Chit Chat: Embracing Challenges For A Better Future

Life at home has been a wild ride and we have a lot of choices to make. Life tends to throw us all curve balls but in the end, it is how you handle them that says the most about you. this past week has been crazy and we are looking to make the best of what we have. My husband’s Harley-Davidson was stolen this week. Being the only currently running vehicle we have due to a break line on the suburban we have been relying heavily on my sister’s help.

How you handle struggles like this says a lot about who you are. We have been searching for the motorcycle but as you know the chances of finding it are not the best. We sat down and decided that we wanted to pay cash for a new bike rather than taking out a loan like most people suggested. This will mean a lot of extra work for us is to take in an extra income because with the current prices of everything our current income is all tied up in well… survival.

I applied to work with my sister so I can bring in that extra income seeing it is easier to work around my schedule than it is for my husband to try and fit a 2nd job into his schedule. Is it ideal to work outside of the house while I run my own business, homeschool my kids, and run a small urban homestead? No. Am I up for the challenge and excited to see what I can build on the homestead with the added income after the bike is replaced? 100% YES! Just pass the coffee.

Today I spent the day working in the garden to help make the most of the nice cool upper 70s day. We weeding the garden cut the grass and harvested a variety of peppers, green beans and a couple of cucumbers the kids enjoyed as a snack. I have pretty much given up on the carrots for the year. The bed I put them in is clearly not right for them and well… baby carrots for a snack is all we have gotten so far this year. I’ll just be grateful we got anything and call it that. Next year they will go into a raised bed. Because growing carrots is generally easier in raised beds.

The tomatoes on the other hand are thriving to the point I had to reenforce the Florida trellis with more poles because they are so heavy with fruit. The neighbors are of course just as excited as we are for a large harvest of tomatoes soon. I started processing down tomatoes from the deep freezer to make room for the new coming harvest. Freezing tomatoes makes them easier to peel for easier tomato preservation. For this batch, I will be canning tomatoes into tomato paste.

I harvested a ton of golden rod today to make a tincture for winter.