Sage Hearth Homestead

New Feathered Friends: Our First Chickens at Sage Hearth There’s something quietly magical about the sound of chickens on a slow morning — the gentle clucks, the soft scratching in the dirt, the way they move through the sunlit patches of the yard. This weekend, Sage Hearth gained a small, feathered heartbeat of its own. We picked up five Sapphire Gem pullets — four black with a glimmering green sheen and one a soft lavender-grey — and brought them home to a little coop that’s seen better days but has a lot of potential. It’s nothing fancy, just a small, second-hand coop with character, waiting for a little TLC. But, as with so much here, that’s part of the charm. Slowly, steadily, we build, we fix, and we create a home that feels alive. A small, second-hand coop full of potential — our new hens’ first home at Sage Hearth. These girls are already settling in beautifully. There’s a rhythm to having chickens, a gentle structure to the day. Morning greetings, curiou...

Silage, Storms, and a New Old Cottage The past few weeks at Sage Hearth have felt full — not loud or dramatic, just quietly demanding. The kind of weeks where everything seems to hinge on one job being finished before the next can begin, where the weather dictates the pace, and where small moments of humour and comfort carry you through. The First Silage Cut This season marked our first ever silage cut here, and we only had one paddock to do — but it was a critical one. That paddock sits at the bend of the L-shape of our land, and until it was cut, a surprising amount of work was on hold. Anything that needed to happen out the back required us to pass straight through it. Shearing sheep. Moving stock. Dealing with fallen branches and trees. Beginning proper weed management in the back paddocks — poison hemlock, buttercup, stinging nettle — all of it had been waiting patiently for this one job to be done. Conventional hay bales might have been more practical for use,...

After the exhausting prep work, it was finally time for the next stage: giving Sage Hearth Cottage a fresh coat of paint. Choosing a colour turned out to be a story in itself. From the start, Ben and I were in agreement: whatever we chose, it needed to feel light, bright, and in keeping with the cottage’s original spirit. During sanding, we made an interesting discovery — the cottage had once been a pale, creamy yellow. Ben’s immediate reaction? A firm, “No. It will look like a schoolhouse.” We went back and forth, weighing our options, until we eventually settled on a pale green. Bright, clean, and peaceful, it feels as though it has always been this way. The colour is a quiet trickster. In direct sunlight, it reads almost white. When the sky is overcast, it deepens to a gentle, earthy green. On blue-sky days, a hint of blue peeks through the green, giving the cottage a soft, playful charm that shifts with the light. It’s subtle, it’s calming, and it feels entirely at home here...

In the last month or two, we’ve been working on one of the biggest — and most noticeable — tasks at Sage Hearth Cottage: preparing the exterior for a fresh lease on life. Ben and I spent long hours after work and on weekends carefully waterblasting, scraping, sanding, and patching. The summer heat pressed down on us, exhaustion was constant, and the work was tough. We knew from the start that everything could not — and would not — be perfect. Still, we did our best with what we had, setting the stage for the transformation the cottage so clearly deserved. There’s an old saying about things having to look worse before they can get better — and it’s true. Seeing Sage Hearth Cottage stripped, patchy, and raw after the waterblasting was genuinely shocking. The familiar walls suddenly looked tired, uneven, and far from the cozy image we carry in our minds. But beneath that stripped-back exterior was potential. Every scrape, every sanded edge, every careful repair laid the groundwo...

We hope a very merry Christmas and a joy-filled New Year was had by you all — full of good food, slow mornings, and the kind of moments that linger a little longer than the calendar allows. You may have noticed we’ve been a little quiet lately, both here on the blog and across social media. Not gone — just deeply tucked into a season of work that required our full attention, our patience, and a willingness to be guided by the weather rather than the calendar. Although we’ve only called Sage Hearth home since July, it didn’t take long to understand that some things ask to be done sooner rather than later. When you arrive somewhere new, you listen first — to the land, to the buildings, to the small signs of what needs care. And when the right window finally opens, you step into the work with both hands. So our days have been shaped by long hours, steady rhythms, and the quiet companionship of the cottage itself. This season wasn’t about rushing or perfection, but ...