Here at the Brundage Homestead we provide many forms of nourishment.  We feed our animals, grains for our chickens and hay for our rabbit; we fertilize our plants with organic amendments (Did you know you can make a quick and free balanced fertilizer for your garden with nothing but grass clippings or weeds and water?) We nourish the minds of our children; we have been homeschooling our oldest daughter Avery for 2 years now, and provide a feast of subjects and ideas for her to explore loosely based on the Charlotte Mason method. We carve out time to nourish our souls; my garden is my happy place, where I can just go and stand and spend minutes or hours feeling at peace and letting the worries melt away as I spread my fingers in the earth to plant a seed or smell the sweet rewards of the wildflowers I have nursed along or savor the first bit of homegrown produce in the Spring.   Perhaps most importantly we provide nourishment to our bodies with real food cooked at home in our kitchen as much as we can.

Our ideas about food and the forms of nourishment we are accustomed to have been transformed in the last month.  It is has been over a month now since we decided to eliminate milk (and milk products/protein) from our son Sawyer’s diet.  We decided to make this step to help with both physical and behavioral issues.  The elimination diet was really daunting at first.  I mean, my boy is a self-proclaimed vegetarian and somewhat of a picky eater so we had been compensating with dairy products like yogurt and cheese since we has about one.  How were we going to eliminate cheese for the boy that had a quesadilla or grilled cheese 6 nights a week?  Well although the fears were well-meaning we pushed past them and I will be quick to admit the transition has been pretty painless.  We decided we didn’t want to just replace the dairy products with the vegan alternatives; this was going to be a good opportunity to change his – and our – diet for the better.  We have used some shredded “faux cheese” in a pinch for a few recipes. The best part is that we are noticing real change which makes any extra meal time work completely worth the benefits.

Then we visited the naturopath physician for the first time….and further dietary changes were in store. Let’s just say we thought we were eating healthy, we probably knew deep down we could do better, and with the picture painted to us in our minds eye we have begun transitioning even further.  More whole grains, and more, much more vegetables.  Sounds good to me.  Just working on getting a meal plan/recipes together now that will fit for our lifestyle and meet our nutritional goals…and day dreaming about when our garden begins providing its bounty to that cause.

The garden has been doing well this early Spring, thanks I am sure to the gorgeous warm weather we have been having.  The summy warm days mixed with occasional rain is really the perfect condition.  Our first batch of seeds we started were all transplanted out at the start of the month, and a new batch of seeds in cooking in the greenhouse now, including our warm season crops like cucumbers, summer squash, butternut squash, and of course tasty herbs and beautiful flowers! If all goes well we will be planting out those babies just before Memorial Day weekend when the danger of frost has passed in our area.  We will be buying our tomato transplants around that time too.  Since I enjoy a variety of heirlooms tomatoes, buying the starts at the farmers market has really worked well for us versus starting them from seed.  Plus my greenhouse isn’t quite large enough to start them and pot them up until it would be a good time to transplant.

Speaking of planting, I am also added some things to our perennial food forest, children and chicken garden in the back.  I started a little bit of an edible hedgerow, featuring jostaberries, gooseberries, rosa rugosa (for rose hips) and a fragrant mock orange.  I broadcast an insectary and soil building mix to cover that area while the plants get established.  Then I went a little crazy planting a big bed of lovely perennial flowering plants…I didn’t break the bank completely, although it was a splurge, because I got all the plants over the course of a week from the clearance section at the hardware store.  I was shocked how many of these plants were marked 60% off and were in great condition.  I just picked the spent blooms and pruned them a bit and they are already reflowering and looking pretty good.  I love having the pretty and colorful place next to our hammock inviting us to take a moment to relax.

Our raised veggie garden has been planted with all the Spring cool season crops. Some bugs have found the Chinese cabbage already.

Entering my Happy Place 🙂

New edible hedgerow

Strawberries are very promising this year – just have to keep the girls out of there or I am sure there will be none left for us!

Alder turned 9 months…and popped out 4 more teeth in one week

I love this boy

Family fun at the Spring Fair

Our trailer reno is coming along, slowly but surely.  Should be ready enough for our nearing Memorial Day weekend camping trip.

So that is what is happening around the Brundage Homestead this April. Have you made any major diet changes for your family’s health this year? I would love to hear about it in the comments.

Thanks for joining me again this month for an update on our life and adventures around the Brundage Homestead. Catch up on what has been happening the past few months here.