Last Month On The Homestead: February 2025

February can be summed up in one word.  Snow.

Yes, more happened than snow but my goodness, we received snow many days, little bits here and there, and it felt like we were constantly shoveling or snow blowing.  How about you?  The ice has been the toughest part for me, but luckily, it's only been an issue the past week or two, not the entire month.  And temps are rising here and there so it should melt soon.  Has it been an icier or snowier winter in your neck of the woods this year?

So here we are.  We try our hardest to continue embracing winter even though it's getting very hard to avoid wishing for spring.  On the bright blue days, delight comes quite easy.  On the harder, drearier days, I try to take my cues from nature.  Like the beautiful cardinal couples who call our property home, and all of the other birds who grace us with their joyful sounds.  The sparkling frozen icicles that adorn our roof line, the bright white piles of snow, and the crisp cold air that makes the warmth of our home feel so much cozier. 

Focusing on the beauty that surrounds us allows me to (most days) feel full of daily blessings.  

In The Kitchen

Through a good portion of the winter, we rely on our preserved food for most of our veggies and some of our fruit.  Between the canned, frozen, dehydrated, and cold storage produce, we do pretty good.  But, by the end of February a lot of our reserves are depleted and I'm usually getting antsy for fresh produce.  While ideally it would come out of our garden, that just can't happen right now.  Mostly because the garden is covered in snow and ice.  

So, last week while we were out running errands I decided to purchase a bunch of fresh produce.  One thing that bothers me about purchasing this is that there is just SO MUCH packaging!  I do try to select what I can that is loose, but this time we ended up buying over half of our grocery haul pre-packaged mostly because we found the best deals at Aldi and Sam's Club.  I couldn't believe how much plastic this left us with.

I cannot wait for gardening season.  How about you?

The photo above is our refrigerator last week after I'd washed and packed everything into the refrigerator.  The blueberries & strawberries will last weeks, the apples and oranges months, and the carrots and some of the greens will last weeks to months as well.  We'll eat the most perishable items (blackberries, raspberries, asparagus) first.  I'm excited to think about summer when our refrigerator will look like this, but the produce will come from our property instead of the store.  Soon!

I don't have to tell you that grocery prices are high.  Like many of you, we are careful with our spending to make our small budget go farther.  We definitely look forward to our homegrown produce loosening it up a little.  During the late spring through fall, we grow most of the produce that we eat, which then allows us to use our grocery money to stock up on pantry items, meat, and basically anything we don't grow.  This allows us to shop our pantry first when planning meals and keeps our grocery budget at or under budget.

The Coop Girls

The girls have begun laying eggs again!  With the ever-increasing daylight hours, it seems we are back to receiving 2-4 eggs each day.  My husband is thrilled.  

Unfortunately, because we have a fair amount of snow and ice, with the temps rising this means that as it melts one section of their outdoor coop is a nice thick layer of mud on days where we are above freezing.  Some days I think they are ducks and not chickens because they insist on walking through the mud.  This then gets stuck in the track on their automatic coop door (which then gets jammed and won't open or close) and gets brought into the nesting boxes where, because they enjoy all using the same nesting box, it gets tracked all over the eggs laid by the chickens before them.  (sigh...)  

It seems to make them happy so that's all that matters.

They are loving the sunshine that we seem to be getting more of now.  This encourages them to spend more time outside which is always a good thing.

 

Jackson

Jack had his annual cardiovascular check-up he is still doing well!  I've mentioned before, but he has heart disease (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) and is on medication for the rest of his life.  We take him for an annual check-up which includes an echocardiogram and blood pressure reading, to ensure his medication doesn't need to be increased.  We know that eventually it will need to be.  There are risks with his condition including stroke and/or seizures, so even though it's pricey to see his cardiologist annually it's very much worth it.

Typically, Jackson does very well once he's at the vet.  During the ride to and from he's quite vocal, but once we're in the room and he can roam, he is happy as can be.  Purring, rubbing up against anyone in the room, and just generally quite content to have all of the attention.  This time was a bit different.

My husband accompanied us, which he hasn't before, so he got to hear all of the hollering for the 40-minute ride down to the office.  I pre-warned him that if he tried to talk over Jack or turned the music up, he would only get louder.  Apparently, he didn't believe me, so he tried it and sure enough, Jack got louder.  Once we got there and were brought into the room, I told J that Jack will be happy now because he can roam.   And initially he was.  The tech came in, got all of his vitals and spoke with us about how he's been doing and when she left, Jack returned to his crate.  This was very unusual.  

When his doctor came in, he was shocked to see him lying in his crate.  He said "he always greets me at the door, that's why I come in slowly.  Is he doing ok?"  We assured him that all is well, but he seems a bit upset about his appointment this time.  Jack came out of his crate willingly and did fine for the brief exam, but he wasn't his normal full-of-personality self.  Next, he gets taken for an echocardiogram and blood pressure check.  For the past 6 years he has taken it upon himself to make himself quite memorable by purring and loving on his doctor and tech during this.  The only thing he gets mouthy about is the blood pressure cuff because they put it on his tail, but once that's completed, he's back to his loving self.

I told his doctor that it was very likely he may see a different Jack today.  It might be the one that his regular veterinarian gets to see during her exam which he doesn't like, and includes yelling, hissing, spitting and just general irritation.  I also reminded him that Jack does bite from time-to-time.  Not an aggressive bite, but he likes to put his teeth on you and let you know that he could clamp down if he so desired.  He looked at me like I'd lost my mind and assured me he didn't think any of that would happen. 

We waited in the waiting room while his cardiologist performed the remainder of his exam.  When the vet tech brought Jack to us in his carrier, she smiled at me in a way that told me how he acted.  I stood up to grab his carrier and asked, "did it go ok?"  She smiled. "Well, no one got hurt so all went ok.  He's fine and we're fine, so let's call it a success."  "Did you have to break out the cat gloves?" I asked.  She laughed.  "No, no cat gloves.  He was just very vocal.  VERY vocal."  I told J "We're going to hear about this on the way home.  He's going to be shouting all of his grievances." 

When his doctor came out, he was astonished.  "He's usually so happy." he said.  "He always rubs up against us, purrs constantly, and is curious about everything.  But not today.  You were right." I apologized.  He told me there was no need, that he was just very vocal and hissed, but he was still surprised.  His heart looked good and didn't appear to have changed at all, so it ended up being a good appointment, despite Jack's bad attitude.

Poor Jackson.  I did feel bad for him.  How do you get a cat to understand that it's for his own good?  Knock on wood there's no more appointments for him until his annual in the fall.  This will make him (and us) quite happy.

And lastly, you may see that I have put together a free eBook that outlines raising chicks.  If you already subscribe to the email newsletter then you've received this.  If you don't, you can subscribe to get it automatically sent to you.  If you aren't a fan of email subscriptions, no worries, just unsubscribe once you've received it.  I plan to create another one that is full of the egg-free cake recipes I've been sharing.  I thought it would be nice to have them in one document since they are quite popular right now.  I'll let you know when that is ready as well.

That's life on our small homestead for February.  Hoping all is well with you too!