Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Homestead”
I’m so excited to share with you Scott’s latest hobby – actually my FAVORITE hobby of his (the other being Single Malt Scotch – bleh). We’ve converted an entire room that’s located right next to his greenhouse into his Mad Scientist Studio. Here’s Scott to tell you about his project! – and towards the end of the post, a review …
I am excited to say we are adding a new section to Steamy Kitchen called Grow! OK, it’s not really a new section, but rather a new sub section under our Homestead heading. It’s focus will be on growing your own food. It’s mission – to inspire you to grow something, anything you might use in your kitchen. It’s an …
Almost exactly a month ago, we ordered 20 fertile duck eggs online and 2 incubators – one for each of the boys’ classrooms. For 27 days, the kids took daily measurements of the eggs (weighing each egg over time), monitored growth through a candler, made sure the eggs were rotated and kept the temperature and humidity in check. Each egg was …
We’re getting excited! Our primary growing season here in Florida is nearly upon us. We are hard at work prepping the raised beds, earthboxes, and updating the aquaponics system. We’ll be sharing what we learned from phase 1 of our aquaponics in an upcoming post as well as introduce you to phase 2. In the mean time, we wanted to …
Each morning, after breakfast and before school, the kids go out and do their morning chores, which includes feeding the chickens, gathering eggs, watering the garden and feeding the ducks. We started out with 2 ridiculously handsome Pekin ducklings and 1 Khaki Campbell duckling but lost one of the Pekin to either an eagle or hawk. We can now tell that Nibbles …
The great thing about living near a farm store is that I no longer need to have baby fowl delivered via postal service. The bad thing about living near a farm store is that I just cannot stay away. Last week, the kids and I snuck over there while Scott was out of town and brought this little guy …
Hi. My name is Duckee Momo. I like to blog. I’m a ridiculously handsome duck. Do you want to read what I wrote? Are you suuuure?……….Okay, I’ll show you! Oh yes, you read that right…..eat mor beef. Beef is yummy. Ducks are not. In addition to blogging, we can do other chores too, like picking kale from the garden. That’s my …
Our 10 hens are happy hens, they faithfully lay around 8 eggs per day and get to eat all the garden veggies they want. There are specific plants that I grow just for them, like my ginormous cabbage that produces leaves as big as a vampire’s appetite. Unfortunately, they also like my delicate lettuce leaves too, so we haven’t had …
The most asked question about aquaponics is “What is aquaponics?” But a close runner up and usually follows the answer to the first by about 2.362518 seconds is “Why aquaponics?” While the question does offer the opportunity for one to climb on the soap box and wax endlessly about the challenges and irresponsibilities of the modern agricultural industry complex, I …
“You want to build what? An Aquaponics system? Sure. Go ahead. What is an aquaponics system?” You see that’s what I love about Jaden. She is a totally supportive, massive action type of girl. Me on the other hand, I am more of the planning and research type. I will research, double check, learn as much as I can before …
I’ve learned very important lesson as a mother. It’s how to get my family to do things that they might not want to do. Some may call it manipulation, but I prefer to refer to it as mutually beneficial collaboration. For example, if I want my youngest to take interest in something, all I have to do is to tell …
This summer, our little itty bitty baby chicks that arrived in April began laying eggs. It usually takes about 6 months before chickadees develop into egg-layers, and like an impatient mother, I kept looking in the coop twice a day to check if my babies were growing right. Well, grow they did! And fast, too – these kids spend most …