The Gorham Homestead

04/05/2026

Bye Easter Bunny. See you next year! 🐰

04/02/2026

04/01/2026

I spent some more time organizing my seeds today. I probably need three more boxes, though. 😳 They will be further organized likely by function and then alphabetically.

**This is my personal seed vault for the small seed packets and seed saving. (Bulk seed bags have their own spot.)

03/31/2026

Herdshare Members, please check your email for more information. THANK YOU!

03/30/2026

Do any of my friends grow and harvest long day storage onions? We can’t grow them here, but I would really like to buy some to store for winter.

03/30/2026

Kitchen garden is underway! 🙂

03/29/2026

Spring projects are in full swing.

We reset the garden this year and it is getting an 8 foot deer fencing all the way around it. It will have 3 access gates. One for the tractor, a walk through gate and one for the chickens to enter from the chicken yard at the end of the season so they can clean it up.

We have added four more raised beds in my kitchen garden. It will eventually be a total of 20.

Kael took down the ratty looking poultry netting around the chicken area and is installing a really nice looking 6 foot fence. This will be to keep the chickens in place and OUT of milking areas.

I will be working on the bee yard this week. We will be putting up temporary fencing so that the grandkids don’t get stung during our Easter egg hunt. That will be followed by actually finishing the bee yard and putting up a really nice permanent white picket fence around it.

Poke Mountain will be coming down and that mound of dirt will be repurposed elsewhere. The area where Poke Mountain sits now will become my new medicinal herb garden. It will make the pollinators (and me) really happy. 

THEN we have four more walk-in chicken tractors to build. Two more milking stanchions AND we need to repair the high tunnel.

Fruit: Our orchard specialist, Tim Reilly, of Regenerative Orchards has planted a really nice row of figs for us, added the new fruit trees that I wanted (and protected those from chicken scratchers), he cultivated the grapes that we found growing and brought them back to life AND is designing multiple muscadine arbors for me in the orchard. We plan to try to propagate some from my aunt’s muscadines because that would create sentimental value for me. I used to always get muscadines from her for my jelly every year. It will really mean a lot to me to have some of her actual plants growing on my property.  ***call Tim if you want an orchard that will last you for many years to come***

We are busy, busy busy 🐝🐝🐝. 

03/20/2026

Chicks are here! 🐥🐥

We also got Dominques in too!

03/20/2026

I’m on a roll this week with my suppers.

Yesterday ..was hamburger steak topped with onions and homemade french fries fried in beef tallow. I mean, if you’re gonna have fries ….at LEAST fry them in tallow, right?

Tonight, we are having shrimp and scallop skewers on the grill with mushrooms, bell peppers, squash, and zucchini. 

Happy Friday!

03/20/2026

New in the bakery section at The Gorham Homestead. Focaccia bread. It’s so good!

03/20/2026

Hmmm…this is exactly the designed family division I have it been talking about. 

03/20/2026

A lot of people ask me why I do what I do and why I chose to live this way.

The truth is it goes back a long way.

When I was a little girl, life was not always peaceful. There was chaos and unpredictability. Violence no child should ever have to witness. You learn really quickly in that kind of environment to read the room before you even walk into it. You learn to brace yourself.

But I had places where that was not true.

I had my grandparents.

Every single morning, I think of them. All of them. Each one unique in their own way.

I had three sets of grandparents. The Noles, the Robinsons, and the Hollands. Most kids are not fortunate enough to have that, but I did.

Each one of them was always happy to see me. Always willing to say yes when I called and asked if I could come over. I never had to wonder. I never had to hesitate.

And each one of them gave me something different but they ALL gave me safe places to land.

It was not about big events, special occasions or presents. It was about being there with them in their environments. Being part of their everyday lives. Watching how they lived. Eating what they ate. Walking their land. Sitting in their homes. Just tagging along.

Everything worked the way it was supposed to in those places. There was good food, real food, and if I was hungry I could walk outside and pick what I wanted to eat. There was structure and rhythm. Things made sense. Even as a child, I could see that everything worked together.

And it was peaceful.

No chaos. No fear. No wondering what kind of mood you were walking into.

It felt like the world functioned correctly there.

I do not think I fully realized it at the time, but I can see it now.

I have built my life from pieces of each one of them.

What I am creating here is not just a farm. It is a place shaped by the Noles, the Robinsons, and the Hollands. Each one of them left something in me and I have carried it forward.

A place where things work together.
A place where there is good food and purpose.
A place where people can breathe.

And more than anything, a place where people feel safe.

I never want anyone to have to brace themselves before they walk into my home. I never want anyone to wonder if they are walking into a fight or chaos.

When people come here, I want them to find peace.

Because I know what it feels like to need that.

And I know what it means to finally have it.

And that brings me back to this year.

My word for the year is steady.

My verse is about a steadfast mind and perfect peace.

That is what I am focusing on.

Not chaos. Not reacting. Not surviving.

Steady.

Because that is what I was given.

And now it is what I am choosing to give.