Merry Christmas

The Eve of Christmas was spent making homemade Pierogies for dinner ( and dog treats for our furry family member). We had a lovely meal of our pasture raised Pork, Homegrown home fermented Sauerkraut and homemade Pierogies.
Christmas took place outside for a good portion of the day. Hot Cider and Butternut squash and sausage soup warmed on the fire filled our bellies.
Our hearts are full <3 br="">Merry Christmas from our Homestead , to you and yours 

Don't Grow up... yet

Please, don't grow up,, Miss Norah Jane,, I see it, It morphs from from day to day, a shape shifter of child, young lady and (gulp) a short glimpse into preteen at times...Sometimes I see the grown up Norah more than I am ready for, but then the Little Norah sneaks back and takes precedence, and I exhale.  because I get: ONE more day of little Norah Jane....
Almost 11 yrs old ( well not until May 1) and still attached to stuffed animals and pretend play, decking out your Tree house landscape, catching critters around the homestead,  and just hanging out with the chickens.  An imagination  that is 10 fold what mine was at this age.
Growing up Alone, in the forest, with no siblings is an attribute to such an imagination  You have a naive nature that I hope you carry with you a bit longer, because kids grow up too fast.
I hope I can remember the 10 year old Norah 30 yrs from now.. I take pictures, I blog, but I hope whats in my heart is how I remember you  best...

In A nutshell

I am surprised I don't have more posts with this title, as I always feel that time gets away and I'm posting about whats going on , on the farm and homestead........... In a nutshell!

I found a moment of peace this a.m. My husband took my daughter to music camp , its quiet and I have my coffee,, a good time to sit , reflect and tell ya'll ( well as much as I can , there has been a LOT going on) what we have been up to!

GARDENS

They are more on the Jungle side of things now, or alteast getting there, but they sure were beautiful at one point , this is one of 4 gardens.....


THE BOUNTY

 A few photos of our Daily Harvests

THE FARM

its been a BUSY 4-5 months, we just pulled our Summer Honey ( about 1000 lbs) once that is extracted and in buckets, it will be time to get the girls ready for winter..
Here are a few photos from this Bee season.

COUSINS~
My Niece Collette Came down for a week. Norah and her had an amazing time!  From creek swimming To fort Building ~ Tree house redecorating to raiding the candy counter at the General store, :) I miss her already and sure hopes she visits again soon!

THE PIGS
Saying Goodbye To Bob and Terry was tough to say the least... We now  have a freezer full of meat to get us through winter and for that I am super Thankful... We will process 25 more chickens before winter and I still have a lot of garden Bounty to put up. We will be eating good this winter .


  So that's our summer In a Nutshell................................................



Blessings
The Cool Family

Snowed In

Hoping that snow is insulating our sweet honey bees

 Our road

Bob and Terry, our pigs, eating and then heading back in to the shelter, they aren't fans of the snow

Homemade pizza outta the woodstove, yes please

Sled, eat , repeat. Oh and bring some more wood in, haha..



Mother Nature snowed us in starting Friday evening,, Here we are Tuesday, and our roads are still a mess.. Getting out of here is a long haul in good weather, so you can imagine what 7" of snow will do..

Its been a wonderful 3-4 days.. Full of sledding, eating, baking, laughing, and spending time together.. yeah we are getting a little stir crazy, but a good walk in the woods can fix that right up ;)

There is something amazing about these moments in winter. We work so hard all spring and summer to grow our food, preserve our bounty, split wood, so we can enjoy the feeling complete self reliance.. we supply our own power, heat, water, and food...its a comfort worth all the work it takes to get to that point..
Go ahead snow us in for a couple weeks....,  KIDDING! haha,, no thank you.. It sure has been beautiful, but there is a reason I am living a wee bit south of where I used to live....

We are supposed to warm up quite a bit and get rain, which means the first 12 miles of my commute out of here will be 12 miles of MUD,, fun stuff.....

So for now we are snuggled by the woodstove enjoying the snowy view from inside....


Blessings
The Cools

Exhaling and updating

Well after an insanely busy summer, we are at the Beach for a week of R & R.. I am so sorry I haven't blogged, but Ive been exhausted at the end of each day at the homestead, I just didn't have it in me...
So here I am ocean view, coffee in hand, and ready to tell you a bit about the last 2 months?!?!? wow it has been a while since Ive blogged. I cant believe fall is almost here!


Farm Tour  

So this year we were part of the High Country Farm tour put on by Blue Ridge woman in Agriculture. An amazing organization that is dedicated to strengthening the High Country's local food system by supporting women and their families with resources, education, and skills related to sustainable food and agriculture.

 

Every year they put on a farm tour for a number of counties. You pay around 20.00 a carload, map out the farms you want to see in that county, and then drive from farm to farm for a tour. Its pretty cool..

We had so much fun doing the farm tour and had a really great turn out!! I couldnt find the pictures of the actual tour in my files, but here are some photos of us getting ready and making sure everything looks nice ;)



Summer Honey Harvest

Expectation for our summer flow were low. After a very rainy spring, which started out nice, but turned into a 2 week cold and rainy event, which killed our Spring Honey flow ( the bees stayed inside and ate the spring honey they had brought in, since they weren't able to go out and forage), we braced ourselves for a similar event for summer. We figured this year would just be a bad year for honey and we would except the disappointment with bigger hopes for next year.
We were WRONG! We endep up pulling aroun 1000 POUNDS!!! a far far cry from our anticipated disappointment! the honey a floweth! I am so happy for My husband most of all, who worked endlessly in the beeyard making this happen. ( yes assistance in the bee yard increases honey flow) and bringing us from  a horrible loss of around 30 hives (back down to 35 hives coming into the spring from 65 hives going into last fall) and bringing our fall hive count to around 85 as of right now.


How does your garden grow??

 

 

 

Bountiful INDEED! I was a bit worried about our tomatoes this year. Many of of my plants fell over ( and they were extremely tall, things get tall here in the holler). While i did have some staked, I never got around to staking all of them with the tall stakes they needed . Add a pretty bad storm with a 65 mph gust of wind and you can guess what happened..
But the bounty was incredible, I put up around 10 quarts of tomatoes, and about 42 pints of salsa.. The canning will resume when i get home. :)


Coffeys General Store

 

 

SO as many of you know that follow my blog, we recently purchased a 120 year old General store in the middle of the Pisgah National forest. And while its 12 Miles of gravel in any directions to arrive at this destination, our first month open has been a success!
The store is located in Edgemont a sleepy isolated town with about 8-10 full time residents. Located In the Grandfather District of the Pisgah National Forest and right Wilson Creek ( a designated Wild and Scenic River). Our cliental include but are not limited too, Kayakers, campers, hikers, swimmers , and old timers that just want to comeback and reminisce.  Its a weekend Gig! so works perfect with our homesteading life! I will have time to keep up on the gardens, housework, bottling and labeling of honey, etc..
My daughter has had a rough summer >insert sarcasm here< swimming in the creek, eating icecream, and even busking/ playing here fiddle to support her icecream habit.

We are on our last day at the beach. Every year this is a much needed week for us. Could we go without it? sure.. but a recharge is always nice.. When we get home this week, we  will be extracting honey,, canning more bounty, planting our fall garden, feeding some of our hives, doing a full inspection, starting to split a entire seasons worth of firewood ( yeah we are really behind), and getting back into the groove of Homestead life...

I hope everyone has had an amazing summer!!!

The cool Family