Testing, testing…
Welcome to our first OFFICIAL blog!
You are surely in for a treat with this! I can assure you that the few minutes of your day taken out to read this will be greatly encouraging and much appreciated on the other side of the screen. (Yes, a HUGE thank you, from us to you!) Read until the end to meet a very special lady that we know as 'Grandma Roxie'!
Welcome to a crazy week from the Funny Farm Homestead, where the work has been long and the evil beetles are trying to get in every corner of our house. It's always eventful and at least the weather is good. The changing leaves and colors are absolutely gorgeous, whether you accept the fact that Fall is here or not!
Starting off, we’ve got a vendor show on the weekend. That means unprepared chaos and hopefully good sales! Burn ‘n Design is a custom laser engraving business, located right here on the homestead, by me, Lexi! Burn 'n Design specializes in custom products with materials such as wood, leather, metal for jewelry, and more! This will be the 5th show that we have attended (and hopefully the best yet.) For more information about the show and Burn 'n Design, check out Instagram or Facebook!
So, to know our homestead, you have to meet our wonderful creatures that come with us. Chickens are mom's absolute favorite. Most of them are personally named and can be associated with a few special attributes. Our featured chicken: Ethel! Ethel is a Barred Plymouth Rock, which means she is known for her docile and gentle nature, that is as gentle as a chicken can get. Chickens seem to have a lot of tendencies to act like literal dinosaurs. Ethel joined our homestead this year on April 1st, in hopes to remember Speckles. RIP Speckles, you were loved.
Ethel's favorite treat is dried mealworms, but she also enjoys stealing cat food, apples, chips, and wild bird feed. They eat rocks too. Ethel loves treats so much that she shows her adoration to them through tricks, with the cutest chicken jumps one has ever seen. Have you ever had a chicken jump for treats? Yeah, this is our first one too. Ethel will be mentioned quite often throughout the blogs, as she is the sweetest chicken. Stay tuned for more Chicken Adventures: Featuring Ethel.
Now to the lady that I mentioned in the beginning... Grandma Roxie. Yes, we did kindly ask for her permission to be in this, and her response was "Yeah, I guess that's okay. I am a little wacky." To which our reply was "well said, yes, well said." Through the years we have enjoyed many games with her- specifically Scrabble- which had many interruptions to... confirm her cheating. "No, Grandma, those are not the rules." is a common phrase among us. Within that reputation, she claimed that Megan, the youngest grandchild (also my sister) got all of her cheating skills from her. So, we tend to be extra cautious when we begin games of any sorts.
Now the picture I want to paint for you is a great definition of who she is as a person. The story starts at 8am Monday morning. I awaken to the sound of some sort of mower, so I thought. I went to see who was here, sure enough Grandma Roxie's car is in the driveway. Now some worry was present when I realized she had not come in, mixed with the sound of a mower. I soon see Grandma out the living room window with the best working attire I have ever seen, especially on a warm, June morning. Now this outfit... starts with a classic baseball cap, moving to a comfy purple-ish long sleeve. She had vibrant blue gloves that were holding a battery operated, Dewalt, weed Wacker. Yes, this is the noise that I heard. The best part may have been the blue polar bear flannel pajama pants with knee-high camo mud boots, tucked in. Goals? You can decide that one.
Now who doesn't love Grandma Roxie for her unique style and care-free attitude? I can't spoil all of her stories today, so follow along for more... We love you, Grandma, thanks for allowing us to tell your wonderful stories and for weed-wacking!
The next piece I would like to introduce to you is called the Sourdough Segment! Featuring Breaddie Money! He goes by Breaddie. (Cue: 'Take me home tonight' by Eddie Money... He's not actually our favorite; it's for the jokes.) Breaddie, the sourdough starter, has been with us almost a year, arriving at the homestead in October 2024. Now, before this starter came along and changed everything, two years of confident trials and failures were in play.
A phrase we like to use most when 'sourdough-ing' is "It's sourdough so you have to do it different." Sourdough is truly an experiment no matter what you are trying to make. But it's worth it. Our biggest tip is to keep a little extra sourdough discard in the fridge... at all times... for emergency purposes.
It was a fine evening of scatter-brain homesteading, aka mom was trying to do approximately 17 different things, one of which was making bread and feeding Breaddie. Breaddie likes to sleep in the microwave for the best rise, its temperature stays consistent as there is minimal use of the microwave here. So as mom went to start a simple timer on the microwave for task #12, she hit start. 10 seconds later our sourdough starter was radioactively cooked. That, folks, is not the best way to handle your sourdough, in fact it is the best way to slaughter it. This brings us back to the discard in the fridge, which is in this case, very essential. RIP Breaddie pt.1.
Well, that's all for today! Friends, thanks for joining our Homestead Adventures and stay tuned for next week where you will meet Buck, some baking adventures, and surely another Grandma Roxie story!
A huge thank you from our Funny Farm!