This post is a continuation of a catching-up post. It had been a long time since I posted an update, so I wanted to get everyone caught up! The previous post ended at the end of March.

April 2023

April began with someone’s big birthday!

I can’t believe it, I turned 40! Sometimes I still feel like I’m 16 and other times my body reminds me that I’m far from it 😃 I had a very special visitor for my birthday. Mom flew out to help us celebrate!

Josh asked what I wanted for my birthday, and I said “A chocolate cake with chocolate frosting from Janet’s Cakery”! They play commercials on the morning news and their cakes and cookies always look so delicious!

After my birthday, we took another trip to San Antonio. We’ve visited pretty much all of the museums here in Corpus, but there are a few in San Antonio we hadn’t been to yet. We decided to check out the Briscoe Western Art Museum. This museum was so fun! It was like an art museum but also a history museum. There were sure some beautiful pieces there.

It’s kind of a tradition that every time Mom comes for a visit, we make pizza for dinner! I had just purchased a pizza stone, and I was so excited to use it.

I have to say, the pizza was good (it’s kind of hard to find bad homemade pizza!), but I prefer pizza in my cast iron skillet. I like the crispy crust.

When our house was built, the original owners decided to make a carport instead of a garage. You might remember Josh built some beautiful front doors for the garage-port. He also put up 6-foot fence slats on the inside rear wall. We were having some trouble with water coming in through the back side when it rained a lot. Josh decided it would be best to install taller fence slats on the rear side, to help keep the rain and wind out. He stained the slats brown to match the trim. It looks so nice, and made a big difference in the temperature in the garage!

These pugs, y’all. They are a never-ending source of entertainment! Howdee is my little man, and Penelopee is certainly Daddy’s girl. Lucee splits her time evenly with us both. She just loves to be loved!

Frostee and Ranger are doing great. They are excellent protectors of their livestock and us.

Frostee loves to come up behind me while I’m feeding them, walk through my legs and sit down 😁

May 2023

Life started to slow down a bit in May. We didn’t have any major projects going on, but little did we know that by the end of the month, we’d have a BIG project!

Our neighbors, Gaye and Byron, own a 200-acre ranch about 30 miles away from us. They invited us to go visit and drive around the property. (It’s for sale if anyone is interested!) Have you ever been to a place that makes you stop and admire what an artist God is? Their ranch features a serene lake surrounded by lush greenery, and an old, rustic stagecoach stop! I think the whole time we drove around the property, my eyes were open in complete awe. Gaye said there are parts of the ranch that they have not even discovered yet. The trees and bushes are so thick, they had to clear a path to drive around in the property. Here are just a few of the photos we took.

We had such a wonderful day, and hope to go back before the ranch sells!

We were glad we went to the ranch when we did, because that next weekend, we had a little bit of rain …

Rain always brings turtles out. Usually we see them in the road. If it’s safe, we pull over and help them to the side of the road so they don’t get hit. This day, we found one in the driveway so we helped him to the pond next door.

June 2023

June started out with a HUGE surprise from Josh. We have been discussing purchasing a freeze dryer for a long time. It is a large investment, but one that can pay for itself quickly. A lot of the homesteaders we watch on YouTube have freeze dryers that they use to preserve their harvest long-term. While we’re not quite yet at the garden level to need to preserve a large amount of food, having some long-term storage food is not a bad idea. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not “preppers”. But there is nothing wrong with having a back-up plan in the case of a job loss, or another pandemic situation. I’ve already been canning for about a year now, but home canned goods are only shelf-stable for a year or two. Freeze-dried foods can last 25 years or longer if properly stored in mylar bags! All that to say, Josh surprised me with a freeze dryer! I had no idea he was going to purchase one, until he pulled in the driveway and asked me to come help him with something. When he opened the truck door, I was speechless!

I could not wait to freeze dry ALL THE THINGS! We’d been buying freeze dried fruit from the store for a few months, and knew what we liked and didn’t like. The first run, I made sliced apples. Half with cinnamon and half without. The second run was watermelon, which we had not yet tried. I loved the watermelon, Josh did not. A whole watermelon freeze-dried is a lot of watermelon for one lady to eat 😂 Instead of using the mylar bags to store it, I just rehydrated it and the chickens enjoyed it all summer!

