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2023: Infrastructure And Self Reliance

October 26, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

When Jared and I sat down to go over our infrastructure for 2023; the projects, plans, and goals, we really wanted to get us to a place were the projects were done. That way we could focus our finances in other areas. Now, we all know that projects on the homestead are never truly done. But if we can get some of these bigger projects out of the way? We will be well on our way to self reliance and that is huge.

What Does Self Reliance Look Like To Us

The best way to set up goals is to ask yourself some questions. Like WHY do you want to be self reliant? What does self reliance look like to you? How are you going to become self reliant? These questions will have answers, but more often than not, they lead to more questions. But to give you our starting off point, we see self reliance as a way to decrease spending, reduce off farm hours, and create a eco-system here on the farm.

The more we become self reliant, the less we will spend at the feed and grocery store. The less money we spend at the grocery and feed store, the quicker we can pay off the farm and any debt we have. The quicker we pay off our debts, the more we can reduce off farm hours. If we can create an eco-system where our garden and land feed our livestock, and we can harvest our garden and livestock. Then we will be back to reducing our need for the feed and grocery store.

This symbiotic relationship with our land and livestock are paramount in not only becoming self reliant, but being good stewards to our land and shepherds to our herds.

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Setting Up Our Infrastructure

As I’m sure you can tell, Self Reliance is the keyword for our lives for the next few years. It is the cornerstone of every single thing we are doing and planning. So we are starting the first year with infrastructure. I talked in depth about what infrastructure is in this blog post. But the point of that post was to get you to think about your own infrastructure and what that means for your homestead.

When it comes to our homestead, we are really trying to focus on self reliance. Keeping in mind that the 3 big dreams are spending less money, reducing off farm hours, and creating an eco-system are the most important things. We created our infrastructure list and plans around that.

The goal of 2023 is to set up the homestead with those three big dreams in mind. For example: we have made the hard decision that if we can’t sell our bucklings, they will become meat goats. We’ve also made the decision that we will no longer buy chickens because we like the way they look, or how many eggs they lay. All chickens will be a meat variety instead of dual purpose. The gardens are going to go be overhauled into a “bulk garden” and a “kitchen” garden. We are going to start working on water movement so that we are no longer laying hoses throughout the property to get water to animals and gardens.

Meat

Then there’s closing the holes in our food security. One of the things we decided was to focus on heritage breeds. While they take more time to mature, they are more efficient with what they eat. We recently purchased 2 American Guinea Hogs so that we can stop relying on other farms for our pork. We are also going to be purchasing several Bourbon Red turkeys to further reduce our dependance on the grocery store or other farms.

The caveat to these animals is that we are also only going to buy animals that can work as well. One of the things that we learned at the HOA conference in Virginia, was that the animals should work for you too. Pasture rotation is a thing we knew about, but when listening to the lectures, we learned about what pigs can do for revitalizing the soil.

Gardens

Our gardens are going to look very different then they did last year. We are going to bring the pigs and chickens into our side yard and allow them to root, scratch and poop on that area and will turn it into another garden. That garden will hold all of our squash, cucumber, melon, herbs, etc. Then we will turn our old garden into the “bulk” garden for corn, tomatoes, peppers and food for the animals.

We are making lists of what we buy at the grocery store and of that, what can we grow? One of the things we can grow to spend less money growing cumin. We use a TON of cumin and at $20 a container, that’s a lot of money every year. It’s the same thing with lettuces. We feed our bearded dragons mustard, turnip, collard greens. At $4 a bag, and we by 4 bags a month? That’s a huge savings if we grow those things ourselves. Not to mention, that the pigs will eat the excess turnips.

Animals

We already discussed the hogs, turkeys and chickens. But to go a little more in depth, every single animal on our homestead is going to have a purpose. And if they require additional feed that the farm can’t produce? That is something we need to look at or they aren’t going to stay long. This has led to some hard decisions when it comes to our personal animals.

We aren’t going to just get rid of them. But this thought process has shown us the amount of money spent on the dogs, cats, dragons and snakes for pleasure, hurts our bottom line of spending less. That means 1) no new animal will be brought to the homestead unless it serves a purpose and the farm can sustain it. And 2) has made us really look into how we can feed animals alternatively without affecting their health.

Another point with the animals is keeping around animals that are not producing. The animal lover in me struggles with the idea of just butchering an animal because it is no longer useful. But the homesteader in me says, but that’s their job. It’s very conflicting and confusing.

Permaculture And Self Reliance

This word has been rattling around my head for the better part of a month. One of the things we have been talking about pre-conference was that while we could afford our $600/mo feed bill, we didn’t want to. After the conference, we realized that we could grow most of the food our animals need without having to use as much feed. This lead us to the idea of permaculture.

The plan, and resulting infrastructure, is that we are going to use electric netting to rotate the pigs and chickens throughout the property. We’ve had a lot of predator problems with our chickens and we are hoping that by giving them a safe space, with electrified netting, this will keep the predators down. For the pigs, we are planning on giving them a large space to root and poop in hopes that they will break the soil and allow the good things to get into the soil. After they have worked the soil in that area, we will move them to the next area and let them continue through the property.

While I love my compost, and we will always have and use it, the idea of schlepping wheelbarrows up hill and all over the property is not my idea of a good time. BUT I can take bedding waste, wasted hay, and other compostables and just put it in where the chickens are. They can spread it around and the soil can break it down there.

Another part of permaculture is instead of ripping out gardens when they are done, we can put the pigs, chickens or goats in there and let them “rip out” the garden. This will reduce our work load, feed them, and put them to work. That seems like a win to me.

Bringing Self Reliance Into The House

While at the HOA conference, we were told that the house is not as important as the land. I, wholeheartedly, disagree. While the personal how’s and why’s of that is not important, what is important is that having a safe, secure, and comfortable home, is just as important as the land. And yes, part of it is vanity on my end. While I don’t want the best of the best and need designer things. I do need my home to be safe, secure, and comfortable.

https://www.wickedgoodcupcakes.com/shop-online/thinking-of-you-boxes

We have to update our electrical panel, breakers, and some wiring. We need to take down some trees that would absolutely demolish our home if they fell. Then there’s the fire safety aspect of putting in tile accents in front of the fire place. We have to paint the exterior of our home because cedar siding will be damaged if it is not taken care of property. Oh, and our back deck is about to fall of the house. So while yes, the land is important so is the house.

I understand what these other homesteaders were talking about in regards to making sure that the land is the priority. But at the same time, so is the home. I know that they don’t mean, “Don’t worry about the electrical panel! You need to put pasture rotation into effect first.” But at the same time, me being comfortable in my home is equally as important as the land. And to be honest, we can do both.

The Food Storage Room

One of the other ways we are going to work on our self reliance is to finish up our food storage room. While most will call this a pantry, it’s going to be much more than that. In this storage room, we will have all of our canned goods, garden harvests, coffees, etc. It will also have a dehumidifier and vents on a thermometer to help control the temperatures. It will be insulated and have a door to keep animals out. We will also be storing our crockpots, stock pots, and other larger kitchen appliances in there so that we can reduce the amount of space they take up in the kitchen.

