It seems that no matter how hard you try or how well you plan, problems do come up from time to time. However, it seems that we keep running into one problem after another. It really does suck, but I guess when things finally work out, hopefully they will be that much better.

We have yet to make the goat pen so they cannot get out. The wind out here is no joke and the fence lines keep getting knocked down. So at the moment Aarron is using the neighbors fence to hold ours and he blocked the goats in so they are not able to get out right now, but they are so rough on things so who knows how long this will really last.

Then the neighbors got a survey done on their property, but their surveyor removed all the markers from our property, which he was not surveying. A survey is costing around $2500 right now and we cannot afford this so we had to find another way to figure out our property lines.

Regrid was perfect for this. It will give the property lines and you can map out your property with it. It will not stand up in a court of law but it will show you where your property lines are. It appears the previous owners of the neighbors property changed all the fence lines and they are no longer correct. However, we were able to find our property corners with Regrid. It is a paid app, but it has a 7 day free trial which is what we used to be able to do this. After the trial, I just canceled the subscription and didn’t have to pay for it. However, it would be a great app to pay for because it’s only $7.99 a month on the Iphone.

So even though problems do come up, there is usually a way to solve them on the cheap. When homesteading, (at least for us) this is an important aspect because we don’t have a lot of money right now. So the cheaper that we can do something the better it is right now.

Are there problems that you are having a hard time solving? Let’s chat about it and maybe come up with a solution that will work for you. Leave a comment below to get the conversation going.

Have a great day!

Renee

I have some exciting news to share! There will be some rebranding going on. I have been doing this blog for almost 10 years and it started out as just mine. As a way to show others that you can slow down in this life and get more out of it at the same time. However, it has come to a point now that it is more about our homestead/ranch and we feel the name and branding needs to change along with that. So over the next weeks, you will see changes to the website and our social media sites to match the new branding that will happen very soon.

We are going to be changing from Home and Loving It to ARF ranch. At first Aarron was a little off put about asking about this, because these are his initials. However, I told him my name also starts with R so instead of his middle name, the R will be me, making the long version of the new name Aarron and Renee Franklin Ranch, or ARF Ranch for short.

I hope everyone is as excited about this as I am! I am so looking forward to this new face for our new start. I look forward to sharing the process with you as we start to change things around here. I will continue to update on our home as we make the changes and I hope that I won’t have to have the website down at all during this transition, but we shall see what happens.

Have a great day!

Renee

Did you know that it is super easy to make your own garlic powder or salt? It really is. It takes about a day to do, but that is only because it takes a while to dehydrate your garlic cloves. There is only about 20 minutes or so of active time. The rest of the time your garlic will be in the dehydrator or in the oven.

The first thing you will need to do is to cut your garlic down into slices. This will allow your oven or dehydrator to work at drying them more effectively. I was told you could do it by just smashing your garlic, but when I tried it that way it took about 2 days for it to dry out completely so for me it makes more sense to slice the cloves down so they don’t take as long in the dehydrator.

Once you have your garlic in slices place them on your dehydrator trays, or on a cookie sheet if you are going to use your oven. I set my dehydrator at 200 degrees for 12 hours and that was pretty good. They were all dry. To check the dryness of the garlic you just try to bend them. If they bend, they need to go in for longer. If they are dry, they will snap.

When it’s dry, you put it in your food processor or blender. I use a nutra bullet to grind mine into powder. You will blend it until it’s all a powder. You don’t want any chunks in it.

It should look about like the picture above when it’s done. Then you just put in your shaker. I saved one the last time I bought and used store bought but since I have been making my own, I haven’t used store bought since.

If you need garlic salt, you add a bit of salt to the powder and mix it in. It’s so very easy to make that store bought is no longer an option for me. I love the way this smells and the way it tastes does not compare to what you buy at the store. I just can’t wait until I can get my garlic growing so that I don’t have to buy that at the store either.

Have a great day!

Renee

First thing I want to say is that I love my husband. He works so very hard for us to have what we need. I love that I can tell him what I need and he can usually make it for me. This is true with the goat pen as well. He finished the goat pen this week and I am in love with it as I would imagine are the goats. They now have about an acre to roam on with trees and weeds and so many other things for them browse as the wish to.

He made the pen from mostly pallets. There are poles in the ground to help keep it sturdy so the goats can’t just knock it down. He used some metal straps to tie the corners together and keep them strong. The gate is a wrought iron pool door that he had here already.

