Making Homestead Changes

Sometimes, and I would say with regularly, your life will change. It could be massive changes that totally rip your world apart, taking your sense of stability, safety and self away. Or it could be tiny, miniscule changes that feel good that you realize actually help you. And we all know that change is hard. Sometimes those changes make you feel like a failure, especially when it comes to your hopes and dreams. But I wanted to give you some examples of making homestead changes that we have made over the last year. I want to give you our reasoning, thoughts and how it’s working out. So that maybe, you won’t be so overwhelmed or frustrated with your own changes.

Making Homestead Changes Is Hard

We have had to step back and really look at not only our homestead goals but also our family and financial goals. We had to really look at what we were spending money on and if those things really served our end financial goal. And we looked at what these things were doing to our family and if that was how we wanted to live.

We had to be really honest with ourselves and our family and make some hard decisions. And I like to think that after making these changes, we will start moving in a better and more peaceful direction.

We sold half our goat herd

This decision was a really hard one. I love my goats, all of them, but we were running into issues with hay and feed. We could afford it, but it was taking money away from other projects and savings. To feed all 15 goats for the month, I was having to spend about $1,000. That is insane.

We had to figure out who to sell and who to keep. It was an easy choice for the babies because only Goose and Maverick were being retained, all other babies were sold. Then we looked at our adults and decided that we couldn’t keep low producing mommas. So that meant that Oakley and Bailey were up. Then we looked at our bucks. Midas has been a proven breeder of healthy kids so we decided to keep him.

The goats went to a wonderful home were they get to jump and play and get all the snuggles. So I’m not terribly upset.

But making this change was important to keeping money on the farm. We are working towards retirement, not spend every penny on animals. Not to mention that it was getting overwhelming with trying to manage 15 goats plus work full time, and and and. We are down to 9 now and it’s much more manageable now.

We decided to hold off on the farmers market this year

We paid to be apart of a locals farmers market this year and I prepped everything to center around it. As we were coming closer and closer to it, I realized that we had nothing to sell. Our chickens still weren’t producing eggs, our garden had just been put in, and I had absolutely NOTHING made to sell.

Not to mention that for us to actually make it to the market, one of us would have to be off work. Because it’s not as easy as just showing up. You’ve got to pick and wash produce, collect, wash and package eggs, load up the truck, unload the truck, and then hope that there are people at the market.

While that’s not really a big deal for most farmers, it is for us. Due to our schedules, we could really only make one market every week if we pushed it. I sat down with planners to try and figure out how we would get there and what we would sell and I just couldn’t figure out how to make it work.

Not to mention we got a late start on the garden, again. So after talking to Jared, we decided that we wouldn’t do the market just yet. We still had too many projects and things on the homestead that needed to get done. Plus, it’s easier for us to pick up shifts than to gamble that the market will pay us what we could have worked in overtime.

We decided to let ourselves “play”

We all know the saying all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Well, one of the things about homesteading is that it tends to take over your entire life. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There is an immense amount of joy and pride that comes from planting and harvesting your garden, storing food and raising animals.

But the cool thing about being an adult, is that you get to have several, totally different hobbies. I’m not just a homesteader. I’m an avid reader and love tinkering on projects. I enjoy learning new things. I love to write and LOVE renovating my home. All of these things have gotten pushed to the back burner for the last several years in effort to get the homestead running.

After talking to Jared about these various things, we decided that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to start leaning into our other hobbies. He loves to work on engines. I love to make things. Why can’t we do those things too? And what does that look like?

Because I’m going to tell you, you will absolutely burnout on homesteading if all you do is eat, breathe and sleep homesteading. You should take a break to enjoy the things that you love that don’t have anything to do with homesteading.

And it’s hard. Because it takes money away from the homestead. But your mental health and wellbeing is WAY more important than making sure that you sink every ounce of energy and dollar into your homestead.

We decided not to do meat chickens this year

Well, that’s not entirely true. We are still going to do meat chickens. But instead of doing a hundred, doing classes, etc. We decided that we were just going to get a couple. We don’t eat that much chicken because we order whole cows and hogs. Plus, we don’t really like chicken.

Our original plan was that we were going to order 150 chicks, raise them and then offer classes every other weekend until they were all butchered. While we may still do that, it will be on a much smaller scale. Because raising, moving, and feeding that many chicks is expensive and hard work.

It puts a lot of strain on Jaxson (our youngest) because he is the keeper of the chickens. We help him out, but ultimately, he is responsible for making sure that they are fed, watered and moved. He asked if we could do less this year and we absolutely agreed.

Making Your Homestead Changes

I’ve talked a lot about homestead goals, how to deal with overwhelm, how to work full time and homestead, and so much more on this blog. And I’ve always said that if you get overwhelmed take a step back and evaluate what you are doing. If you are burning out, look at what you can change to stop it.

And making those changes looks good on paper. I was so excited about not being so stressed about the goats, only to feel the emotional tug of having them leave the farm. I was so relived that we decided to limit the amount of chickens we raised, only to get gut punched at the financial issues of not putting on those classes. And I am so excited to get my motorcycle and “play time”, but not prepared for the guilt of “taking” my own money.

I can’t help you with making homestead changes. Those are things that you have to really look at and decide if making those changes will satisfy you. You have to look at your goals and your big picture and do a lot of introspection.

But I can tell you this, while the changes are hard, if you have really thought about what you are going to do and why? It’s a lot easier to make a change.

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