Since this first run, I have freeze dried a lot of things for us. Shredded cucumber that I use to make tzatziki, shredded carrots that I use to make carrot cake, whole dinners, raw eggs (yes even raw eggs can be freeze-dried!), and all kinds of fruit that we snacked on all summer! If you are on the fence about purchasing a freeze dryer, I highly recommend it!

We have not added any new animals to the ranch in a while. We had talked about adding guinea fowl to our flock. Many ranchers call guinea fowl natural tick repellant. Guineas love to eat ticks and other bugs. They are also great protectors for your chicken flock. They alert when they see a predator, they will also attack snakes and other rodents. We had not come across anyone selling keets (baby guineas) until one day, driving down the road, we saw a sign. Literally, a woman holding a sign that said “KEETS” 😁 Well guess what, y’all…

The guineas will stay in their own coop for a few weeks. They will free range around the property, but need to know where home is. Unlike the chickens, they are very strong flyers. They love to be up high, and you will often find them up in trees or on your roof! It’s important to keep them cooped up for about 6-8 weeks when you bring them home. They all look exactly the same, so they won’t have names. Just “the guineas” 😄

We have had this Bolens riding lawn mower for years. Every few months, it breaks down on us, but we just can’t give up on it! The fixes are usually pretty simple, so at this point, it still makes sense to fix it instead of purchasing a new one. Since mowing season was getting underway, Josh pulled out the Bolens to give it a tune-up … “Tim the Tool Man Taylor” style!

It was way past time for the pugs to get a bath. They don’t mind them once they get in the water. Someday soon, we’re going to take them to the ocean. I think Howdee will love it, he loves the water!

June also brought another exciting purchase for our family. When we first bought our property, both lots next to us were vacant. A little over a year ago, the lot to the west of us was purchased and a family built a home on it. They are a very nice family, and we are blessed to have them as neighbors! But the lot on the east side of us was still vacant. We really wanted to purchase that plot of land so we could preserve it as open space, and not have a neighbor right next to us on both sides. That’s why we moved out here, to have space to live! We had never seen anyone at the property to mow or maintain it. Other neighbors mentioned that it changed hands several times over the years, but no one ever really took care of it. We tracked down the current owners and reached out to a realtor. We prayed that they owners would be willing to sell. Guess what, y’all? WE BOUGHT IT!

Josh had already started clearing some of the branches and brush in preparation for this day, but as soon as the paperwork was final, he set to work. It took him about two days to get the property cleaned up. The summer was already scorching, we knew it wasn’t safe to burn branches. We hired a local man who had a machine called a forestry mulcher to crush up all the branches so we didn’t have to wait for them to break down.

You would think that with all of the brush and overgrowth on the new property that Josh would see a bunch of snakes, rats, etc. but he didn’t! He said he only saw one rat the whole time he was working there. We were pretty much finished trimming up the property and I was out talking to Josh during my lunch break. I turned to go back inside, and guess what I saw curled up next to the foundation of our garage… a poisonous Coral snake! Josh taught me a rhyme to be able to identify if it is a Coral snake or a similar-looking King snake: “Red on yellow, kill a fellow. Red on black, friend of Jack”. This means if the bands on the snake have red next to yellow, you better run! Or in Josh’s case, get the snake grabber 😂

Once the land was cleared, it was on to the next project. An extension to the chicken coop for the guineas!

The guineas are getting so big! Won’t be long before they can free range in the yard.

You’ll remember I mentioned earlier about Gaye and Byron selling their ranch? They brought their cattle and donkey to live on their property here, so we got to go visit them! Gaye needed help moving a big round bale of hay to the pasture for them to eat (it’s been so hot and dry here, there is no grass for any of the animals to graze). So Josh and I went over there and I took photos while Josh drove the tractor!

We’ve been enjoying spending time clearing the land on our new property. It is so beautiful, Josh has really done a lot of work to clean it up. The property has a very small pond that someone along the line dug out. It’s just a small little area where the ground has been pushed up to make a little walkway, and when it rains, the property drains to that spot. Usually there is water there for a few weeks after a good rain. We were over near the water one day when we saw some movement…

Good news was, that snake stayed as far away from us as we did from it. While I don’t love snakes, they are beneficial in some ways. And this guy was harmless and far from the house so we just admired his swimming skills 😊

Y’all, it has been so hot here. I know a lot of the US saw incredible heat, and many places broke records. This is what we were dealing with, heat and humidity combined for a heat index most days over 100 degrees.

