We are slowly looking at downsizing the Florida House to prepare it for sale, which means that the number of animals we keep needs to be reduced. The number of turkeys we have is much higher than it needs to be. I remember the day we bought the first turkeys and they told us they…
At the end of March the greenhouse was getting pretty hot during the day in Florida. We cut the side of the visqueen and rolled it on a piece of PVC to make a large window. To help with the heat, we put screen in the opening to keep critters out. We could tell that…
We had given my daughter, Kaitlyn Soroka a baby turkey to go with her new laying hens chicks. Snowflake, their Royal Palm hen was really getting the hang of her wings. She was getting braver by the day to explore her territory, including the roof of their house. Time to do a little wing trimming…
Ohhhh what a day today was… Philip has been looking for months, trying to justify the purchase of a tractor since we are not full time on the homestead. We’d go back and forth regarding the timing of such an expensive purchase. However, the time had finally come that we had to purchase a tractor…
On our first walk through the new property, I spotted what looked like a rock water slide. We were on a mission, so I didn’t take time to explore the area, but I made a point to come back to see exactly what the rock was. The trail is behind the waterfall in the image…
It’s been about a month since the greenhouse was started, so time for us to share a greenhouse update. The interior bed design is still under construction and additional beds have been added. Since the walls are in place, each bucket full of dirt is hand carried in and dumped. The planting continues. Both Philip…
The spring is an exciting time at the Florida House. Of course in Florida, we get a head start on spring! While the rest of the world is dreaming about warm days, we are well into the tasks of spring time on the homestead. Our granddaughter, Addison, spent some time helping me with chores. It…
Everything we do at the Florida House is a chance to experiment with techniques without the consequences of self sufficient living. Here if we try something and it’s not successful we have the resources around us that we can have food from another source. The goal of self sufficient living is that eventually everything we…
We celebrated Thanksgiving early with Eric Kowalski and Jess Tidwell, Philip’s son and daughter-in-law as well as our neighbors the Duvalls. We brought a very special Thanksgiving guest. Westin wasn’t sure of what to think of the turkey. he liked him much better in the cage rather than when Philip held the bird. The whole…
Butchering day finally arrived for our parent’s pigs. We told them what we were up to so they would be prepared to put a pig in their freezers and they wanted to help with butchering. We worked together to load the pigs nto the trailer to give these piggies a wagon ride to the butchering…
