I have really been having a hard time the last month or so. I have been feeling lousy, for one thing. And for another thing, it seems like everything has been going wrong.

We bought some new plants to liven up the property a bit. Well the gorgeous fuchsia died and I was sure the dogwood shrub died, too. Then we had 2 baby goats die (one was born dead). And of course, my garden is a total failure so far this year. The only thing I have been able to plant is onions.

Then we had our rabbits finally decide to have babies. This was a nice surprise since we were sure they didn’t get bred. Jellybean had nine babies! Of course, they were born on the wire since we didn’t know she was pregnant and didn’t give her a nestbox, but we fixed that little problem and made a nice little nest for the bunnies. Jellybean apparently thought the nestbox was a litter box. All the babies died.

But, all was not lost. Peanut had five babies and she actually made a nest for them. And all five died.

Sigh

I won’t even talk about the mess I made making my own laundry soap. Let’s just say, between an uncooperative food processor and then somehow flinging it all over when I took the blade out, I was wondering why on earth I was even making the stuff.

All of this was really starting to get to me. I was ready to sell all the animals and find an apartment in town. Which would make me completely miserable.

Then we noticed that the dogwood was still alive. We had bought a second one so now we have a beautiful red twig dogwood around the back of the house, and a yellow twig dogwood behind our sign (you know, the sign on my About page that Jeff made with our names on it). And it’s blooming!

Molly had a baby that we were not expecting. He is pretty much the most adorable little guy I have ever seen (another boy, so he’s lucky he is awesome). He has blue eyes! One of our chickens hatched four chicks, too.

And even though I didn’t get in my spring garden, my summer garden is going to rock. I just potted up 60 tomato plants that I started from seed. They are in cups now and will go in the garden next month. I’ll sell the plants that I can’t use. They are organic heirloom tomato plants, so I will be able to save seed from them for next year.

My pansies are blooming like crazy and Jeff bought me another fuchsia. Did I mention the amazing tables that Jeff cut from a dead tree? He made a coffee table and end table to go by our park bench by the driveway. I am really happy with how it looks.

I also have a nice little start on my new gnome garden (which will be another post).

I guess the point of all this is, homesteading has it’s ups and downs and it is really easy to be discouraged. But anything worth having is worth working for. Failure is another way to learn. It’s just a stepping stone toward success. We have come a really long way in the two years we have been here. I’m not giving up now.