So I will be working on making the house comfortable for my family, while Jared is out there cutting down trees and replacing the electrical panel. I may even help him paint the house.

What Is Your Self Reliance Infrastructure

At the end of the day, you have to do what is right for your family, your land and your animals. It’s not about them or me. It’s about you and what you are trying to accomplish with your life. I hope this post has opened your eyes to what you want to do with your homestead.

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The Homestead Holiday Gift Guide

October 2, 2022 by Leigh 1 Comment

The holidays are coming and with that comes the desire to get those that matter to us gifts that are meaningful and useful. If you are living on a homestead, or have relatives that do, this list is packed full of great ideas to help you get the most bang for your buck. While also get something that they will love. Some of the things on this list are things that are on our own holiday wish list. Others are things that we have already bought and absolutely love. This homestead holiday gift guide is sure to have something for your homesteader.

If you are a homesteader, and your family doesn’t know what to get you for the holidays? Share this with them. Or, if you are going to a holiday party and need a hostess gift? Check out the $0-$50 section below. It’s got a ton of great ideas.

Homestead Holiday Gift Guide

I have broken this guide up into price points because that’s important. No one wants to find the perfect gift and realize it’s outside of their price range. Also this entire post is filled with affiliate links. Buying from these links doesn’t charge you any extra but it does allow us to make some extra money for the farm. You can read more about our affiliate disclosure by clicking the link.

But First Some Housekeeping

The holiday season is a time for giving. As the giver, you are giving someone a gift that you thought they would like or that made you think of them. And friends? That is amazing. As the recipient, it is an awesome feeling when someone hands you a gift and says, “This made me think of you.” But also as a recipient, I don’t want you to waste your money on me. I would rather you donate that money to a good cause like animal rescue, save the bees, or really anything where the money actually goes to the cause.

Sometimes though, the gift giver simply wants to give you a gift. And if you are getting a gift for a homesteader, you may be a little lost on what to get them. You know they don’t want anything, but you are bound and determined to get them something. Most homesteaders would love to receive a gift that works on the farm. So let’s talk about homestead holiday gifts.

$0-$100 Gifts

First and foremost, GIFT CARDS. I can not stress this enough. I know, it seems like such an impersonal gift. But it is seriously the BEST gift I could receive and I know a lot of other people feel the same. I hate wasting money and when people buy things that I can’t use, it bothers me. Not because I’m spoiled, although that is true too. It’s because that person spent their hard earned money on things that won’t get use, can’t be returned, etc. So seriously consider gift cards to places like Home Depot, Tractor Supply and Amazon.

Tractor Supply

Digital Prints, Digital Art Work, or Printables– I have several different digital photography prints in my Etsy store and they are a huge hit. Unlike regular artwork, these are digital and can be printed at any size you want. These make fantastic hostess gifts, too. You will usually find prints for less than $10 and it doesn’t cost more than a few more dollars to have them printed at Walmart, Target, Sams, etc.

Ask About Their Amazon Wish List– Almost anyone that regularly shops on Amazon has at least one wish list. I have 10. But ask them for a link to their wish list so you can be sure to get something that they will love.

Donations– Every year there is that one person that you have absolutely no idea what to get them. I’ve got a family full of them. Instead of getting them a present that is going to hang out in the garage for the next 5 years, you know who you are, make a donation to their favorite charity. Get them a card, explain what you did, and put the receipt in the card.

Books– If your homesteader is a bookworm then I’ve got the list for you!

Homesteading

  • Back To The Basics
  • The Homesteader’s Herbal Companion
  • The Encyclopedia of Country Living
  • The First-Time Homesteader

Cookbooks

  • The Homestead Canning Cookbook
  • The Complete Guide To Pressure Canning
  • Preserving Everything
  • The Prepper’s Pantry

Animals

  • The Backyard Homestead Guide To Raising Animals
  • Butchering
  • The Ultimate Guide To Raising Farm Animals

Gear- Whether it’s stuff for butchering, milking, or building having extra gear is amazing. Gift cards would be amazing for this stuff as well because you may not know the difference between hoof trimmers to get, or which power tools they need batteries for. But I will tell you this, getting me gear so I can do my chores better? Score.

Sharp Things

  • Cold Steel Machete
  • Mtech Axe
  • Throwing Axes

Tools

  • Drill Bits, Saw Blades, and more
  • Hand tools: extra screw drivers, wrenches, socket sets, pliers and more.

Miscellaneous

  • Cast Iron, the good kind from antique stores.
  • Boots are always a plus
  • Coveralls! Seriously.

Seeds!!!!!!!! This would probably be better as a gift card, but I don’t know many homesteaders that will turn down packets of seeds. Tomatoes are usually pretty safe. Cucumbers are too if they have livestock. But check and see what they grow. and then check out Territorial Seed Company or Eden Brothers.

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Plants- Territorial Seed has some great plants including coffee plants! Etsy is also another great place to get edible plants so consider berry bushes, grape vines, etc.

$100-$250 Gifts

You had better be pretty good to get something off this list. While I know I haven’t been super good, if my family is reading this? I would like this milker please!

Greenhouse– There are some greenhouses that will come in under $250 that are great for seed starts or house plants that are too big to come inside. If you know they are short on space, a greenhouse may be a great option.

Pressure Canners– I will never say no to an additional canner. I’ve been saving up for this canner, but just having another one is a time saver for me. The All American 931 can hold 19 quart jars and is a double stack. When I’m hip deep in canning season, this helps a lot. The Presto is a great canner and you can usually only get 7 quart jars in there.

Camp stove- Along the same lines as a pressure canner, having additional burners would be amazing. Not to mention not heating up the house. This camp stove has been on my list for a while and I’m hoping to get one before next canning season.

Bench Grinder– You have no idea how quickly sharp things get dull on the homestead. Having a good bench grinder is a great gift to give. Jared is able to sharpen all the knives, scissors, shovels, axes, and more with ours.

$250+ Gifts

If you’ve got a from scratch chef that has made you some amazing meals, check out this Kitchen Aid Mixer. Yes, it’s pricey but well worth the money spent, especially if that means you are going to get some awesome home cooking from it. This one is on my wish list as well

Got a homesteader that has goats? Or other hooved creatures? Hoof Boss is definitely a time and back saver. When we have to trim hooves, it takes hours. It’s hard on the back and trying to wrangle all the goats? Well, they’re lucky they’re cute.

Chainsaws– Now, this one will need a little bit of research, but an extra chainsaw is always great to have around. Not to mention the chains, sharpening equipment, etc.

At The End Of The Day

Your homesteader will love whatever gift you give them, we are grateful like that. But if you want to give them something that they will use, or need, check out some of the offerings on the homestead holiday gift guide. Or better yet, ask them what they want or need. I’m sure they would be ecstatic to receive something they need.

