Viruses on Our Off-Grid Homestead

Miserable itchy spots!

We’re back…after nearly two weeks of silence!  All is well in our tiny house on our off-grid homestead, but we’ve been hit with viruses.  My computer was infected at the same time that Evenstar’s computer developed an electrical problem.  That left us Silver Oak’s ancient dinosaur desktop which is slower than pond water, and almost worthless.

We were also hit with the chicken pox virus.  We’ve been blessed with excellent health since moving here over five months ago, but we’re glad to be getting this particular childhood sickness out of the way.  All six of our kiddos have taken their turn the past few weeks, and we are now out of the woods and able to get decent sleep again.  How miserable it was for a while!  We’ve used up lots of lavender (essential oil) and green salve to dull the itches and promote healing to all the blisters.

Attempting to drill a well.

I hope to catch up this week on some of our ventures.  We started drilling our well!  Yes, an actual well!  We’ve lived this long hauling water to pump up to the tanks on the roof, something we did not expect to do, but resources have been very scarce.  Even though we are drilling it ourselves, the plumbing and pump were too expensive to move forward.  We’ve run into snags and since this is a busy time for landscaping it is slow going.  But we’ve started!

We just had a huge answer to prayer receiving our adoption tax refund for which we’ve been hoping and waiting for nearly a year.  It was so exciting I couldn’t help but holler and cry a bit.  At first the children wondered what was wrong, but soon rejoiced when they learned the good news.  Now we can purchase fruit trees, which is what the children requested for Christmas.  They each want their own trees, so we will go “Christmas tree” shopping in April!  And now we can purchase solar panels and save on the monthly fuel bill.  What a blessing!

Yesterday we went on a Sunday afternoon walk together as a family.  It was eight kids (two with four legs), two horses, three dogs, and Silver Oak and I.  Left behind were Buttercup (the cow), some of the goats, the chickens and guineas, Evenstar’s rabbits, and the cat.  We trekked down our lane and then scouted around the front seven or so acres of our property.

The troop heads down the lane

Little Bird rides her answer to prayer (read http://www.livereadynow.com/critter-update/)

There are wildflowers blooming, new gopher tortoise burrows, and lots of sweet smelling palmetto blossoms.  We are so grateful for this wonderful opportunity the Lord has given us to homestead on our own little piece of property.

Stopping for a rest at the front of our property

Visiting the pond

Silver Oak handles Zoe, a new potential guard dog for our livestock and homestead that we are trying out for several weeks

Next I’ll tell you about the adventure we had getting stuck in the sand.

Blessings,