it was time to see him off. Raising veal is one way to maximize the use of our homestead dairy cows and their milk and to affordably, healthfully, feed the family. (More on raising veal in another post.) Questions and respectful comments welcome, but abusive, rude comments will not be approved.

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Happenings on the Homestead

Just lately it’s occurred to me that while information-sharing is certainly at the heart of homestead blogging and publishing, we might perhaps be overlooking some of the smaller daily doings of the backyard farm and homestead.

A Look in the Homesteading Mirror

Home on the Homestead

This came to me while in the garden this late summer and early fall, looking around at the produce and projects in their various stages of completion. I think it came as more of an awareness in large part due to new membership in a number of online forums (mainly Facebook groups).

I think this was particularly true because this year with COVID and growing concerns over food security, with people with more time and inclination for reviving “Victory Gardens” and so many newcomers reaching out for help with first-time growing and gardening; many of us more seasoned homesteaders had a bit of a mirror shined upon ourselves and our daily lives.

Questions and answers that might have seemed obvious and unworthy of discussion are proving on these forums, more and more, to be very much a topic of interest to these “newbies” but also just in conversation amongst ourselves. This in turn led me to think that maybe there is a place for the more, dare I call it mundane, but more appropriately call it commonplace, chores, tasks, functions, and productions of the self-sufficient leaning homestead and small farm.

Let’s See Homesteading for What It Really Is

Maybe, just maybe, every single post doesn’t have to be so involved. Maybe not all posts have to teach or instruct. Maybe quick posts that give more of a glimpse into the everyday can do just as much to help people sort out their options and see what plans and projects might work for them on their farm. Maybe they’ll just be a bit of fun, but maybe they’ll help others actually see more of what life on a modern “homestead” looks like.

I’ll call these posts “Homestead Happenings.”

It’s pretty likely these will be, in large part, collections of pictures with not as many words (something I’m sure plenty of people might even appreciate!). Sort of Instagram for the website, archived and available.

Show and Tell #HomesteadHappenings

I invite you to scroll through, take from these posts what you will, and even send me links to your own version of Homestead Happenings, so we might all see what each other are doing and what great ideas (or even just good old-fashioned basic ones) are out there. Certainly, if you see a picture or subject that intrigues you, that you’d like to hear more about, leave me a comment or send me an email. Maybe some of your interests will grow into more in-depth posts on topics that prove to be of interest.
In this spirit, I leave you now with some of the most recent pictures from around the homestead and kitchen.

Late summer and fall are great times to be on a homestead in New England!