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Filed Under: Animals, Canning, Chickens, Garden, Goats, How To's, Kitchen, Pigs, Projects, The Homestead Tagged With: Canning, cast iron, Chickens, Chicks, cooking, Eggs, Goats, Homestead, kitchen, Welcome

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How To Build Raised Garden Beds

September 18, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

While it’s definitely easier to just buy a raised garden bed, kits or other premade/ prefabricated beds, I do think that building them from scratch is a great way to go. I’ll explain why in a minute. The idea of using raised beds was, at first, a ridiculous idea to me. I’ve got great soil, why do I need a bed? But after our first garden flopped, maybe learning how to build raised garden beds is a better idea.

What are raised garden beds?

Simply put, it is a structure that sits on the ground that you add soil, compost and other organic material to grow things. That’s it. But it is definitely more than that. You see, our soil in Georgia is usually red clay. But there’s a reason why Georgia is a huge agricultural state, we can grow just about anything in this soil. That also means that our weeds are super plants, too.

A raised bed is a great way to keep weeds from growing and stealing water and other nutrients from your plants.

Raised beds also help those with ailments or disabilities that can’t be on their knees in a garden.

Also raised beds help create a designated spot for fruits or vegetables that you want to save seeds from.

And they look prettier.

Susan over at Learning and Yearning as a great guide to raised beds. I took a lot of inspiration from her and Kathi over at Oakhill Homestead when I was brainstorming, designing and building our raised garden beds.

To Buy Or Build A Raised Bed

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? There are somethings you need to consider when it comes to building a raised bed. Things like your skill level, cost of materials, and customization. If you are not handy with tools or don’t have any skill, building a raised bed may not be a good option. The cost of lumber is extremely high in some parts of the country and that makes building one out of reach for some people. If you are looking for certain dimensions, building one may be a better option.

When we were looking at raised beds, I wanted to conceal the area in front of our front porch. The gutters get overrun when it rains and creates a lot of issues with run off.

Our dogs like to dig and wreak havoc in the front yard. The goats like to hide under the porch and the chickens like to lay their eggs under there too.

So I wanted to help hide some of this as well as keep creatures out. In front of the front porch is a 12ft section on each side of the stairs. And one side has a walk way to the porch, and the other side is wide open. The raised beds/ planters had to be tall enough to keep goats from walking right up to it. Trying to find something that was prefabricated was going to either be insanely expensive or not the right size.

It Was Better For Us To Build Raised Garden Beds

We found a couple of prefab’d raised beds like this one, and this one. But those are really expensive and still not the right fit for what we needed. So Jared and I brainstormed what we could do. I told him what I wanted: 2.5-3 feet wide, 12 feet long, and about 24 inches tall. He got to work designing and sketching and handed me a material list.

I went to Home Depot and got 45 dog ear pickets and 6 3x4x 8ft posts and he went to work. We also got some lattice to discourage the critters from going under the deck on the sides that would be open until we could build more beds.

How To Build Raised Garden Beds

It was pretty easy for Jared to build the beds and he got them both done in a day.

He stared with cutting all of the lumber to size.

Cut List

Pickets- cut off the dog ear. Then find your half way point (should be 5′ 5″) and cut there. If you are doing a custom size, cut to that number

3×4- Cut in half

Take your extra pickets (we bought 5 extra) and cut those to 18 inches

Instructions

On a flat and level surface (unless you want your beds to follow the contour of the ground), screw each picket onto a 3×4 timber.

Do this with the front and back of your bed.

Line them up so that you can attach your side picket. Do the same for the other side. You should have a rectangle.

Then start attaching pickets all the way up until you have your desired height. Ours was four pickets high.

Then go in and screw those 18in pickets half way between the 3x4s to help stabilize the pickets to help keep them from bowing when the bed is filled with soil.

Prepping Your Garden Beds

To start, I highly recommend using a liner. Katie over at The Homesteading RD has a great article all about different liners and why you should use them. Now, we didn’t use the cedar like she suggested for two reasons; one, cedar is still pretty expensive and two, because I didn’t to go BACK out to the store. Instead, I used our woven ground cloth.

If you are going to use any kind of plastic or cloth for your beds, I suggest stapling it to the sides of your pickets. But make sure you use plenty of slack in your liner, the weight of the soil, compost and other filler will tear it.

Filler

Since our beds were 12 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2 feet tall, we needed a TON of filler. Now, we could have gone and gotten a bunch of soil, but that’s expensive AND the soil will get compacted over time. That’s not what we want.

About 2 months ago, Jared went through the property and cut down a bunch of mountain laurel. If you don’t know, mountain laurel is extremely toxic to pretty much everything. But our goats didn’t get that memo and without fail someone always eats it and gets sick.

So I had this giant pile of laurel that needed to go. After a ton of research, including calling the Arbor Foundation, I found out that laurel doesn’t leach toxins as it decomposes. Score.

I filled the beds with as much laurel as possible. We cut down big branches and stuffed them in the bed, being careful not to puncture the liner. It took about half the pile but my beds were about 80% full.

Compost

Next, Chase filled the beds with compost. He’s in that wonderful teenage stage where he likes to pick things up and put them down. Repeatedly. But hey, it works for me. He did a fantastic job and the beds were about 90% full….. Or so I thought.

I ordered my soil, peat moss and the rest of the things I needed for finishing off the rest of the area. Including Halloween Decorations.

My poor truck was so low

I wish I would have realized before buying all of this that it was heavy. I knew it was heavy, but I guess I didn’t realize HOW heavy it would be.

Driving home, on curvy mountain roads was a test of not only my driving skills but also my patience. But we all made it home in one piece and nothing fell off the back of the truck. Score.

Soil

What you fill your beds with is totally up to you. As I said above, I would highly recommend using some sort of filler that is decomposable and a liner. When it comes to soil, we used regular top soil since we were adding peat moss and already had compost and the laurel in the beds. Also, since we aren’t 100% sure what we will be planting in these beds long term, I didn’t want to put in something that was going to be highly acidic or alkalotic.

Plants

What does well in raised beds? Literally everything. I want these beds to house our garlic, onion, and carrots. I may even put our regular potatoes and sweet potatoes in there. Again, I’m not entirely sure. But for now, I threw in some great fall plants and we’ll see what they can do.

Our Take Away

We figured out that raised beds are a great way to go to help conceal the disaster of the front porch.

It takes a TON of soil and other filler to fill these beds so take that into consideration when building these things. Not just height but width and length too.

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Run hardware cloth around the top if you want to keep chickens and goats out.

Do not compact the soil in these beds! As you add soil, spread it around so it can fill holes in your filler but don’t cram it in there.

The beds themselves only cost about $60 each to build but ended up running us about $100 each to fill. Keep that in mind when you start this project.

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The Laundry Room Remodel

August 18, 2022 by Leigh 8 Comments

Hold on to your butts, this is a long posts.

