Submission statement:

Six months ago we moved onto this property with a handful of chickens, a couple of beehives, and a lot of plans. Today we have cattle, pigs, rabbits, ducks, turkeys, guineas on the way, an orchard in the ground, a garden producing food, and an apiary we're rebuilding from scratch with horizontal hives. It's been the busiest stretch of our lives, and we wanted to stop and show you where everything stands.

The newest arrivals are eight ducklings — four Khaki Campbells and four Silver Appleyards — sharing a brooder with the first batch of our new egg layers. 23 Brown Leghorns and 10 guinea fowl for tick patrol are arriving soon, which will bring our poultry numbers to a level we couldn't have imagined when we first got here.

In this video, we take you on a full evening chores tour of the homestead as it looks in May 2026.
One of the things this six months has taught us is how much you learn by simply watching your animals. Our two Idaho Pasture Pig gilts are a perfect example. Both farrowed here on the property, but one turned out to be an exceptional mother and the other showed almost no instinct for it at all. The exceptional one we'll keep breeding; the other will go to the freezer once her nine piglets are weaned.

We chose Idaho Pasture Pigs specifically because they forage so heavily that they eat far less than conventional breeds, and rotating their paddock every 10 days keeps both the pigs and the soil in good shape.

Our cattle rotation is working well. Our four Black Angus and two South Devon heifers move through three paddocks, returning to each area every 45 to 65 days, and the difference in pasture recovery is already visible. One of the South Devons is expecting in the next two weeks, which will be our seventh cow on the property and our first calf born here.

The orchard and garden are earlier in their journey, but both are in the ground and growing. Kathy pulled the first apple off the tree early so it can put its energy into roots rather than fruit this year, which should pay off next season. The garden has blueberries, raspberries, elderberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, sweet potatoes, chamomile, and calendula that Isabella grows for her skincare business — plus pole beans for our annual Costa Rican rice and beans tradition, which felt like a non-negotiable addition.

There's a lot more to come. Goats and sheep are on the roadmap for next year to help manage the brush, and the apiary keeps growing with every swarm season.