The weather this week has been amazing. The sunshine and the warmth have made the earth come alive. The moisture that is expected next week will make the grass sing. On the Homestead, We will finish our Chicken House renovation. Post coming soon. I will give you all a complete tour. We also got our turkey chicks. I purchased six. We sadly lost one. It was only part of our homestead for 12 hours but I hate losing livestock. I always feel it was by some fault of my own. One tends to forget that homesteading is not all roses and sunshine. Ebony’s teat is improving. Now that her little cuties are 4 weeks old, I have started our full kid share milking system. For the first  week after kidding, I usually milk twice a day without holding or separating the kids from mom. This helps build her milk supply. Once the kids start to take all the milk and I can’t get anything extra when I milk.I hold the kids for 4 hours a day and milk once a day. I go out, around noon and separate mom from her kids then go out around 4 p.m. milk mom and put her back with her kids. This gives mom and babies an understanding of what is to come. Then once the kids are four weeks old, I hold them over night for no more than 12 hours and milk in the morning. Mom then spends the day with them. I will continue this pattern until I wean the kids. This could be for a month to two months, it all depends on the doe and if she begins to lose condition. Last time I freshened Ebony I weaned her kids at 3 months and she continued to produce milk for the house for another 11 months. I dried her off just before breeding season.

In the garden, we got the Market Garden Area rototilled and I added three more beds. I started all my flower and herb seeds. I don’t have much knowledge when it comes to starting herbs so this will be a learning as I go experience . I plan on taking lots of notes and sharing them all with you. We plan to add them to our grape berms to grow under our trellised grapes.

In our homeschool, this week was exam week. In the last week of our three 12 week terms. I give each of our boys exams. It lets me have an over view of what worked and what didn’t. It also shows me where my kids have excelled and where they need help. I do not grade these exams they are just for my records. I feel an exam is not to show if your child is right or wrong, as all my questions are open ended, but instead gives my boys a chance to share with me and my husband all they have learned and loved best. As Charlotte Mason would say, “Look on education as something between the child’s soul and God. Modern Education tends to look on it as something between the child’s brain and the standardized test.” My job as my boys teacher is to introduce them to God and to the books who are their true teachers and not to limit the feast to just a few subjects but to give them the world as their textbook.

In the kitchen, we tried Irish Soda Bread for the first time. I changed up the recipe so I could make them into Hamburger Buns. I got out our smallest turkey for our small Easter Sunday Dinner. It still 20# but I guess we will have lots of leftovers. I do miss our family not getting together to celebrate our God.

Lord, God heal our nation, in your hands I lay the sick, bring us back to together, O Lord,  In Your name I pray, Jesus Christ, Amen!

Pray, Just Plant!