Not everything on the homestead is about livestock, gardens and canning. Sometimes it’s about what is inside your home too. When we bought the house, we really didn’t care that the walls were wood paneled. Nor did we care that we would have to replace the floors. Those different upgrades that we were going to have to do, just was not a problem. We bought it for the land. Unfortunately, the house still does need to be updated and brought into this century, let alone this decade. So I decided to do a laundry room remodel and to make it more of a challenge for less than $700.

  • Why The Laundry Room?
    • The Things We Hated:
    • Where To Start: Paneling
    • Next: Ceiling and Electrical
    • Painting Over Wood Paneling
    • Storage
  • Final Takeaways For A Laundry Room Remodel

Why The Laundry Room?

Well, simply put it’s the most hated room in our house, bar none. No one likes doing laundry. But since I hate it the least, it’s “my” chore. Which is fine because that means that the dishes go to someone else. Score.

But it was hard to find the urge to get in there and do the laundry, or even clean the space. It was drab and was just not nice to look at. The worst part was, no matter how many times I cleaned it, it always stunk.

I could have started anywhere in the house, but this seemed to be the most manageable. Plus, if we screwed something up, it was a small space. It had the least amount of the things we hated the most (paneling) and seemed like a quick remodel would be, well, quick. There was no way to know how wrong I was.

Before the laundry remodel could start, I had to at least think about that I wanted it to look like. The first thing I did, was figure out all the things we hated about the room.

The Things We Hated:

  1. Paneling
  2. Lack of storage
  3. Open shelves
  4. Chewed and clawed up door jam
  5. Popcorn ceilings
  6. Lighting
  7. No place to fold or store laundry while finishing the other laundry.

Then I figured out what I wanted it to look like. There were two things that needed to happen in that room, the paneling gone and more storage. Anything past that was fair game. So I started working on designing what I wanted.

Our house is not very big and that is just fine with us. But the downside is that we have to get very creative with storage options. I have found that putting in cabinets has helped a ton. Almost every single remodel or design idea has tons of shelves, cabinets and other storage ideas.

Where To Start: Paneling

Before we jump into the rest of this post, let me tell you something about paneling and trying to cover it. This is not for the feint of heart. Nor is it for someone not willing to work. Like most construction projects, it’s dirty, dusty, and there is a ton of heavy lifting. Don’t let any of the videos or other posts lie to you and tell you, “I just covered the crack in the paneling and painted”. That’s not what they did, trust me.

Back to the laundry room.

Once we got the majority of everything out of the laundry room, I decided to start with the wood paneling. While others may love shiplap, I hate it. So I started looking into how to cover up the cracks in the paneling and found that caulk is a good choice. Let me tell you, it’s not.

Boys helping cover wood paneling
Boys helping cover wood paneling

After twelve bottles of caulking, we weren’t even half way done. It also didn’t fill the cracks well. Once it dried, there would be an indent in the middle of the crack. So that failed.

When talking to a couple of friends who do construction, they suggested using drywall putty or mud. That worked a lot better, and was a ton cheaper so we went with that. But the problem we were still having was that, once dried, the crack was still noticeable.

The indent that doesn’t want to be covered

After three to four coats with the drywall mud, the crack was barely noticeable and ready to sand.

Let me tell you this, before you start sanding, make sure that you have a respirator like this one and great airflow in the room you’ll be working in. I used sheets and blankets to block off the doorway so that we could keep the dust to a minimum and it definitely helped. But the clean up was enormous.

Next: Ceiling and Electrical

Next we started working on removing the popcorn ceiling. For this job, it may have been better just to leave it. But popcorn ceilings are a close second in my hatred book. To remove popcorn ceiling you need two things, a spray bottle with water and a drywall knife similar to this, and the size doesn’t matter. You can buy a popcorn scraper but we found that it gouged the ceiling more and was harder to work with. Because all the “droppings” fell into the bag, it’s definitely worth a shot.

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Then you are going to soak the ceiling with water using some sort of sprayer, we used this one. Once it’s saturated, and yes you need to soak it, you can start working to scrape the ceiling. I will tell you it is extremely satisfying to do it. I don’t know why. Once you’re done, you can sand any rough spots.

Another option for the ceiling is to just sand it if you have an electric sander. After doing the scraper, I liked this method the most because it is a one and done. I also didn’t have to worry as much about gouging the ceiling when I sanded. Plus, I was already sanding the walls so two birds, one stone.

After the ceiling was done, dry and painted, it was time to tackle the nipple lights. I don’t know what they’re actually called but they look like nipples, sorry. It was also time to start pulling the black outlets and switches and replacing them with white ones.

Cue problem #93480382 of this remodel. The electrical was done to 1980s code, so it was pretty much a fire hazard. And since our house is all wood, it would have gone up like a matchbox. After cleaning out forty years of dust, bugs and debris out of the switch boxes, we were able to replace the switches. Only to find out, everything was backwards. Since Jared is amazing, he was able to get in there and help me get everything switched out. I love that man.

Once we got the new light fixture installed, we were ready to tackle the paint.

Painting Over Wood Paneling

Now, before we jump into painting, you need to know something about wood paneling. Much like painting previously painted wood, you need to sand your paneling. If you don’t, the paint won’t stick. We took our sander around the room and hit every single wall. Then we washed the walls with warm soapy water. We wanted to make sure that we weren’t going to have another problem, which of course we did.

I used Kilz Primer, because the previous owners had cats and I’m pretty sure the litter box was in the laundry room. So it stunk. After I hit the walls, ceiling, baseboards and door jams, you could still see the wood paneling AND the cracks.

We did four coats of primer and you could still see the orange through the paint. I was not happy. Mind you at this point, I still hadn’t picked a color for the walls. But after seeing that we would need a darker color to help hide the wood? Gray it is.

Storage

I’m not a decorator, but seeing everything start to come together is my favorite part. There were a lot of phone calls and text messages sent to my family and friends because I am absolutely clueless when it comes to this stuff. The two things I knew that I wanted was it to feel clean, even if it wasn’t, and to have a ton of storage.

Previously, when it was time to do laundry, we had a storage rack like this. It worked okay, but it was temporary because we lived in a rental. When we moved into this house, we couldn’t really use it. It blocked access to the attic and didn’t fit between the basement door and the dryer. So anytime we had to go into the attic, we had to unload this thing and move it out of the way.

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So I started measuring. I figured that I could put cabinets and shelves over the washer and dryer. I decided that I wanted to use cabinets and industrial pipe rod to fold our clothes. Here come the kitchen cabinets. The unfinished cabinets are much cheaper and are usually in stock at the stores.

I also grabbed a couple of decking boards to use as the tops and used a propane torch to burn them. To attach the boards to the cabinets, I used 1in corner brackets. Then, I found my stash of cabinet pulls and finished it off.

When we were placing the wall cabinets, we decided to use a French cleat system and it worked pretty well except, you could see where the top cleats where too low and too wide. This resulted in having to get a word art sign that could hide it.

Then came the shelves. We bought 1x10x10 boards and these shelf brackets. I really love these brackets! I’m not a fan of the normal shelf brackets because they look cheap to me. While these brackets were more expensive, I think it looks more finished.

