January 2025 Homesteading Update: Patiently Waiting For Spring

If you want an update on semi homesteading life for January 2025 here in the Midwest, then this article is for you! Besides being busy in the kitchen, most of my time is spent dreaming about the 2025 garden.

With these updates, I hope to do more of a “journal” type of post at least once a month to keep you updated on life here. Hopefully, it will allow you to get to know the person behind these articles (me!) and how we run our semi homestead a bit more.

This will allow me to share the loads of photos I take on my phone instead of having them collect dust in my camera gallery. (You can also look for updates on Instagram if you want to follow along with me there, too.) I’ll also try to link to posts that might be relevant to what happened during that timeframe.

Hopefully, you enjoy getting to know a bit more about our life here in Illinois and how the homestead is going – Both the good and the bad!

Our January 2025 Update For The Semi Homesteading Life

It’s January, which means that not a whole lot is happening outside. The ground is frozen solid and usually, there is snow covering the ground. However, this winter has been a bit of a strange one. We’ve had way less in terms of snowfall but we still had several days of bitter cold.

Because of the weather though, there isn’t much to update you on as far as the garden is concerned. I’m starting to get the itch to get a few seeds started indoors, which means it’s time to organize and clean out my seed starting area. (It’s a chore I always put off for some reason!)

I also need to look through all of my old seeds and see if there are any “must-haves” that I need to replenish this year before they sell out. There are a few favorites that I want to make sure I have plenty of when the time does come to start my seeds.

I also might try to start some snapdragon seeds again inside. We had a few volunteer flowers come up last summer, but I’d like to add to that patch by getting some plants started. Since they are such slow growers, I need to get them started sometime in February.

Chicken Update

There isn’t a whole lot to report on the chickens either. The younger girls are still laying and the old ladies are living a life of freeloading! We get between 0 to 3 eggs a day at the moment, which isn’t bad for only having 6 young ones – two ofwhich aren’t laying at all.

The girls have been spending most of their time in their enclosed and plastic-covered run. When it’s cold out, no one wants to go outside, including them!

I do use a radiant heater in their coop that sits next to their roost. They all snuggle up real tight and close to it when the temperature drops at nighttime.

Otherwise, they do just fine in the colder temperatures. You will see them up as high as they can be in the run and all fluffed out trying to stay warm. While I don’t like doing chores in the cold months, the frozen poo in their sand litter does make cleanup a lot quicker and easier!

Even though we aren’t getting a ton of eggs from them, I am still working through our refrigerator stash and enjoying seeing all the egg colors and varieties! We’ll be back to swimming in eggs before we know it!

Some Meals I’ve Made – January 2025 Homesteading Update

Probably what I’ve spent most of my time doing is working in the kitchen. I’ve been trying to make all sorts of different recipes to post on the website to share with all of you.

While I’ve made most of these recipes many times before, I usually don’t take pictures of the process (who has time for that?). So my family has really enjoyed getting reintroduced to a variety of yummy treats and meals lately!

One of the best ones was when my daughter and I attempted to make noodles from an old family recipe. It was a bit of a messy experiment because our pasta machine pretty much ate the pasta dough. We were left with a HUGE mess! (I spared you that photo!)

However, it did still turn out some tasty noodles (you can see some of them in the intro photo above). While the noodles weren’t that pretty, they wre great in our Dutch Oven Chicken Noodle Soup recipe!

Another family favorite this month was my Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake. The result is a rich, creamy, out of this world take on fettuccini alfredo. It is so good! (Recipe To Come)

In addition to meals, I’ve also made my share of sweet treats. The family favorite has to be hands down my Fudgy Chocolate Chip Brownies With Homemade Frosting. They taste just as good as they look, especially if you are a fan of ooey gooey brownies! Oh, and loads of chocolate!

Miscellaneous Pictures – January 2025 Homesteading Update

As usual, I’ll leave you with some miscellaneous homesteading pictures. I take so many different pictures throughout the month that it’s hard to get them all on just one post so I like to do a photo dump at the end of my updates.

If you have checked out any of my photos on the website at all, then you have likely seen my beige kitchen containers. Long story short, the company that made this pattern went out of business so you can no longer buy the items. Well, I’ve been looking for years to find the 3-set mixing bowl, and my husband and kids surprised me one day this month with a wrapped gift, just because! Low and behold, he had found them!

The next image is of my new derpy chicken family. It’s again one I have been looking for locally and finally found someone selling a set for fairly reasonable. This purchase then led to the next photo . . . the two parakeets!

The lady selling the chicken set had rescued these birds and was wanting a new home for them. Well, I’d had a parakeet growing up and my daughter used to beg for one. So, we now are rescue parents of two parakeets and a huge cage! Funny how life works like that.

The other two images are just what life has been like lately. Waiting in the car with Reese to pick up my kids from either volleyball or track practices and the kids enjoying some time outdoors at a nearby frozen lake.

Winding Down

As January 2025 turns to February, the gardening topics will start to pick up again and each monthly update will have a little more “homesteading” aspects to it aside from just random pictures and kitchen items. But, you get what you get this time of year!

I definitely don’t mind being in the kitchen more right now because soon enough, I’ll be so busy outside that the kitchen will start gathering dust. As for now, we are just trying to soak up all these slow nights while we can. (Well, slow minus a few volleyball games and track practices thrown in the mix!)

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!
– Chelsea

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