Barn Hop #21

Welcome Barn Hop friends and visitors! Monday we spend our blogging time sharing what's been happening at our homesteads all week and we encourage you to participate, too!

Many of you may know Deborah Jean of Deborah Jean's Dandelion House blog and hostesses of the Farmgirl Friday blog hop. She's had a rough week to say the least! Her blog disappeared from the internet and after some investigation she found out that she no longer had her .com name and that it had been sold. The story is a bit long, but suffice it to say, she's had to switch her URL back to a blogspot.com which wouldn't be so bad except that few of her followers have been able to find her and most have just been lost.

Dandelion House

Blogging is lots of fun, but it's also lots of hard work with hours of time invested in a site. So you can imagine how frustrating something like a URL change can be. This would be a great opportunity to come alongside a homesteading "sister" and encourage her with a visit to her wonderful blog! Perhaps you would take a few minutes today to stop by and say hello. And if you like her site, follow along! Don't forget to link up to her Farmgirl Friday as well.

Back at the Walker homestead, I have been reinvigorated as to my own garden after visiting a friend, literally on the other side of the mountain. Her garden is fabulous! Just spending time there, seeing her homestead, and trading ideas was exactly the boost I needed. We're a part of the same local homesteading community and it's amazing how much we help each other just by staying in contact on a regular basis. I'm constantly reminded how important community actually is to people who are "re-pioneering" a lost art. Without my friends, I think I would have given up more than once.

A glimpse of my friend Jan's garden.

You know, if gardening is THIS HARD, it's a good thing most of us are working on the mistakes now when we have the luxury to make mistakes and still be able to eat. I get a box of produce from some farmers in the San Joaquin Valley to supplement my meager crops (not the best gardening year for me) and they always include a newsletter. This week, Vernon talked about the difficulty of working within the government's OVER regulation which is so costly it puts little guys out of business. Seems like I'm not the only one who sees a storm brewing in the horizon. Here's how Vernon put it...

"...there's a huge body of regulation rolling towards us under the guise of food safety that will be very expensive to implement and have insignificant public health benefits. Mostly what keeps people safe and healthy is the ability to source from people they know and I'm afraid you're on the verge of losing that."

I'll push through this gardening slump and hopefully figure out the little nuances that are necessary for working within the varying weather patterns, bug infestations, and watering issues. Perhaps I've lost the battle, but I'm aiming to win the war.

Your Turn To Join The Barn Hop!

Jill @ The Prairie Homestead

Kendra @ New Life on a Homestead

Megan @ A Blossoming Homestead

and Amy @ Homestead Revival...

...invite you to link up and share your homesteading adventures!

1. Write a blog post about what's going on at your homestead or a post on something you're learning or an item of interest that will benefit the homesteading community. Be sure to add the red barn button and link back here so others can join in the fun.

2. Come back here and enter your information in the Linky. Please be sure to link to your actual post (click your title and then copy the URL above) and not your home page so those participating later in the week can find your post easily.

3. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment and tell us what's going on at your homestead!

Please Note: As hostesses of the Homestead Barn Hop, please understand that we reserve the right to remove any links that are not family friendly. While this may be subjective, we will err on the side of caution in order to keep our blogs appropriate for all readers. Thank you for your understanding!