The final touch of this remodel, was adding different storage containers for laundry detergent, bleach, etc. I didn’t want to just leave them in their packaging because, well it’s not nice to look at. While that may not bother some, I do want my home to look a little more put together.

Today, my laundry room looks like this and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Final Takeaways For A Laundry Room Remodel

–Drywall Tape -Next time we will be using drywall tape to help cover the cracks in the paneling better.

-Lighting- bright white light bulbs will help keep the room looking bigger instead of the more orange-y/ yellow-y bulbs.

– Use drop cloths to protect your floors if you will not be replacing them

– Give yourself at least an inch when measuring for cabinets. We ended up having to cram that smaller cabinet between the washer and dryer. The good news is that now my washer can’t walk out when it’s unbalanced.

-You don’t have to buy every decoration when you hit the final stage. You can, but I liked being able to find things as I liked them instead of switching things out and wasting money.

I know this was a long post. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking around. While this laundry room remodel took a couple of months and is still not quite done, it has been great. We have lived in rentals our entire marriage and it’s nice to be able to work together and make this home ours.

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What To Do With Those Feed Bags

August 5, 2022 by Leigh 5 Comments

How many feed bags do you have laying around? Do you just throw them away? I’ve always been one to save dog food bags. I don’t know why. Probably the same reason so many people save shopping bags that they never, ever reuse. At least not at the rate they save them. But after cleaning up the basement for the 9 millionth time, and seeing a ton of bags, I decided enough was enough.

But how many bags do you really need? Well, according to my brain, I need all of them. It’s ridiculous. I cannot throw them away. No matter how hard I argue with myself about the fact that I don’t need to save every single one, I end up rolling it up and stowing it in another feed bag. So I started brainstorming, searching and the list below is how we reuse feed bags.

Don’t judge!

Why I save them

I feel like they are really good bags. They are made to hold 50# of food or more! That means they can hold all sorts of things. Plus, let’s be real here, you put anything sharp in a regular trash bag, even the heavy duty ones, and you are blowing a hole in it. Now, all that trash is all over the place. Not cool.

Another reason I am in favor of saving these bags is because I’ve already paid for them. Think about it, I bought the feed but I’m going to throw away a perfectly good bag because it’s empty? Absolutely not. Couple that and the fact that things are getting more and more expensive? I have all the reasons I need to hold on to and reuse feed bags.

Ways To Reuse Feed Bags

Trash Bags- Seriously, these make the most amazing trash bags! I don’t know where you live but trash bags by me are $15 for an 80ct box. When I am going and decluttering, I will reuse feed bags before I even touch my regular trash bags.

Tote Bags- Kathy over at Beyond The Chicken Coop has a great tutorial for making tote bags! These are seriously adorable and I will be making some! I love that I can make different sizes based on what I need. Plus, I know that if I can make the seams strong, they will be strong because again, they hold 50# of feed!

Hay Feeders- Danielle At DIY Danielle, talks about some of the pros and cons of doing it this way. I have found that it works well, until it doesn’t. I love the portability of this style bag, I can nail it to a tree or hang it in the goat barn. But it’s still only going to last so long.

Organizer- Yes, you read that right. We will use these bags to put all of the same type of stuff together. For example: We will store all of our nursery pots in a feed bag. Or if we are going the the back of the property to cut trees, we will put the bar oil, fuel, hatchet, etc in the bag. Now, we take them out immediately after so that we aren’t mixing chemicals if one should mysteriously open. BUT to get all those tools out to the area we are working now only takes one trip.

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Planters- We have grown some amazing potatoes, carrots, and onions in these bags. But be sure to use the plastic ones for this! Patrick and Jessie at Southern Dreams Homestead has a great and in depth post about growing in containers that will help you here.

Tarps- Yea, I wasn’t sure about this one but the idea is definitely there! Sweet Meadow Sampler has a great tutorial on it. We will be trying it soon though.

https://www.wickedgoodcupcakes.com/shop-online/thinking-of-you-boxes

Flooring- I personally would do this in the winter to make clean out in the spring easier. One of the biggest headaches we have come spring, has nothing to do with the garden. It’s cleaning out the barn and coop. Having these bags would not only insulate them from the ground, it would also help clean up all the pine shavings, poop, urine and more.

Compost- it is feasible that you could compost in these bags. The plastic would trap heat and allow break down faster. The thick paper bags are compositable themselves. In theory (I have not tried this yet) you could fill a bag and empty it in your compost pile. Or you could use the bag AS your compost pile. You can go more in depth about composting with The Homestead RD, Katie has some truly amazing posts about compost. In the post I linked above, she also uses feed bags as planters and can tell you how to do it.

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Wood- We will put our small pieces of scrap wood in these bags to help keep the basement cleaned up. We have a ton of projects around here and I’m not going to throw away or burn a piece of good wood just because it’s a smidge too small. By putting it in the feed bags, we reduce clutter and reuse the bag.

Projects- Sometimes when we have multiple projects going on, it’s hard to keep everything separated. So I will put all the supplies for a project in a feed bag and then write on the front what it’s for. This has helped a ton when it comes to organization.

How do you reuse feed bags?

Leave us a comment below. Do you throw away your bags? Reuse them?

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Our Homestead Buying Guide

August 4, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

I’ve been getting asked a lot, “Where do you buy x?” So I figured I would take the time to list out where we buy the stuff for our goats, chickens, canning, seeds, garden stuff, and other odds and ends that we have used and really like. This is a VERY link heavy post, so here is our affiliate disclosure again. It doesn’t cost you a penny, but it does help us here on the homestead. The other thing is that I am not going to push you to buy anything that we have not already bought, tested and liked/loved. You don’t need that and to be honest, that’s not who I am. Here is the Homestead Buying Guide.

PS: if you don’t have a Honey account, or you shop online a ton, I highly suggest you download it. You can use my code here. They are great because it can automatically search for coupon codes and you earn cash back on purchases. I’ve earned $300 in the last year. It’s worth the minimal effort. AND you can add items to your honey list which will tell you when prices have dropped or if it’s at the lowest price.

Goats:

You can read any of my posts involving my goats here.

We get most of our goat gear from Tractor Supply. Their prices can be higher than a local feed store on some things but cheaper on others. For example; my local feed store has alfalfa pellets for $17.99/ 50# bag. Tractor supply has theirs for $19.29 as of 7/31/22.

Buckets– We get these for feed, water, and so many other things. They are really useful.

Troughs- We use two different kinds. This one is the one we hang on the fence at different points to give them feed, alfalfa, or whatever else. We use this one for portability or if we are hanging a temporary feeder in a kidding pen for them.

Balling Gun– This helps us get pills down into the goats without having to worry about getting bitten. Yes, that happens a lot.

Tractor Supply

Hoof Trimmers- We’ve bought two of these, and I’m a fan of this one. It just seems sturdier and I like it better. BUT this one from TSC is fine too. It’s not that I don’t like it per se, I just prefer the orange one. If you’ve got some money to spend, I would HIGHLY suggest the Hoof Boss. I’ve seen it used and it does a fantastic job. It is on our wish list of things to buy.

