Honeysuckle Homestead

Welcome to Honeysuckle Homestead.  This is what we have christened our new home. We chose this name because there is a giant honeysuckle vine growing and we added another.  We've moved in and begun some of the changes we wanted to make.  Husband has been working on our

Our piece of heaven

yard and I have been working on the house.  The room that is closest to being completely done is the master bedroom.  We still have work to do, but are in no hurry.  We have been enjoying the solitude and meeting the wonderful people that live near.  We've met so many lovely people.  An older gentleman and his wife came and actually brought us a homemade pecan pie!  It's amazing to experience the positive attitudes and the giving nature of our neighbors.  I hate to admit it, but Husband and I have become a little jaded with humanity because of the experiences we've had.  It is beautiful to finally live somewhere that is an example of what community should be.

Garden area and the apricot trees

In the picture on the right, you can see the fenced in area where we intend to put our garden in the Spring.  We know that we won't be able to have it as plentiful as in prior years, but we have time to work at it, this is our forever place.  The house came with two well established apricot trees.  Hopefully next Spring we will have fun learning all the ways to put up apricots!  We have a major challenge facing our gardening here.  The deer here are beautiful and graceful... and love to eat everything... but the grass.  We want to live in harmony with them, allowing them to wander around without harming them.  Since we want to use raised beds in our garden because the soil here is very rocky,  I've been trying to come up with an idea about how to cover our raised beds so that the deer and rabbits can't get to our food.  When we plant clover around our raised beds, it should take care of the rabbits.  The deer ate a baby scrub oak we had in a pot and one of my strawberry plants as soon as we moved them here, but we learned that they don't eat things near the house, so they are safe and growing back nicely.


In the house we were renting before, we bought and planted trees in the backyard.  Now, being the frugal people we are, we decided to dig up all the trees and take them with us to our new home.  We've found places for them all and things look promising.  We have three apple trees, another apricot, a desert willow, and a white mulberry tree that we've transplanted.  The fruit trees look like they are doing well.  We're praying for the others.  We also transplanted our grape vine, trumpet vine, our honeysuckle, and pieces of the virginia creeper.  We harvested all the quince from the bush at the rental and planted four fruit to try and grow some here.  We dug up our rosebush and planted it, and brought all the flowers that we had planted.  One of our new neighbors grows over 75 different varieties of irises and GAVE us a wheelbarrow full of the rhizomes!  They are planted EVERYWHERE.  We even transplanted some of our cactus because there isn't anything quite like a cactus blossom in the Spring.  The front yard also has two English walnut trees that were almost dead.  We've been giving them some love and right before the season change, they had already gotten new leaves.  Here's hoping they survive the Winter! 

Inside the house, I've painted until I can no longer hold a roller.  We started putting wood laminate flooring in, and we cleaned until our fingers were raw.  I can't wait to share the before and after pictures of the areas we've mostly finished.  It's Winter now so we are coming in early and going to bed early.  We hunker down in blankets and winter clothing.  I'm crocheting blankets for gifts and planning others.  My office/sewing area is still all packed away and I get to start painting it and putting in the floor in December.  There are so many new things and so much work, and we love it.  We have our Christmas decorations up and this place is already home. 

Taken from our front porch-she's very happily standing in our garden area!

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I want goats, sheep, chickens and bees.  We already have a loose connection with someone who will sell us some goats.  We are going to use the Winter to get ready for them.  We've heard that there are mountain lions in our area (our neighbors have seen them), so we have to take that into consideration with animals.  There are also javelina in the area and we've been warned about them as well.  One neighbor walked out to his yard and had a herd of about 20 hanging around.  There are also skunks, raccoons, and an occasional bear.  And, because we have a fish pond in the front yard, we've been warned about predatory birds, including herons.  The closest lake is only about a 6 minute drive away, so we are thinking that we won't have to worry too much about the fish.  This is the beginning of our life adventure.  It seems like everything before now has been in limbo and now we are finally able to do the things we've wanted.  We are homesteaders.  We are beginners.  As we move along our way, I'll share the changes we've made, the things I learn, and all the beautiful and lovely experiences we have at our forever place.

Light and Love,

Amber