Bizarre Homestead Losses

Recently we had our first harvest of the 2024 growing season. It was about a month earlier than usual, thanks to our greenhouses! This was a win, and we harvested spinach, bok choy, and radishes. We have had some tough and kind of bizarre homestead losses this spring too though, which has been rough. One of the losses was the lovely plants I started back in February. I didn’t lose them in the usual ways people lose plants either. I lost them in the craziest, most unusual accident. It was the kind of thing you just can’t see coming. You can learn all about it in today’s video, which by the way includes some meal ideas.

Bizarre Homestead Losses

Okay, so I know that homestead losses are just part of the nature of this game.

It’s not like this is my first homestead loss, or our first homestead loss. I remember my first tough homestead loss. I was in my early 20’s, my step dad had passed away. It was just my mom, brother and I, and we were broke!

I decided it would be smart to raise some of our own chickens one year, so I picked up about 10 dual purpose chickens. It was not my first experience with raising chickens, when I was a child my family had layers and would also raise some dual purpose birds to butcher every spring.

I was excited to revive a tradition from my childhood. I fashioned a pen that I thought would be sufficient, and it was for holding them in! Not so much for keeping predators out.

After weeks of tending to these birds, buying their feed, watering them daily and all the things, I started losing one or two a night! I don’t remember if it was bob cat or a raccoon, it’s been too many years ago, but I ended up calling the neighbor over to help me butcher them early just so we would be sure to have some. I think there were only five or six left, and they were still a couple weeks out from being truly ready to butcher so they were so small! It was so disappointing!

It was not as disappointing as the homestead losses I had in the midwest though. We had so many homestead losses there, that I eventually took my big, Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia of Country Living that had been a gift from good friends in my teen years, and I bitterly put it in the donation pile thinking it was never going to work out for us.

Well, you know what they say. Never say never.

There are some losses in life that are irreplaceable, and that we will not understand the reason for until we meet the Lord. But I’ve learned that there are other losses that happen because God has something so much bigger and better waiting on the horizon. We cannot see them though until we look up, and step out in faith.

The key is to consistently communicate with the Heavenly Father, and to have faith that He cares for you. It’s easier said than done if you’ve never been good at this, which is why it is something you have to practice. It is a journey lesson worth working toward learning though.

Isaiah 40:8 “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord lasts forever.”

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding.”

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