Meds- Now, I’m going to say this. We treat a lot of aliments on our homestead here. But we also have an amazing vet that we can call any time… almost. But having a few meds on hand is going to save you a ton of heartache. Meds to get from a vet: Thiamine and Banamine. Things to have on hand that you can get from a feed store: Red Cell, Probiotics, LA200, Tylan 200, Safeguard or Cydectin (or your choice of dewormer), electrolytes, Iron, B-complex, and Copper Wire Bolus. On the copper wire, make sure you get kids or adults based on what you have.

Chickens

You can read about how we brood chickens here. The list below is just links to the items we have bought.

Incubator- We use this one and have had great success with it. The only thing I don’t like is the size. I wish it were bigger but beggar and choosers.

Brooder lights- We have used CHE’s like this one, but it can cause the chickens to attack other chickens. So a red light and housing is what you really need. We also use pine shavings for bedding for both the goats and the chickens.

Tractor Supply

Feed- When we have chicks, we start them on a medicated feed. This helps with cocci and other harmful organisms. Remember, you really only need a week or two worth of this feed. What we do is feed approximately 1#/ chick. If you have two chicks, you would need 2#, if you have 50 you need 50#. This is not perfect, it’s really a guess. When we do our meat chickens, we buy one bag of chick start and that’s it.

Feeders/waterers- We use this feeder when they are little, and this one when they are bigger. However! If you’ve got some money to spend or you are only interested in buying one thing, this is the feeder you need. I love it! AND we can hang it, which really does decrease the mess. It also works fantastic with the ducklings.

On the waterer, we are still trying to find something that we love. When chicks are little, they need a ton of water, but they are also extremely messy. So finding one that isn’t going to make a mess but also be easy to fill has been difficult. This waterer is good, not great, but it will get the job done when they are little. As they get bigger, we use this one. We found that the metal ones did not hold up well at all. If you have a waterer you love, let me know in the comments.

Canning

Alright! I’ve been waiting to do this one!

Canners- This is my water bath canner and this is my pressure canner. I’ve got two of the presto pressure canners and I love them. One of these days, I am going to get this mack daddy. I can process 19 quarts a time. Which replaces BOTH of my other canners. The price tag is steep at around $500 but it’s got a life time warranty and it’s worth every penny.

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Jars- All I’m going to say is this: when you think you have enough, double it. Then double it again. Here’s why. I have over a thousand jars. When I can, I can for an entire year. So when I am figuring out how many jars of tomato sauce I need for the year, it’s not a couple dozen. I can 104+ quart jars. When I can green beans, it’s not a couple pints. It’s 146+ quarts and 146+ pints. Same with corn. Soups and stews is another big ticket item in my house. We are talking 200 quarts and 200 pints-ish. Sometimes it’s more. That’s already 600 quart jars that I need. So while you may not need that many, be prepared that you will need more than you think.

Funnels- Yall, you will never, and I mean never have enough funnels. I love the metal funnels and I have at least 6 of them. Make sure to get wide mouth and regular!

Jar grabby things- Get a bunch of these too. You will lose them or the handles will break while you are mid canning.

https://www.wickedgoodcupcakes.com/shop-online/thinking-of-you-boxes

Books- Canning cookbooks are some of the best investments that you can make. This book is hands down the best period. Buy it. She’s got a ton of amazing soups in there and they are divine. This is another really good one with some great recipes. If you are new to canning, I will recommend getting a Ball Book. There is a ton of great information in them. BUT after you get some experience, or after doing your own research, take it with a grain of salt. Some of the recipes are extremely convoluted and contradictory. Lastly, I’m not a Prepper, per se. BUT I do put up my own food because after the pandemic, I realized that relying on the grocery store isn’t a super smart idea. That being said, this book has some great recipes, ideas, and more for being self reliant.

Check back for more items as we find them and add them to the list!

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7 Most Common Mistakes For New Homesteaders

June 12, 2022 by Leigh 4 Comments

So you’ve bought your property. Congratulations! You have been dreaming, scheming, planning, watching YouTube, and reading blogs like this one to try and figure out all the things you want to do on your homestead. Once you’ve moved in and the dust has settled, you look around and ask, “What now?” If you’re anything like the the rest of us mere mortals, you’re going to jump in with both feet. Now, you are overwhelmed, underprepared and stressed to the max. It’s like I know, right? Welcome to my life for the last year. So here is my list of 7 most common mistakes for new homesteaders, and how to avoid them.

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Mistakes For New Homesteaders and Quick Fixes

1) Starting too big

We all want to hit the ground running when we start our homesteads. Before you know it, you’ve got chickens, ducks, turkey, rabbits, cows, and goats. Your garden is huge but not producing. The goats are sick all the time. You have no time to enjoy the life you are trying so hard to build.

Downsize– Seriously, I know you wanted all the critters when you moved in and the thought of selling or butchering them is abhorrent, but you need to think about where you are and what you are doing. If you are struggling with caring for them, you aren’t giving them their best life. So downsize the herd, cull some tomato plants, and move on.

 mistakes for new homesteaders

Get Help– If you are able to, enlist the help of kids, family or neighbors. Worse case? Hire someone until you get it figured out. This can get expensive, but if you don’t want to downsize, there are plenty of 4H and FFA kids that are looking for farm work.

Pay someone– I know that this seems counterproductive to the whole homesteading thing, but consider it. Jared and I work full time, plus have part time jobs and homeschooling that take up a lot of time. The exterior of our house desperately needs a coat of paint, but we just don’t have the time to do it. So we are hiring it out. It’ll be the same when we put in our property fencing and expand the goat pens. We could absolutely do it, but paying someone else to do it frees up our time to do something else.

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2) Not starting at all

Paralysis by analysis is a thing. You want to do all of these things but you get so overwhelmed with choices, decisions and options, that you do nothing. You’ve got a list that is three miles long but you’re not really sure which thing is the best to start with.

Pick one thing– When we first moved in, our list of the things we wanted to do was incredibly long. I had 3 legal pad filled with notes, lists, and more. What made it easy to start was that we prioritized a few things off that list. We got a chicken coop and chicks. We started clearing land and debris. Then we got goats. THEN we got overwhelmed.

 mistakes for new homesteaders

Infrastructure– A lot of people don’t think about infrastructure when they are setting up their homesteads. They have this idea in their head about what they want but no idea how to execute. My suggestion is to come up with your Homestead Infrastructure and then start making plans based on that.

3) Not having a plan

You jumped in with both feet and no plan. You are stressed, overwhelmed and ready to throw in the towel. You ordered the chicks but don’t have a coop. The seedlings that you planted in January have no home because there is no garden. You lost your plan, your goals, and your mind

Write it down!- I talked about goal setting here. But while goals are great, if you don’t have a plan, they’re not really a goal. It’s a dream. So come up with a big picture goal/ dream and start laying out how to achieve it.

