The Joys of Summer, Our New Flock, “The Gossip Gals” and Rhubarb Jam

rhubarb jam simmering in pot — Rhubarb Jam Simmering in Pot

Good morning from our Lil’ Suburban Homestead!

We are back at it from the blog, I have to share a huge update post at some point, but I finally graduated with my master’s degree last December, finalizing my undergraduate and master’s degree completely absorbed all of my free time. I would like to share with all of you that I did indeed think that this would not happen. I thought somehow I would not get bogged down with school work, but you know what I did. The Viking and I are spending this entire year getting our lives back in order.

Both the Viking and I still have been pursuing our homesteading projects, he has really mastered the art of barbecuing/grilling and has taken it to new levels and while I did not have time to take on a lot of new projects, I am now on a strict gluten free diet, so I am always wanting to learn more about gluten free baking in particular for sourdough and pizzas. Our son’s partner is extremely talented with baking and sour dough and has been helping me learn to master the process of gluten free sour dough baking. Hopefully, one day I can share some of her projects with you, as I know you will be as impresses as I am.

I am so glad it is summer, nothing like stepping out back to jump in our little pool and smell the fragrance from our orange tree and 4 o’clocks that surround the patio!

Me in my pool – summer oasis by the orange tree and 4 oclocks.

One piece of good news that I have is that we are now Grandparents and have two wonderful granddaughters and we can’t wait to share more about that soon, so between both of us having new jobs and wanting to spend time with them, our lives are very full! We just had the entire family all together for Mother’s Day, including the grandpuppies and for those of you that do not know we lost our faithful River pup, in May of 2021.

Meet “The Gossip Gals”, our neighbor coined our new gals that and I just loved it, so it stuck! They are a fun group and lay beautiful brown eggs for us every day. We purchased these gals from Hoover Hatchery and we ordered the brown egg layer variety pack and we split the order with our son and his family, however we ended up giving them the rest of our chickens as we found that 6 chickens are the perfect amount of chickens for our lil’ suburban homestead. We have Sassy Ruby Trinity, Jackie and Allie, the ginger twins, Welley, the Welsomer, and two Jersey Giants, Switch, and Morpheus.

Yesterday, I made rhubarb jam from a recipe that was shared with me by my good blogging friend, Living Life in Rural Iowa. This jam is so delicious, and I am having it on my toast this morning.

I wish you all a beautiful week until next time!

Fondly,