The busy homesteading season is upon us so I thought I'd share a little of how our average days look this time of year.
In the morning Dane and I usually get up about 6am with our 4-year-old.
We'll have coffee and put the oven on to bake sourdough. I will usually also make a batch of cookies, cake or other family snacks to make use of the oven while it's on and conserve time and energy.
Today I made a apple cake using bottled apples from last Autumn.
I also put on the slow cooker with our dinner base (vegetarian cottage pie with home grown veg and lentils)
Dane heads out around now to do the chicken jobs checking waters and food. while I do something with our youngest. She wants to read like her big siblings so right now that could be some phonics songs, reading together or painting.
Before our elder two are awake (they are aged 8 and 10) this morning I have bottled a batch of Tomato sauce and more pickles.
When the elder two wake we spend some time together and they go off to play.
We are eclectic home educators so today will be more homestead focused and they will spend most of the day playing, building things and climbing trees, making art. Tomorrow we will do Maths and music if all goes to plan but today, they will choose what to do and call us if they need us.
At 11am I have a short break to plan seed sowing to do.
Now is the time to get our brassicas in and I am a bit late but life has been busy so better late than never.
My sowing list looks like this.
Brassicas
Beetroot
Silverbeet
Lettuce
Black cohosh
Soapwort
Swede
Siberian motherwort
Florence Fennel
Lettuce
Leek
Penstemon
Small broad bean crop
White sage
Arnica
Panax ginsing
Maca
Mandarin balm
You'll see I have more medicinal herbs in there as I am planning to increase our medicinal herb patch to make seeds more widely available and we have been toying with the idea of expanding into selling plants too, but this will require us to build a nursery so it's still in the idea stage right now.
After sowing seeds then I go around to do a daily harvest with the girls as our eight-year-olds big job today is to clean his room so he's using this time to do that without distractions. I didn't harvest yesterday as I had our stall at the local market so there is a bit to catch up on with lots more cucumbers and tomatoes needing to come in.
While the girls and I are busy doing this Dane is chopping logs up so all our firewood can be stacked and ready for winter.
The sky is looking a bit dreary, and we are really hoping this afternoon it will rain as the tanks are almost dry. We have never in our almost five years here bought water for the tanks and are wondering if this year might be the first. I quickly harvest some dried seed heads of Anise Hyssop and Balm of Gilead.
By the time we come in it's 2pm and it's time for afternoon tea of apple cake and homemade ice cream.
The kids get settled on the couch with plans to listen to a podcast but end up playing a game where they are all in cocooned in doonas. Our eldest has hidden butterfly wings on herself so she can surprise the others with her metamorphosis.
I use this time to prep the rest of the stuff for our dinner, fold washing vacuum and then onto winnowing and cleaning seeds that have finished drying ready to be packed.
We eat dinner around 5pm and our youngest goes to bed about 7pm so I use the hours in between to do a little admin on the website and label products I've made in the days before.
Dane is out now locking the chickens in and giving Whitney our Jersey cow her evening hay.
The kids get the cats in and feed them as we don't have them out at night.
After this is the kids bedtimes and once our youngest is asleep the eldest each get a little one on one time with me and then read mountains of books or draw in their rooms.
Once they are settled Dane and I pack the new season seeds for an hour or two and then we head to bed.
I find it hard to switch off, so I do an evening ritual of taking our sleepy Honey in some warm water apply some sleep balm and once in bed do some evening affirmations and gratitude practices then read a book and make sure I'm asleep by 11pm.
Not every day looks like this sometimes the jobs are different or disasters happen, other times the kids do sit down lessons or projects, or they might go on screens.
It is nice that every day is a bit different and we never get bored. It is hard work and we do get tired and sometimes we even get a but lonely if we've been stuck in our bubble for a while but we do try to balance social life with work particularly for the kids sake.
So I wanted to share a bit of a typical day in the life of a Homestead business for a homeschool family.
I hope you enjoyed it and feel free to ask any questions at anytime.
Anne