Of course goats will test the strength of any fence and they did this one as well. They couldn’t knock it down, but a funny thing did happen the night we put them in for the first time. I have one goat, Astra, that is always very vocal. Well she was throwing a fit about the new home. After a little while she calmed down and went to bed down (or so I thought).

I go out in the morning to see the goats and how they did in their new home and I only see 4 of the 6. I can’t find Astra and Diamond. Now mind you Diamond and Astra do not get along in the pen. So we go searching the 10 acres looking for these two goats. After about an hour we are heading back to the house when Aarron sees them in the neighbors yard! They are together and they are getting along just beautifully.

They follow me all the way back to the pen with absolutely no issues. However, the moment they are back in the pen, Astra tries to head butt Diamond and they are back to normal. So if you have or ever get goats, just remember they will test your building skills every day. We ended up finding a couple pallets that were missing boards. So Aarron remedied that quite quickly and so far they haven’t been out again yet.

Of course because this is a new pen we still expect a few jail breaks but we will see. They seem to be enjoying the new pen though with all the new area to explore.

Have a great day!

Renee

This week I am going to take a break from the What’s happening posts because it’s very early in the week writing this and not much has been done since I wrote the last post. I’ll return with that one next week to show everyone the new property.

Chicken  feed from the feed store can get pretty expensive quickly if you have more than just a couple chickens so let me give you some tips to help keep that feed bill down. First off, I only feed scratch in the winter time when they need the extra to help with warmth. So this is my first tip, only buy scratch in the winter time. The rest of the year they really don’t need the extra because it’s like a treat to them and they will fill up on that and you egg production could drop because of this.

I know a lot of people will tell you this is wrong and I am only going over what works for me. If someone else tells you they need it, I can tell you that I have not fed scratch other than in the winter for about 6 years now and I have not lost a bird to malnutrition.  The second tip is to feed kitchen scraps. I have given my birds everything from the kitchen from vegetables and fruit to meat. I wouldn’t feed meat all the time, I try to only give meat a couple times a week but 3 or 4 times would be ok too because I have done that. I just wouldn’t do it all the time.

My next tip is to give them everything you take out of the garden. When you trim you plants give them the trimmings. When you weed your garden give them the weeds. While working in your garden, give them any bugs that you remove from your garden. The chickens will absolutely love this. If you are able let them free range for a little while during the day so they can get the bugs in your yard. Just make sure that any plants you don’t want them to get at are protected because otherwise they will find it.

I do not know if these are recommended tips I am only sharing what has been working for me. I don’t lose birds very often and it’s usually from old age rather than anything else. I am just saying this is what I have been doing to keep the food bill down for my chickens. I hope this is helpful for you.

If you have any other tips I would love to hear them. Leave a comment below and let me know!

Have a great day!

Renee

Well we have closed on one house and are working on closing the other now. We should be at our new property in a couple weeks. Would you believe we haven’t even seen it yet? It’s true. We are buying this land on pictures alone. It has a well and electric on property but nothing else. It’s going to be quite the adventure starting from scratch. The closer it gets the more excited I get about it.

As for what is going on here, Aarron is still working on the yard. It’s getting closer though. The goats are still here, which is a little frustrating but I’m dealing. I hope they will be going to stay with friends this week sometime but we shall see. I’m not sure what I’m going to do on my Instagram until we get the goats to new property. My instagram is usually the goats and my blog so it may be a little bare for a couple weeks. We shall see on that one.

It feels like this is taking forever, but it’s really not. It’s a lot for one person though. Thankfully Aarron’s dad has been here most of the time to help him because otherwise it would just be Aarron. I wish we had the money to just pay someone to do the rest of it. It would be so much easier Aarron if we could.

I have say that I absolutely hate moving. We have way to much stuff. We have gotten rid of so much already but there is still so much more to get through. I can’t wait until this is done and my anxiety can calm back down. I have been so anxious the last week that it almost feels like I’m going to pass out most days. I will be glad when this is all over.

I am thankful that we are getting closer to be done. I am thankful that the new property should be closing next week. I am thankful that we are going to be away from this area too. I can’t wait to get back to homesteading posts and how to’s. I hope you will bare with me during this transition stage.

Have a great day!

Renee

So, we are finally closing tomorrow on one property and hopefully closing next week on the other property. I have to say the closer it gets, the more excited I am getting. It’s going to be a new chapter in life and for our little farm. We are going to continue working with our breeding program with the goats so there will be more kid updates later. We are wanting to get pigs again and hopefully work on a breeding program with them as well, but we shall see how that goes later on.

The clean up is going well. We have  two weeks to get everything finished up and it’s looking more and more like it will happen. The back is mostly done other than the goats. They are still in the smaller pens right now which I don’t like, but we have to do what we have to do at this point in time.