Is it too early to hope for Fall?!

I’ll close out June with some photos of amazing sunsets, and a video of the sheep eating hay. Something about it is just so calming…

July 2023

July is our favorite month! It always starts out with a bang on the 4th of July!

We usually like to stay home for the 4th and throw something on the smoker. This year, we did a rack of beef ribs, and let me tell you – they were my FAVORITE! We love to watch the fireworks on TV so we don’t have to drive anywhere to see them. Poor Frostee HATES fireworks 😢. She runs all over the paddock with her tail between her legs. It is so heartbreaking to watch. We thought it would get better with Ranger with her, but it hasn’t. Unfortunately, we all know that fireworks are not just on July 4th. Especially down here. South Texans love their fireworks. There are fireworks stands all over the city. They open for July 4th and also for New Year’s Eve. Some of the fireworks stands are bigger than our little grocery store in town! 

There is a small pug community on Twitter that we are part of. One of the participants is a graphic artist and runs an Etsy shop selling pug art, clothing, etc. (You can find her shop here!) For the 4th of July, she was offering her services to create a 4th of July-themed digital portrait of your pugs for a small fee. We had her make one of the pugs, it came out so cute!

I’ve been loving using my new freeze dryer! I’ve freeze-dried all kinds of things, mostly fruit for us to snack on. I started branching out and trying new items. When freeze-drying, you want to make sure you don’t mix items that might impose their scent on another item. For example, you probably don’t want to freeze dry apples with onions or garlic. 

I love to make greek marinated chicken with homemade Tzatziki sauce and flatbread. But it never fails, that craving hits and I don’t have any cucumber. This is no longer an issue! Just rehydrate my cucumber for a few hours and voila! Tzatziki on demand. We haven’t tried the avocado yet, but from what I hear, it’s perfect for guacamole!

We love to watch the show “On Patrol: Live” on the Reelz channel. It is on every Friday and Saturday night. The show follows law enforcement in several different cities as they go through their shift. We enjoy following along on Twitter to see what people are talking about relating to the different stops. Howdee and Penelopee love to watch with us! They will stare at the screen, and pay super close attention when the sirens start going 😁 I posted this photo of them to Twitter…

and they were chosen as “Canine of the Night!”

What did we win, you ask? BRAGGING RIGHTS! 😂

One afternoon, when going out for the evening feeding, Josh noticed something on the ground. Once we got closer, we discovered that it was a little baby bird!

We looked up in the tree that it was laying under, and sure enough, there was a nest. The nest was precariously perched on a super thin branch. Mama sure did not go to engineering school before building her nest. We could not get up to the nest, so we left baby on the ground, knowing Mama was probably pretty close and watching us. The next day, our baby bird had a sibling next to him. We wanted to help Mama out, and wanted to make sure the babies were safe. So we pulled our wagon over to the tree, and put some hay in it to make a nest.

We researched and discovered that these babies are Ring-Necked Doves. We watched them grow and wander around their temporary home for about a week. When Mama would see us walk out the back door, she would take off and watch from one of our light poles in the pasture. Far enough that she felt safe, but close enough to keep an eye on the babes. We started researching dove habitats because we wanted to help avoid babies falling out of the nest if we could. We found a few photos, and the next thing I knew, Josh had built a shelter for them! We put it in the wagon, and would hang it in the tree once they moved on.

After about 10 days, Josh picked up one of the babies, and she opened up her wings and took off! The next day, the other baby did the same thing. It was such a special moment for us. We saw the babies on the fence for the next couple days, but then they moved on to find their own mates and lay their own babies.

We celebrated Josh’s birthday by going to a few estate sales, and I made dinner for us at home, along with a carrot cake from scratch (Josh’s favorite!).

That brings us to the end of July… the heat of the summer keeps us indoors most of the time – so I will end here, and pick back up in our next post starting with Fall of 2023. Thanks y’all, as always, for riding along this crazy, fun, happy, emotional ranching life with us! We are blessed to have your support. Until next time!