From the Homestead – Newbie lessons learned
In the seven months it’s been since moving to Wittbrich Acres, we’ve grown pretty proud of how much we’ve learned and knowing what we do know so far. We’re blessed to know what we don’t know and sufficiently humble enough to seek help, do research, or just accept those things, knowing it’s ok not to know everything and we’ll keep learning over time. But what we don’t know we don’t know about life at Wittbrich Acres still looms large. And the hardest part about that is you don’t know you don’t know something until rather suddenly and sometimes shockingly, you know it…because you learned it, likely the hard way.
A few weeks ago, we purchased ten new aborvitae trees for our front yard. After the requisite visit from Diggers Hotline, we rented an auger from Home Depot to ease digging the holes in which to plant our fine new greenery. Sounds pretty easy, right? Drill a hole using a pretty impressive tool, drop a tree into the hole, apply love and water, and watch it grow. Or…start to drill the hole, hit a buried rusty wire from some ancient fence that once graced the property, and have that impressive tool literally catapult me into the grass a few feet from the half-dug hole. Fortunately, the only thing hurt in the great auger debacle was my pride. Newbie lesson learned: reluctantly accept that good old fashioned shoveling is, while not nearly as cool, a safer, better option.
Roosters in Disguise
Not knowing my boy chicks from my chick chicks, I purchased eight from a farm up the road, only to discover that probably five of them are roosters. They’re very cute and sweet, but my existing flock can’t handle seven roosters (to say nothing of my neighbors who will probably want to have me evicted once those bad boys get to crowing). Newbie lesson learned: if you want hens, buy pullets (toddler females) from a hatchery. They may not be as cute and cuddly as newborn baby chicks, but we won’t have to be confronted with having to give up five roosters we’ve raised from hatchlings and gotten rather fond of being part of our growing livestock inventory. I did end up purchasing four pullets just last week, so my chick count for 2025 is holding at 12 bringing our flock size to 39 at present.
Dandelions and the Exploding Water Bottle
Our son Jason taught me how to use the 56″ deck zero-turn mower and several timesaving power tools which I put to use building grass feeding stations for the chickens and assembling several new brood boxes for our bees. Our 20,000 bees have been successfully installed in their hives and they’ve enjoyed a near-constant diet of beautiful, pollen-rich dandelions. Then those pesky buggers (the dandelions, not the bees) went to seed, making our yard look like a trillion golf balls just got dumped on it. When I couldn’t take it a moment longer, I confidently jumped on the zero-turn and prepared to chop down the offending eyesores that had outlived their purpose of supporting our bee population. I jostled about 50 yards down the yard before my heavy HydroFlask water bottle vibrated its way out of the cup holder and in a split second fell under the mower before I could disengage the blade. The horrendous noise of metal being shredded into shrapnel was nothing compared to the sick feeling I got when I realized how dangerous a situation that could have been had anyone been within 50 feet of me on what had instantly become a riding weapon. Newbie lesson learned: plastic bottles only on the zero-turn, or maybe even forego hydration completely until break time!
Spring May-hem
My daughter-in-law Rachel stopped over one night to find me a huddled mass of exhaustion after having spent several days cleaning out the flower beds and putting down mulch. She gently reassured me that the May-hem of spring is the worst time on acreage, with the nearly endless chores and feelings of falling further and further behind. “Once the spring clean-up is done, you’ll feel better and things will get easier,” she said to me. I think she was afraid I was heading for a looney bin after what has proven to be an extraordinarily challenging May even without the added responsibilities of the homestead. Newbie lesson learned: Spring, with all its beauty, comes chock-full of added, rapid-fire work no matter how well-prepared I thought I was. Next year, now that I know what I didn’t know I didn’t know, I’ll have a better devised and more organized plan.
Gratitude among the missteps
But even among the missteps and mistakes I’ve made so far on my foray into country living and managing the homestead, I’ve never regretted our decision to trust that the universe brought us to this place, at this time in our lives, for a reason.
I’d like to shout out my thanks to a client who made us a beautiful quilted table runner. It was a bright spot on a particularly tough day and I was touched by a kind act when I needed one badly. Thank you so much, Debbie.
I’ve gotten emails of encouragement which I treasure and often re-read at the end of long days of May-hem at the homestead. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have our wonderful clients share this journey with us and how greatly I appreciate being able to share my stories with you.
The Growing Family at Wittbrich Acres
Wittbrich Acres now supports 39 chickens, 20,000 bees, an uncountable number of frogs, and 2 high energy humans.
If you’ve ever experienced a “peril of being a newbie” moment, I’d love to hear about it. Send me your stories, comments, questions, or ideas for something you’d like me to write about to Tami@ToYourWealth.com
