Busiest time of the year on the farm/homestead?

Homesteading & Country Living Forum

Help Support Homesteading & Country Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Alaskajohn

Bugged out
Neighbor
HCL Supporter
Joined
Oct 2, 2020
Messages
2,908
Location
Alaska
What is your busiest time of the year?

It‘s fall for me without a doubt. For me, fall starts the moment the leaves start to turn yellow and the blueberries ripen, and when the weather turns chilly and rainy. This starts early August and fall lasts until the snow comes in late September. The first killing frost typically comes early September, but it’s been a cold summer, and at 4:30 am this morning it was 36 degrees…

Always so much to do and time appears to go by too quickly in fall. There are all the projects that have to get done or be completed before the first snow. You hope to get them all done so you can put away your tools, unused lumber, etc or the snow will bury them and then you won’t find them again until spring if your didn’t get them put away. I have a bunch of these activities this summer.

Then you have your harvesting activities. We harvest a lot of berries each fall, and that takes time. Blueberries, crow berries, raspberries, cranberries, among others. About 40 gallons total as we eat them daily year round from the harvest. Then you need to make sure you have enough chaga harvested to get you through the winter. We need to stack the firewood deep, about 7 cords will be used during the winter. Each year we have to venture out further to collect the wood, which means building new trails to get to it. The gardens and potatoes have to be harvested. Then you need to prep your garden beds for the next year. Moose season is all to short, and this might take days if you don’t stumble on to one quickly. If you haven’t gotten your fish, then all you have left are the silver‘s and their runs are coming to an end.

Then you need to make sure all your winter gear is ready.

Always so much to do and time always appears to be in such short supply. I kind of like it, but the wife says I turn into a little dictator this time of year with lists of things to do each day. 😎
 
Spring was crazy busy putting in a first time garden at our place. And since we just moved here, it was busy setting up new places for animals. Now is crazy busy with so much ready at one time. I am working with food stuff constantly. The fall garden won't be as much work. There's no new chicks, so that's easier, and the last batch of 15 only have about half roosters to butcher when they get a bit bigger. Spring and summer are busy with brooders all over the place and transitional cages. That's all set now. Working with the seasons, there's always something to do. I am looking forward to the fall, though, because working in the heat is not so fun.
 
It seems like every season is busy except for possibly deep winter (February and March):

Just in doing food related things can keep you busy, late winter is getting sets ready for spring planting, the spring and the garden goes crazy, then summer which is usually harvesting, planting for fall, plus cleanup and organization time, the late summer is spent harvesting and canning plus getting stuff out for hunting season, fall is the last of the harvest and canning then winterizing things that could freeze plus scouting and hunting, early winter is usually the most relaxing time of the year for me hunting and spending time in the woods.... unless I have a big harvest then I am processing and putting up meat... which brings us back to deep winter.

If you do fire wood, or home repairs, or car repairs, or house cleaning/organizing, that just adds stuff to the mix...

And for some there is daily work to pay for the stuff you need to do the other stuff you have to do.....
 
While I do "NOT" fully expect the music to stop, and the availabity of supplies to stop. I have never been more aware that it is rapidly approaching. So I am laying in as much food as possible, especially as doing it now avoids having to manually pull it up the mountain in a sled this winter.
 
I think it depends upon what you have and your setup. With critters, it's different than without etc. Harvest is usually busiest for me. I work full time so I do the food preservation in my "spare" time 😂 Firewood was usually kinda fun after the garden was in we would go every so often on a weekend. Hunting season, Holidays, winter maintenance etc. Like you and others have said - each season has its activities.
 
Spring and fall are my busiest times. With fall probably the most.
Spring has all the new garden work, putting up firewood, cleaning and organizing from winter. Ramping up projects.
Fall always seems to be a huge rush to get big jobs completed. Food canned or dried and stored. New raised beds built, new trees planted. Animals sorted. Making sure things are stored and secure for winter. Hunting season seems to arrive in a rush when I am the busiest.
Summer is busy but doesn't seem to have the pressure and rush of fall. I feel like time is just flying this year, the trees already have hints of colour. I don't feel ready for that yet this year, so much to do so little time.
 
Well Alaskajohn you got my list. Actually we don't burn wood in our home anymore, using pellets, except for the garage n cabin. Few cords, not bad.
Putting up food. We started our rabbitry again. One reason was to take the burden off of having to harvest a moose. Hopefully we'll get 250 pounds there. We also have agreements to barter for salmon, halibut, moose if needed. So should have the protiens in the freezer or canned. I'd can up a bunch of pike if I could get em.
Fall for me starts after July 4th. First snow near Oct 16th. Need to replace the transmission input seal on the 76 F-250 plow truck, stater on another truck and mount another plow on it so I have so I have a backup.
Need to do some dirt work to prepare for building our retirement home. Get studded tires figured out. Snow shear took out the central forced air furnace in our home that never gets used but now I have a 8" hole in our roof.
Gotta take time to take the family out berry picking.
How's the high bush ak folks ?
But mostly realizing that I need to get out n get me some Alaska
 
Well Alaskajohn you got my list. Actually we don't burn wood in our home anymore, using pellets, except for the garage n cabin. Few cords, not bad.
Putting up food. We started our rabbitry again. One reason was to take the burden off of having to harvest a moose. Hopefully we'll get 250 pounds there. We also have agreements to barter for salmon, halibut, moose if needed. So should have the protiens in the freezer or canned. I'd can up a bunch of pike if I could get em.
Fall for me starts after July 4th. First snow near Oct 16th. Need to replace the transmission input seal on the 76 F-250 plow truck, stater on another truck and mount another plow on it so I have so I have a backup.
Need to do some dirt work to prepare for building our retirement home. Get studded tires figured out. Snow shear took out the central forced air furnace in our home that never gets used but now I have a 8" hole in our roof.
Gotta take time to take the family out berry picking.
How's the high bush ak folks ?
But mostly realizing that I need to get out n get me some Alaska

I do love the berry picking time with the wife and dog. An added benefit of the fall rains are the sudden abundance of mushrooms. Berry picking just takes a lot of time, and we tend to devote an hour each day doing it. So it’s something we enjoy for over a month. Cranberries still aren’t fully ready and the blueberries are just hitting their peak. I prefer the sweet taste after the first freeze, but the tartness at their peak really make for excellent smoothies. Crow berries are the best I’ve ever seen. The dog loves all of this and grazes like a hungry bear with no ill effect.

Fireweed is pretty much spent, so you know what that means!
 
Yeppers more than just the tops of the fireweed will be getting white soon. We're going to be making cranberry ketchup with the highbush so maximum juice is preferred. And we to like get them at this stage where there are a a few greener ones that have a natural pectin in it so it sets up a bit n a little thicker.
Just remembered going out with a beautiful little beagle Rosy. She loved to eat blueberries so just had to follow her to the blueberries.
 
Just remembered going out with a beautiful little beagle Rosy. She loved to eat blueberries so just had to follow her to the blueberries.

Here is my blueberry eating beagle:

F88C38CC-7502-41FF-8D22-2D646296EB6E.jpeg

A96D6BC3-5E2A-4B7E-9F68-7E2F61531AAE.jpeg
 
Dogs are "more" loveable then humans.
 
Spring gets pretty wild around here, I call this time of year the Tsunami of spring due to the pressure of getting all the weeds and grass cut down and hopefully all the firewood cut before fire season starts. There always seems to be a wrench thrown into the works, which is a rainstorm that brings about a spurt of weed growth just before power machine cut off time.
 
Back
Top