All the fences are down and the materials are moved to the front so they can be separated and shipped out to where ever they are going (trash, scrap, new home). Aarron’s Dad has been here helping with this because I don’t know a thing about scrap so it’s mostly his job to get this all done. I have been helping a little where I can but it’s not been much outside. My job has mostly been in the house getting everything packed and ready to go when we get the new place.

There is still quite a bit to do (which is partly why this post is late). But it seems to be coming together now and getting down to mostly what is going to the new house. Once we close on the new property, if it’s the one we are looking at right now, we will have more acreage which will be nice. Where we are now is 1 acre and if the sale of the property goes through we will be on 10 acres. I am so looking forward to this. And it looks like there is only one other house in the near vicinity. So we won’t have nosy neighbors so close to us this time.

I honestly can’t believe it’s taken this long, but there have also been many challenges that my husband has faced through moving all of this. Many tires have blown before during and after drives to town to take scrap. I don’t know how many tires my husband has done by hand to make sure the trips go well. He has been amazing through all  of this. We have been so stressed out and yet he doesn’t take it out on me when he gets mad at something or someone. I wish I could say the same for myself, but we are working through every thing and we will get to the new property as one. I am exited about our next journey.

Have a great day!

Renee

Ok. So we are getting closer to our closing date and things are getting rough. We will get through it, but I’m stressing pretty hard at this point. We were supposed to close tomorrow on this property and the 10th on our new property. However, now they are postponing this property until the 9th. I’m not sure that I will have the money on the 10th now. Grr. This is so frustrating. Plus, we are supposed to be done here on the 10th as well, but if we aren’t closing until the 9th, I’m not sure that will happen.

Anyway, Aarron is doing his best to get all the scrap out of the yard, but it’s a long arduous process. You will be able to see from the pictures that as of yet, it doesn’t look like there is much of a dent in progress. It’s been just him for the most part, but last week the church did come out to help and now his Dad is here to help him as well so hopefully things will really start moving now but we have to wait and see I guess.

The pictures above are before we really started anything so there is A LOT here. And we have to get all of it out. This is the hard part. However, Aarron and his Dad are starting to take loads to the scrap yard today so it should start clearing out pretty quickly now I hope.

So you can see from these that the back yard is making pretty good progress while the front not so much yet. I am praying every day that we can accomplish this monumentous task but my husband has pulled off miracles before and God willing he will do so again.

I have the house almost packed so I’m not worried to much about that. I know I will have it all packed and ready to go as soon as Aarron is ready to start moving it. I should have taken before and after pictures there too, but I didn’t think about it. It’s just so very strange to see the house so empty. I haven’t seen it like that since my Dad moved into it back in 1998.

Well, that what’s going on here right now. Is there anything really big or stressful that you are working on right now? I love to hear it! Leave a comment below.

Have a great day!

Renee

There is no reason you should be using the onion powder from the store. It is too easy to make at home to use something that has so many ingredients and chemicals in it when you can make onion powder easily from the comfort of your home. I will show you how. All you need is an onion and a dehydrator or you oven.

Cut 1 onion into thin slices. You want to try to get them as even as possible so they will dry about the same time.

Place the onion slices on your dehydrator trays or on a cookie sheet if you’re using your oven. Make sure there is a little space between each one.

Place the onion in your dehydrator or in your oven if you’re doing it that way. Set the temp in the oven at 200F. For the dehydrator I set the temp around 145-155 and set the time for 12 hours.

At this point, you will want to watch them and check on them occasionally to see if they are dry. I usually start this around the 6 hour mark. Once they are completely dry ( the will snap when they are dry enough.) remove them from the dehydrator or oven and let them cool for a few minutes.

Then you will want to place in your container that you will use to powder the slices. I use a ninja blender for this part but but a blender, food processor, or mortar and pestle will work for this.

I use a pulse motion to grind the slices into powder. It doesn’t take very long, a few minutes at most. I generally stop to check it often. Once you don’t see any large pieces, it’s done.

The blender makes quick work of this so it should only take a couple of minutes.

Once you have it in powder form, you just need to put into whatever container you are going to use. I have an old jar that I did buy a while back that is already labeled so I just use that.

It is so simple guys! Anyone can do this. I mean anyone. Using the oven takes just about as long as a dehydrator, unfortunately some ovens don’t go down to 200F so you have to get a dehydrator. But if your oven does go down that far, it will work just as well.

Have a great day!

