2020 April A-Z Blogging Challenge Theme Reveal: How to Homestead

   How to Homestead A-Z Theme Reveal 2020

It's been over 4 years since I've posted in my blog. In 2015 we were still starting out as homesteaders in our rented home but in 2016 we moved to our 5/8 acre homestead in an even more rural area.

I am back and so excited to be participating I another A-Z April Challenge! I have wanted to join in every year but something has always stopped me. This year I wont let anything stop me, not even a crashed Macbook. 

   

The Theme for my 2020 April A-Z Challenge is: How to Homestead. 

   It doesnt matter if you live in an apartment in the city or on a 100 acre ranch in the rural mountains. Anyone can homestead.  

 I will share in A-Z form my experiences with homesteading the past 7 years.

Trust me, if I can do it, so can you!

Making Toddler Clothes Last

     

   

             I am a life long, multi generational lover of saving money and DIYing. I especially love to repurpose my kids’ clothing, because they go through clothes at extraordinary rates. And even between the three of them, clothes are rarely left in good enough condition to be passed down. In some cases, by remaking clothing items into something new, I don’t have to spend any money, which I love to do. 

            It’s getting to that time for Lovebug to start potty training. We use disposable diapers. We had cloth for a long time, we used it on and off, mostly during the summer months when I could line dry the diapers. But these were really more of a luxury than a practicality. We pay for water by the usage and properly washing a load of diapers every day or every other day really adds up on the water bill. I finally decided to let go of my stash and I traded 15 SunBaby snap closure, pocket style diapers and 20 flat microfiber inserts for 37 pieces of 2T clothing.

            Everything was in excellent condition; some items still had tags on,  just folded up and grown out of before they could be worn. It was a great deal! The clothes are adorable. Now, winter has come to an end and summer is upon us, so she doesn’t need long sleeve shirts anymore.

If I give them away or sell them, I still need short sleeve shirts for spring and summer. The shirts fit her everywhere except for in the sleeve area. Hey, here’s a thought. Why don’t I just redo the sleeves on her shirts and then they’ll last until she outgrows them? The shirts fit now but they definitely won’t fit next winter.

             

        This long sleeve flower print shirt was absolutely adorable, but the sleeves were a very tight fit right from the start. I simply cut along the seam, creating a cute hemmed edge of the shoulders, with no sleeves at all. Very nice for the warm weather.

 

This flowery shirt was adorable with these blue tights and one of Lovebug’s favorite winter outfits. I trimmed both the sleeves and the pants. 

I cut the sleeves short, folded the edges under and sewed them. I hemmed the now capris with white thread to match the shirt and added lace bows to the sides. I did a second stitch in blue to secure the hem and blend in.

I also paired the blue, white and red capris with her July 4^th outfit and she is going to be absolutely adorable for the 4^th of July.

Now for absolutely no money, I have two adorable summer shirts and a pair of shorts, custom made for Lovebug.

5 Step BBQ Rabbit

Step 1 – Marinade. What you marinade your rabbits in is your choice. I mixed a half can of beer, 1 cup orange juice, 2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce, 2 thinly sliced cloves of garlic and about ¼ chopped green onions. 

I mixed it and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The orange juice helps break down the tissue, tenderizing the meat for grilling, while the beer and Worcestershire adds great flavoring so salts can be left out.

Step 2 – Grill. I put my rabbits on the grill whole to begin with. With only 1 out of 2 pilots lit on the grill, I let the rabbits cook on low, turning every 5 minutes or so, for about 40 minutes, until they were nearly cooked all the way through.

Step 3 – Cut up and section the rabbit. Here is a picture of what it looks like after it’s done. Many people cut up the rabbits before they cook them and when you do it that way it looks like this. I like to let the outside get crispy before I cut it up. The grill also burns off any leftover fur or fuzz, so I don’t bother to remove the skin.

Step 4 – Add sauce and grill until cooked. This takes 10-20 minutes; depending on how well cook the rabbits were when you took them off the grill. Normally I make my own sauce from ketchup, brown sugar, soy sauce and beef broth, but I got a great deal on bottle bbq sauce at the store recently, so this is a thick n spicy sauce from Heinz. It was really good. I put the meat on our Yoshi grill mat on the grill before adding the sauce. Make sure you keep a close eye on the rabbit and keep it on low or the bbq sauce can burn and make your rabbit taste scorched.

Step 5 – Enjoy the fruits of your hard work! Everyone loved the grilled rabbit. It also went great with the grilled squash, onions, tomatoes and peppers that came from our backyard. An entire meal grown and raised on our backyard farm.

New Babies! At Pepperwood Rabbitry

New babies are always cause for celebration! My two does, Iroquis and Partulah, have never let me down when it comes to providing litters with a total of 26 kits born since September 2014.

While Iroquis’ babies (with Hyperion as sire) are predictably albino, grey or brown, Partulah’s litters (sired by Hopi) are more interesting.

Her first litter consisted of 6 white albinos, all of them completely identical, and 1 brown and white Dutch.

 Partulah’s second litter is 8 Dutch kits, all with their own unique patterns, 6 are black and white and 2 are blue-grey and white.

I love new babies and I am super excited about these newest ones! 

People always love the interesting colored rabbits as pets, while I love the solid colors of white, grey or brown for their meat and fur. I already have plans for these new kits and I’m hopeful that they’ll all survive.

Hopefully one or two will be healthy does to keep for breeding, three or four will find forever homes and a few will find their way to our freezer. My hope is that by this time next year I will have 6 does, including my mother doe, two of her daughters and three of her granddaughters.