Fall, Florida & Everything In Between

This one’s a little late.

Between the garden, the chickens, and everything else, I never got around to writing about the rest of the fall—and then the holidays happened, and then we somehow started a YouTube channel. So here’s the catch-up, a little after the fact.

A Lot Has Been Happening

The garden and the chickens had been taking up a lot of my attention, but there was plenty of other life happening around them, too.

Late summer and fall were a mix of family, camping, farm projects, birthdays, and just getting out and doing things.

We went to a couple of Royals games, and both had post-game activities. One night there was a concert, and another night we got to see an incredible drone show. That was awesome!

Somewhere in there, I helped pull off a pretty big surprise for my oldest granddaughter’s 16th birthday. I was in charge of keeping her away while everyone else got things ready—and the surprise turned out to be a new car.

That was a pretty fun secret to keep.

We also celebrated birthdays, watched kids play soccer, squeezed in a little lake time, and took the boys to an indoor go-kart track.

And there was still plenty happening at home.

In September and October, we preserved apples from our orchard and processed the tomatoes I had frozen earlier in the season. The garden may have been winding down, but there was always something to pick, clean, preserve, or figure out what to do with.

I was doing things like celebrating my daughter’s birthday, enjoying a Wine Walk with friends, and sometimes just chilling outside next to the fire pit.

And while a lot of my time is spent at the farm, I still have my house in the city, am working full-time, and am making the drive back and forth a couple of times a week.

Life still goes on at both places – with a lot of commuting.

Heading South

In mid-November, Bandit and I loaded up the RV and headed south.

We stopped in Paducah that first night, then Chattanooga the next day. We’d been through Chattanooga many times, although our 2021 trip to Key West didn’t exactly go according to plan.

Thankfully, this trip was considerably less eventful.

From there, we made our way to Flagler Beach to pick up my parents. Then we were headed to Key West to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt and cousin.

We’d made the trip to Key West before, too—our 2020 trip and then the 2021 trip—so this was starting to feel a little like an annual tradition.

My daughter flew in to join us. My cousin, daughter and even my 79-year-old dad joined me on a kayaking tour. We even got to see manatees. I didn’t get any good pics of the manatees, but it was pretty darn cool.

There was plenty of visiting and catching up with family, too. We even went to La Te Da’s for dinner and a drag comedy show — Randy Roberts was performing that night — which was definitely not something I do every day. I loved seeing the smile on my 86-year-old aunts face. That was well worth the trip!

After Thanksgiving we were back at my parents for a couple days. Got to meet up with some old friends from Puerto Rico for a visit and spent some time at the beach with my daughter before she flew back.

While I was there, my mom gave me a meat slicer — one my late Uncle Joe had originally given her years ago. She didn’t use it anymore, so she passed it along to me. I am pretty excited about that.

And of course, Bandit was along for all of it.

By the time we headed home, the RV hit 70,000 miles.

Back Home Again

Coming home didn’t exactly mean things slowed down. Somewhere in the middle of all the chaos, I was still trying to get a few runs in.

By the first week in December, we had Barred Rock chicks in the brooder. These are going to be egg layers for the spring! Eggs have gotten ridiculously expensive!

We also had baby goats arriving around this time, along with all the usual farm stuff that comes with them, and we processed another round of meat chickens!

For Christmas, I made a “Soup in a Jar” for all of my friends.

It’s one of those things that makes a great gift because you can make a bunch at once, tuck the dry ingredients into jars, add the recipe, and you’re done.

And Then We Started a YouTube Channel

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, we decided to start a YouTube channel for the farm.

We were always taking pictures and making videos of what we are doing around the farm anyway, so we figured maybe it was time to actually do something with them.

I’m not exactly sure where this will go, but apparently, after everything else we’ve been doing this year, starting a YouTube channel seems like a perfectly reasonable next step… maybe.

Time will tell…