Renee

So we are moving. That is what we have decided. This town has gotten pretty toxic over the last few years. It has been decided that we are going to leave this small town and try to find another somewhere else that isn’t quite as bad. Cause honestly I think it’s getting pretty bad every where. So here’s to hoping we can find what we are looking for.

This will be bitter sweet for me because this was my father’s land. It’s hard to leave that and I know there will be many tears involved over the coming weeks because of that. However, that said, I believe this is what is best for my family right now.

I have a friend that is going to keep the goats until we can get settled and make a space for them. We have sold the chickens and hope to get more once we are settled. We sold the cows last month and we haven’t been able to find pigs in a while so there are none of them right now either.

I was completely against moving at first, but the  more I think about it, I am a little excited to see what this next chapter is going to hold for us. This neighborhood has become so bad in the last couple years. I’m glad my Dad didn’t see that. The neighbors make hard for me to want to stay. They fight all the time and it’s loud enough that it sounds as though they are in my living room. So the more I think about this, the more I am certain this will be a good thing for us.

We are hoping to get more land this time. We are on one acre right now so I would like 10 or more but would be happy with 5. We are looking in areas that are cooler than where we are in Southern Arizona, but we don’t want to go so far that it snows every winter so we are thinking Wilcox or maybe down in Douglas where Aarron’s family is.

I will continue to work on my blog and post every week while we are in transition. I am hoping that my excitement will continue to grow as we get closer to the move. I know this is what is best for us and that is what I am holding on to right now.

Have a great day!

Renee

I am really struggling right now. Usually I have put together my goals for the next year, but this year everything is up in the air. Either we are going to sell the property or we are going to stay if we can save it. We are trying so hard to save it, but it’s not looking good at this point in time. We have a barn up for sale that would give us the amount needed to keep it but if it doesn’t sell soon, I will have to sell the property.

I’m extremely attached to the property as it was my Dad’s but I really would like to go somewhere that people aren’t so close. We are on an acre but they are long rather than square so the neighbors are like right outside my doors it seems. If they fight, we know it close. So I’m kind of torn on what to do at this point.

I keep thinking that somewhere new would be a nice change, but it’s my Dad’s property. He left it to me when he passed in 2020. I just feel like we are stuck right now though and I don’t like that at all. However, with everything being up in the air, I can’t work on goals for the new year yet either. So this means that everything will be so far behind by the time we get everything figured out.

What would you do in this situation? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Have a great day!

Renee

The girls are growing so very fast. They are becoming wonderful Does now, well Doelings anyway. When they hit a year old they will then be considered Does. Until then, I will continue to update on their progress. We had to move them because they could get into the pen with the bucks. At around 6 months they start going into heat and we don’t little ones that young to become pregnant so we had to move them away from the adults.

They are not happy about this move because they are no longer with momma any more. They are by themselves for the time being. They will be by themselves until the next kids move in with them. The next kids should start coming around February. So we are moving everyone around and trying to get ready for kidding now. Hopefully we have 2 does that are carrying and should drop in February.

We haven’t had any bucks born here in the last few years so I’m kinda hoping we get at least one this year but we’ll have to wait and see. The girls new area is where the cows were at last year. They got the pen now since we don’t have the cows any longer. It was easier to move them rather than try to make the area they were in escape proof because these two have shown they can be pretty crafty so we just moved them to the front yard instead.

I can’t wait to continue to watch these two grow and become adults. I can’t wait to see what their babies will look like in a few years. I am looking forward to working with them and seeing what they will become.

Have a great day!

Renee

So the kids are still growing. It seems now that they are slowing down on that though. I haven’t noticed them bigger lately. Just fatter and fluffier. They are getting their winter coats in. It’s been cold here (for us). We’ve been getting down in the 30’s and 40’s at night. Again, for us in Southern Arizona, that is cold. We usually only get a couple weeks this cold so this whole month so far has been cold. It’s got me looking forward to warmer weather. Anyhow, the girls are getting their winter coats in so they look fluffy which I adore. It just makes them more cute.

Their personalities are getting stronger. Honeysuckle is still the more reserved of the two. Diamond does not want to stay where she is put. She is always getting in with the older ones. It’s not too much of an issue right now, but in a few more months it will be because my buck is in the pen she gets into. I really don’t her getting bred too soon. I wait until they are around 2 before putting them through that for the first time.

So over the next few months we will be working on the fence to try to ensure she can’t get in the other pen by the time she starts going into heat. She is such a trouble maker though so I’m not sure how that is going to go. We shall see.

I’ll be back next month with another update.

Have a great day!

Renee