Create A Budget– Look into how much those goals, dreams, and plans are going to cost. Then start working it into your budget. This life is expensive, but no one wants to be shocked when they go to start building a barn and end up thousands of dollars in the hole.

4) Lack of Organization

I have lost two bags of chicken shrink bags. I’ve misplaced my goals list and plan. Don’t even get me started about the basement. If I don’t have a list, things don’t get done. Or I my ADD kicks in and I have cleaned the whole house, but it doesn’t look like it.

Declutter– Yes, I know. You know how to declutter but you just don’t have the time. Well, let me ask you this? How much time have you wasted looking for things? How much money have you wasted reordering things because you can’t find them? Go ahead and declutter.

Make lists– Make the lists, check it twice and then put it on your fridge!

Tractor Supply

5) No Accountability

Let’s be real for a second. We think we want accountability, but we really don’t. But we REALLY do. Most of us are self starters and are excited to work on new projects. But when we get bored, disinterested or defeated, it’s easy to just walk away from it. If we don’t have someone to say no, do not get that herd of twenty goats, you’ll never get ahead.

 mistakes for new homesteaders

Respect the no– When I brought up getting pigs to Jared, he flat out told me no. Not because he doesn’t want them. He does. He said no because we don’t have fencing, a dedicated spot, or anything else. We’ve got two pregnant goats as well as all the chickens. So I respected the no.

Learn to self motivate– While I struggle with wanting everything right now and ADD. Jared struggles with motivation. He has been working on self motivation for a while and is doing better. There are days when he’s just not feeling it. That makes it hard on all of us because he is the main builder and heavy lifter on the farm. Figure out what you can do to motivate yourself and do it, all the time.

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6) Education

We all know that education is key to everything. If you don’t know how to do something, life is going to get hard if you’re not willing to learn.

Pick a subject– and become an expert on it. Or at least as much as an expert as you can. If you pick goats, good luck. You will never be an expert. Find someone who is an expert and learn as much as you can from them. Our neighbors have been farmers their entire lives, who better to teach us how to be farmers?

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Don’t be afraid to learn as you go– Get a solid base knowledge of your topic and then put it to work. Jared was not a carpenter before this homestead, now? He has built chicken tractors, barns, and so much more. Don’t be afraid to learn.

7) Not knowing and using your resources

I am guilty of this one. Our neighbor has goats. Have I ever asked him for help? Nope. Our other neighbor raised meat chickens for years. Did I ask him for help? Nope. It’s a flaw that I’m still working on.

 mistakes for new homesteaders

Social media and YouTube are all great resources, but nothing is better than having someone walk you through the process. I can watch something one time and tell you how to do it. But I don’t actually know how to do it, until I’ve done it.

Don’t Get Discouraged

There is a reason you wanted to homestead. Remember that reason at every turn. When things get hard, remember why you chose this life. When the chicken knocks over a $80 bottle of goat antibiotics because your child forgot to shut the garage door? Remember you wanted the chickens…. and the child. As you progress with your homestead and get discouraged about all the things you need to do, look back and see all of the things that you’ve already done. Even if that’s only managing to keep the children alive.

 mistakes for new homesteaders

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Should You Homestead?

May 26, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

When the shutdowns hit the US, a lot of people were stuck inside with nothing to do. They were scared of the virus and scared that they couldn’t find the basic supplies they need. All of this caused a huge uptick in people learning about homesteading. Mostly because they were stuck at home and bored out of their mind. This in turn caused a lot of people to start gardens, learn how to process foods, and in general adopt the homesteaders mentality. If you have been asking yourself, should you homestead, I say yes.

How To Get Started

I wrote an entire blog post about how to start a homestead and how to homestead on 5 acres. You don’t need to have a million acres to homestead. To be honest, you don’t even need 5 acres. You just need the right attitude to get started. I talked, in depth about what homestead means here and the reality is that no two homesteads look the same. An urban homestead is just as amazing as a country homestead. A 100 acre homestead is just as awesome as a 5 acre homestead. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what homestead means because YOU are the homestead. It’s your ideas, your dreams, and your needs, not someone else’s.

What Do You Want?

Do you want to have a veggie garden, fruit trees or a container garden? Should you have chickens, rabbits, or quail because you only have a quarter acre in the city? What about a couple of goats or pigs? What about converting your lawn into a veggie garden? Or removing non edible landscaping and replacing it with edible, like raspberry bushes, grapes, or a salad bar?

All of these questions should be floating around in your brain about how to get started. The only thing that should be limiting you, is you. Set your goals and get to work. If you are on a small property, get creative. Instead of having a huge garden plot, go vertical. There are hundreds of posts on vertical gardening but my favorite is this one from The Homesteading RD. If you follow her, especially on Instagram, you can see all the wonderful ideas she has.

Becoming Self Reliant

We are in an age where shortages are a thing. Toilet paper, baby formula, you name it. What is next? So, I’ll ask the question again: Should you homestead? Yes. Because if you become self reliant, you will do yourself and your family a world of good.

Being self reliant can mean many different things. It could mean having the ability to grow, harvest, and preserve your garden. It could mean having the knowledge and understanding of what animals can eat, how to make them grow faster for meat, and to butcher them humanely. But it does mean adding new skills to your toolbox and not relying on others to fix it.

By being self reliant, you can barter for goods or services. If you suck at growing veggies but you have the space for extra meat birds. Strike a deal with someone who does grow veggies but doesn’t have the space for meat birds. If you have never canned anything, find someone who has and start learning.

Should You Homestead?

At the end of the day, you need to make that decision for yourself. I can say this, it is the most amazing feeling knowing that I made all the food in my food storage room. It’s also pretty cool that if I’m out of something, I know how to make a lot of things from scratch. Like that time that Jaxson wanted hamburger helper but I haven’t bought that stuff in years. Instead, I was able to make my own cheese sauce from butter and cheese that I made.

The question is, do you want that? Do you want to cook from scratch? Does a garden appeal to you? You have to know your why.

Every decision you make and goal you have should start with a Why. Why is it so important to you? This helps keep you on track when things get hard. If you remember your why, every single decision you make will be a lot easier.

Our Why

Our why is simple: to not rely on others for things we can do ourselves. When it comes to the blog our why with the blog is equally as simple: To help beginning homesteaders with setting up their homestead and avoid the pitfalls of doing things “wrong”.

I have said for many years, if I just had 5 years and 5 acres, I could get us about 75% self reliant in terms of produce and meat. I could get our infrastructure set up to a point were trees, bushes, and other perennials require minimal effort with major results.

While we have had some major set backs, we have made a good sized dent in our infrastructure and are working towards doing more. I have to remind myself daily that our neighbors homestead has had over 100 years of work done to it. Ours only had one. They may have what we are moving towards, but we are starting from scratch. We’ll get there, though, and so will you.

I created a new homesteader checklist that you can download and get started on. Just subscribe below

You can find my new homesteaders check list in our members only area, after you have signed up.

