June already?!

I absolutely cannot believe that half of the year is already gone!  Seems like it was too fast and I am excited and nervous about what lay ahead in this year.  We are selling our home, as soon as the renos are complete it goes up for sale, and hopefully it sells super fast.  We are moving an hour north so we can buy land and start a little homestead.  We are going to have to rent a home for a while because we would like to build without a mortgage.  
Anywat , here is some of our everyday stuff here in Ontario.

 This is our vegetable and herb gardens.  I have three types of lettuce, herbs, four types of tomatoes, a pumpkin plant, zucchini, cucs, peas and beans... and raspberries.

I bought this rhubarb at the farmers market.  Wasnt sure what I was going to do with it then, found this DELISH recipe on http://www.jennifermurch.com/2008/10/jigging-for-cake.html   This coffee cake is moist and a perfect blend of cake and fruit... worth the time.  I did exchange one cup of rhubarb for blueberries  and it was lovely!  (  you should check out Jennifers' blog, she is down to earth and very witty!)

                      This is one of the irises in my garden... I simply love the copper colour :)

Lastly, I treated myself to the hoop pack from  dandelyne.com   I love to stitch and haven't in a long time as I had taught myself to crochet and had been focusing on that.  Well, I was inspired by some amazingly talented ladies on Instagram, and I am going make some Christmas gifts using these nifty little hoops :)

Hope you all have  wonderful week!!

Homesteading Dreams?

When I was a kid my parents moved us from Toronto out to the boonies... I mean serious boonies.  We lived in a farmhouse on a road where all the families shared one phone line.  Do you remember those?  Our ring was two longs and a short.We shared the line for two years before we each got our own line! Anywho, I liked it until I was about 12.. then it seemed so boring and lonely especially in the summer as all my friends lived in a town.We didn't have animals, just a dog.  I swore I would never live rurally again!! Nope not going to happen... ok so 8 years ago my husband asked me if I would consider moving to a farm  nearby as the house we lived in was 1000 sq ft and there were 7 of us.  So I prayed about it and I felt that yep we were supposed to move. I was apprehensive but I believed I was doing what God wanted me to do , so I went.

The house was very large and we had about 100 acres... I totally loved the experience but the added expenses of living there made us give it up, and move back into a small town after 18 mns.
While at the farm, I discovered that I had always felt that I was book smart but couldn't really learn how to do outdoorsy things, and that this was a lie.  I was quick to learn how to raise chicks (66 meat and layers) and didn't lose one.  I ventured out into turkeys.. and raised beautiful big turkeys.  I did lots of things that I seriously never thought I would ever do, and all the while was so thankful to be there!!

Since then I have wanted my own little homestead.  I didnt know it was called a homestead, I just wanted a piece of land that was ours, that we could grow whatever animals we wanted to feed out family, and a garden and SPACE!! I want my kids to be able to have animals of their own, to sleep outside, and to learn as much as possible about nature.  They are growing older quite a bit now and they only have a little bit of time before they move on to their own lives.  This time is precious!

In February, I asked my husband why we were waiting to go and pursue our dream?  Biggest reason was money... we have all of our connections for our business here, so what are we going to do for work?  Sigh, this is a true statement... well  we decided that we are going for it!!
I have a homesteading binder that has different ideas I want to try, animals and fowl I want to look into.  I love my binder and learned out keeping one from a youtube sight   https://www.youtube.com/user/dirtpatcheaven.

Well thats why we are renovating like mad, and searching  for properties.  I am looking forward to all the hard work and satisfaction  that comes with it!