Apple Spice Oatmeal has been on the menu quite a bit the last few weeks that I’ve been up at the new homestead, Meadows End Ranch.  Now while it’s a simple recipe, it is a great comfort food for these chilly Fall mornings. We are still in temporary move in mode, half here half at old homestead.  We are in the midst of a ranch house remodel, floors aren’t in, appliances haven’t totally arrived, you know kinda like camping indoors.

Add to that sleeping on an air mattress, yeah the first one sprung a leak and who want’s to fix that at two in the morning. After that episode we sprung for a new air mattress, because, well sleep is darn important! I haven’t been able to write much on here lately, besides all the things to do with moving and remodeling by the end of the day I am wasted and my brain can’t seem to function into words to share with you all.

A few weeks ago I traveled up to the new homestead in my own big Uhaul truck, bringing a load of stuff, but important stuff! Shortly after arriving my daughter and son-in-law and incredibly cute grandson(ok I’m a little bias) arrived to help for a week. More hands make light work and let me tell you we could use a lot more hands around this new homestead.

That week revamping the existing chicken coop and fencing off a run was on the agenda. That also included predator proofing as in bears, coyotes, wolves and etc. We are trying to allow the chickens to be pastured as much as possible, but up here keeping them from being someone else’s dinner is the main objective. The homesteads chicken coop that has been around for probably at least 50 years or more is very nostalgic, and we strove to preserve that. I love old buildings and old barn wood just makes it even better. Besides the outside being weathered from years gone by, we scored when we found the old nesting boxes and roosting bars in the rafters above.

My daughter, the creator of Woolful and son-in-law, mostly have sheep and wool on their minds, when it comes to this homestead and its future. However they aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty so they took charge of the chicken coop remodel, and they love a good farm fresh chicken egg like the rest of us. Awesome, when it comes to preserving the history of this place and maintaining it’s heritage, they remodeled it while retaining its old character.

Meanwhile the whole week I was mostly in charge of keeping the little guy busy and feeding the crew. Besides starting the day with Apple Spice Oatmeal and some farm fresh eggs, that I toted along from our chickens, we feasted on some One Pot Pasta. Some Five Bean Chili and Winter Soup also made the rounds as a great soup and hearty chili took the chill out of the air.

We recycled windows from the ranch house, and installed them in chicken coop to give the girls some light, I think we are going to have to install one more though on the north wall. They also secured up the inside with wood, and we will again using the deep litter method with sand as we have been doing and it works great, that’s a topic for another blog post. A sweet little door was installed for them to come and go as they please during the day and besides doing some more predator proofing we are well on our way to getting the chickens moved into their new home. I will keep you posted on moving 3o chickens across the state and how that all goes. Meanwhile there is more Apple Spice Oatmeal to be made because it’s a chilly morning.

Don’t forget to follow Theunprocessedhome on Instagram to be kept up to date on our homestead move and ranch house remodel.

This post was shared on the Homestead Blog Hop.

Tags:  breakfast homestead meadows end ranch oatmeal