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How To Homestead On 5 Acres

May 17, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

There has been a self sufficient movement over the last couple of years. More people are wanting to become self sustaining. They want to be able to grow their own food, raise livestock, and be less reliant on others. Personally, I am ecstatic. But how big of a property do you need? 100 acres? 50? At least 20, right? Nope. I’m going to show you how we homestead on 5 acres.

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Our Homestead

Technically, we have just over 8 acres. But 2 acres of that is a pond, and another 1.5-2 acres is a giant hill that we can’t do a lot with. So, we have 5 usable acres. We have 30ish chickens, 17 ish ducks, and 10 goats that all need a place to live. There is also the garden that needs to go somewhere. Not to mention all the small projects that need land, like the orchard, clothesline, and *fingers crossed* the pool. Or the larger projects like the shop and granny pods? So how do we make it work without hundreds of acres?

What Are Your Goals?

Do you want to be totally self sufficient? Is this a hobby? Are you supplementing your income? Why do you want to homestead? When you can answer those questions you can start crafting your goals. Our goals are: Have the homestead be self sustaining and self funding. Mortgage paid off in less than 15 years. Animals provide food and/ or income. Land produces 75% or more food and 100% of firewood.

Having clear goals allows you to focus on your plan.

The Plan

In another post about homesteading, I talked about what homesteading means and starting a homestead. You really need to figure out what it means for you and how you want to make this property work for you.

I have also made a new homesteader checklist that you can find in our members only area. In it you can find some basics of how to get started with your homestead.

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Before you even decide on a property, or if you already have a property, you need to plan what you want to do with it. Do you want goats? What about chickens? Are you going to try and squeeze a cow or pigs in? What does your property look like? Is it hilly or flat? Do you have access to plenty of water? Are you going to garden for fun or for purpose? These are just some of the questions that you need to answer before you get into the guts of building up your homestead.

If you want goats, do you already have a pasture for them? Is the fencing goat proof? How long would it take you to put up good fencing and install a good pasture? Do you already have a barn? Is there a predator problem? Do you want to milk them? Breed them? If you can answer these questions you can start to plan.

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As a beginning homesteader, you are going to want chickens. At least every beginner that I have met does. Really think about how any eggs you eat. Jared usually eats 3 eggs a day but no one else really does. When we make breakfast for dinner, we normally go through about a dozen eggs. But what about expansion. Do you want to sell eggs? Do you want to sell chicks? Are you going to be a victim of chicken math? Are you going to raise meat birds?

What about raising larger livestock, do you want pigs or cows? With enough pasture land, you can have a cow on an acre. You could have several pigs as well. The key is knowing your space and maximizing it.

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Get To Work On The Plan

Most people only need a 800 sq ft (or 200 sq ft per person) garden to feed their family of 4 for a year. That’s not really a ton of space when you are talking about having 5 acres. Since we can a ton and give it to family, we decided to triple that. Plus, tomato math is a thing. We also knew that we were going to put in an orchard and decided that strategically planting trees throughout the property would benefit us more than having trees in rows. This would help with shade and keep pests from demolishing the entire crop.

We decided that we wanted to up our egg production for sales as well as reducing our need for chicken at the store. Then we bought more chickens and all of them are dual purpose birds, meaning that they are both egg layers and meat birds. We are also looking into selling any extra chicks.

Then we bought ducks…. Initially, I bought 10 meat ducks and 10 egg ducks. After our losses, I’m pretty sure I now have a total of 17 pet ducks. I’m not sure if I can butcher these guys. The way I see it though, I have 10 production meat ducks and those guys can lay and hatch our meat ducks…. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Our goats are for milking and breeding. Goats are a long term investment. If we can keep them alive and healthy, and all our does produce milk and good kids, we are looking at making about $9,000-11,000/ year. Not counting vet, feed, fencing, etc. That’s also not counting cheese, butter, soap or lotion sales.

Stick To Your Plan

We went off plan by getting the goats. They are no where near returning their investment. But they are so damn cute that we let it slide. Unfortunately, we had to put pigs on the back burner because of it. Same with meat rabbits. Homesteading on 5 acres or less is totally doable, but I will say it again and again. Set your goals, prioritize them, and get your plan in motion.

I would love to hear how you are homesteading or planning to homestead your property.

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20 Things I learned on the Homestead

April 30, 2022 by Leigh 7 Comments

As we creep up to our first year on the homestead, I wanted to go over the top 20 things I learned. From goats to chickens and firewood to canning, there was never a dull moment on the homestead. But we have learned a ton and hope to continue learning as we go.

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Let’s get started!

  1. Goats are not entry level animals. Seriously, wait until you have good fencing, a good vet, and patience!
  2. Chickens are cool, roosters are not. I threaten George with the stock pot daily.
  3. Build it right the first time. I cannot tell you the amount of times we have had to rebuild fences.
  4. Goats eat WAY more than you think they do.
  5. Goat math is a thing. I’m still confused how our numbers jumped from 2 to 7. Oh and we are getting 2 more AND Champ is pregnant.
  1. Canning is addictive. Get more jars than you think you will ever need, then double it.
  2. Find a local farm stand. Even if you have a garden.
  3. Have a plan A, B, C, D and E. Maybe go ahead and plan for F, G and H too. Just to be safe.
  4. Estimate how much firewood you will use, and then double it. Maybe triple if you live in a crazy weather state like Georgia

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  1. Don’t let the husband borrow your tools. Ever. Seriously, don’t do it.
    • Make sure your husband has their own tools. Buy them whatever they want. You may end up with all the shelves, goat barns, and other projects done without you having to nag… remind them.
  1. Patience is the biggest lesson you will learn.
  2. You are way more capable than you think you are. So is your husband.
  3. An emergency fund is going to be your saving grace when you buy a house. But when you buy a homestead? You should probably triple the amount you think you’ll need.
  1. You are going to blow through that emergency fund when your goats get sick, dog needs surgery, well pump goes out and water heater explodes all in one month.
  2. Understand things are going to happen that are beyond your control. Roll with it. A good attitude will get you through it.
  1. Start a blog to detail the antics and chaos of your life. In a year, you will look back and laugh.
  2. Learn to say no. Especially to your husband when he says goats would be a great idea 2 months into owning your homestead.
  3. Chicken poop is slippery on concrete. Be careful when you start chasing chickens through your basement.
  4. You are living the life you always wanted in a way you never dreamed. You are blessed beyond measure.
  5. A homestead is what you make it. It starts with HOME for a reason. Enjoy it.
Bear the freeloader

In the last year, I have learned so much. These are just the top 20. I could write 100 more and still not be at the end of my list. But it has been worth every single penny, sleepless night, and fight. I would not trade my life for the world and all the money. Here’s to the next year on the homestead. May it be as entertaining and interesting as the last.

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My name is Leigh and I am the owner of Steel Raven Farms. I am also the mom of two wonderful boys, wife to a pretty nifty man for the last 15 years and paramedic to boot. We want to bring you along on our crazy journey of Homesteading and all that entails!

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