The biro nib was near smoking last week as it was kept busy crossing completed jobs off The List. In the spirit of that Homestead hero, Captain Planet, our powers definitely combined and the resultant frenzied whirlwind of activity, albeit interspersed with a good dollop of football watching, had us adopting a rather smug attitude as we settled down to our customary end-of-the-week bottle of vino.

This week, though, is a bit of a different story.

Birthdays always mean breakfast at Crema

Part of this stall in action can be put down to basic self preservation; there’s no way that level of physical exertion can be constantly maintained without something giving out.  The tireder you get the more wayward the hammer, clumsy the gumboots, and irrational the ideas.  Such momentum could not have continued without serious physical damage to ourselves, the Homestead or our sanity.

There has to be time to play

Disney also needs to take their share of the blame as, for a special school holiday treat, and on the recommendation of a well respected (and let’s face it, idolised in the case of Farm Girl) extended family member, the movie Frozen was purchased on Sky Box Office.  The thing with Disney is that they know their business; they’re a wily bunch.  The tunes are just so blimmin’ catchy, the characters just so engaging, and the balance of melodrama and comedy just so proficiently manufactured in multi-age-level cleverness that, when the woodburner is roaring and Queen Elsa is Letting it Go on screen, it’s just way too easy to spin the morning coffee out until the credits roll around…again.  The shameful truth is that this week the Homestead has reverberated to people requesting company in the construction of a snowman -in song; even The Bean Counter was heard to be humming it!

However, the main reason for taking it easy this week was the occasion of The Milk Maid’s birthday and the head-spinning flurry of socialising such an event entails.  Not that we’re complaining, of course.  Various luncheon dates were fulfilled with a variety of nearest and dearests and, as customary with such celebrations, talk around the tables of the various cafes visited generally turned to what had been achieved in the twelve months past.  

It is odd to think that twelve months ago the wonderous and wonderful pastime  of goat herding. was still a crazy pipe dream that most acquaintances of the Homestead, and even some of us here, doubted would ever see the light of day.  A year ago, none of us had ever milked a goat, trimmed a hoof, or mixed a bowl of feed.  In fact, before the arrival of first Nessie, and then Leia and her kids, the Homestead was just a house with a rather large vegetable garden and a coop housing a handful of chickens. The appearance of the goats signaled a shift in our way of living because suddenly we were taking this way of life seriously.  What had been a hobby, albeit an absorbing one, became an ethos requiring pretty much full time attention from both The Milk Maid and Goat Herd.  Commitment as extreme as this requires validation, and so the Homestead was born.

Geraldine the goat wishes the Milk Maid a happy birthday

So, in the last year the six of us have created an entity that has seen us forge a new way of life. Its inception has made us brave enough to spread our vegetable gardening to the front lawn, to plant fruit trees where the norm is decorative shrubs, to increase our poultry flock to include ducks, and to broach the subject of bartering for goods.  

In short, in one calendar year we’ve let our crazy show.

Before and after photos of the Homestead

Whilst we don’t imagine the Homestead is the stuff of legends, we’re surely not the only ones struck by the similarities between us and Frozen’s trolls.  Meddlesome, well meaning, loving, loud and family-oriented; all we need is the right musical theme and we’re away.  Disney, we await your call.