Timberline Homestead A self sufficient homesteading life

I decided to give a fall crop of beans a shot since I missed the mark this spring. With the unreliable weather patterns here in the Sierra Nevada mountains, I’m possibly starting a couple weeks too soon. I’m doing succession planting in case I’m too far off with start dates. …

We’ve always been conscious of our water usage and do our best to conserve water year round. In years of below normal precipitation it is imperative that we cut our usage. There’s a feeling of helplessness when thinking about the worst case scenario of our well running dry. It has …

We made a big push to get the garden going before losing too much of the growing season. Our season is pretty short normally with cool nights into early summer and they come back quickly in late summer. Even though day time temperatures get nice and toasty, the cool nights …

Now that the fence is up, it is time to get moving on the garden beds. We had built 2 raised garden beds out of some lumber a couple years ago before the fence went up. After the fence was up, I decided in order to optimize the garden space …

With the start of growing season fast approaching and the back yard area still lacking a fence (it’s a big project), we decided fencing in the orchard and the vegetable garden separately was the only option to get growing this year. This was our first attempt at putting up fencing …

With the fruit trees happy in their new home, we are in maintenance mode. The new pear and apple trees have not ever been painted and the few year old cherry and nectarine trees have little of their original coat of sun block remaining.

It has been about 8 weeks since we planted the raspberries. We’ve seen a lot of growth over the last month with the start of spring. All 10 of the canes seem to be doing well, some better than others. With the 6 inches or so of new growth, I …

I was out working on a few things this afternoon with my camera in hand and snapped some pictures of our progress thus far this year with our fruit. It is a few days into May and we’ve had a mix of weather since the official start of spring: temperatures …

In early March we had an unusual stretch of warm, beautiful weather. We decided to take advantage of it and got our raspberry babies in the ground. The plot is a space we were on the fence about for some time. It is prime real estate right off of the …

Always looking for ways to save a few bucks, I grabbed one of these 2lb organic monterey jack cheese blocks from Costco. Because we typically spend quite a bit on pricey organic cheese slices, this is a definite money saver….its fast and easy too.

Our plan for introducing solids to our little one was simply to mash up some of whatever everyone else was eating and offer it. We eat healthy, unprocessed foods and thought this approach would be ideal. We did encounter a few downsides with this method: sometimes we’re in a time …

This is a fun DIY project and probably my favorite recycling project yet. I had no hand in this project as my hands were busy with our newborn baby. Husband and Dad tackled this project one afternoon and I couldn’t be more pleased. I love the convenience of having waist-high …

So, we attempted to grow some carrots this year. I’m not sure what went wrong but it was a huge disappointment. These Royal Chantenay carrots amounted to this after more than 3 months: This variety states 60-70 days to harvest on the seed packet. After doing a few minutes of …

I suppose nearly every place on earth has a drawback of some sort when it comes to weather. Ours is the ever present threat of wild fire and it is a serious threat every single year. Living in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where we rarely get any rain in the …

With my Saturday mornings no longer being occupied by my job, we’ve been able to enjoy some real treats from the local farmers’ market. The farmers’ market season runs from June through September in a beautiful park about 25 minutes from home. Living in a rural area, the size of …