Share your homesteading experiences and dreams.

Let me start by saying...
I'M A CITY SLICKER!!!!!
and I have found this thread ridiculously Entertaining!! I lagged so hard I think I peed a little reading about the dog food diet and the horse apples.
I'll tell you my story and dreams now.
I grew up on the south side of syracuse where the first hot day of the year isn't marked by planting or germinating, but stabbings and shootings. The vacant lots that have been turned into community gardens are a wasteland because it was recently discovered that the soil contained such harmful contaminants the vegetables were as inedlake as the fish from Onondaga lake.
It's always been my dream to have a farm with dairy cows and a nice veggie garden somewhere outside the city. Quite by accident I met my fiance who has been a dairy farmer and diesel mechanic almost all his life. When his grandmother passed we bought her house ( big mess, long story) which has been in his family since 1937. It had no indoor plumbing and was just a 24x24 tar paper shack until the 60's. It was built around 1800 and has just 4 rooms the kitchen and livingroom are the bulk of the downstairs tiny bathroom upstairs is two rooms where at one time 13 people lived! There have been many babies born right here in this home. :)
We have a small veggie garden and I'd like to be able to pay off the house and be debt free within the next 5 years.
Following that I'd like to purchase land for corn an beef cows. Just enough to
Support ourselves and bring in extra money. I currently work at Burger king a few miles from home sincethe town of perryvile where we live has no stores or stoplights. ;) I'm a long way from the city. But I love it. Needless to say I will not have retirement, or much left over for savings so the sooner we are debt free the sooner I can start working on getting more land for crops. We helped my brother in law plant 2 acres of pumpkins and that is something I'd like to work towards doing myself one day. It's not clear yet exactly what I'll do with the land I guess. But first things first.
I recently finished the book letters of a woman homesteader and I'm hooked on the idea that we can make it.
I also plan to get a hunting license and hunt with my future hubby so we can freeze and can "venison" ;) we already liveon what he bagged last year.truth be told we had beef the other day and I thought it seemed bland. LOL.
So here I am. Straight out the Hood and living happily in a one horse town where there are more churches than bars, by that I mean there is the perryville united Methodist church, and no bars! Nothing but country....it's heaven. Did I mention he's relation to almost everyone on our road? LOL
Going to go throw "horse apples" with my bear hands so I can be initiated into your "country club"

Welcome to the club! - And to the forum. I hope we get to hear more from you.

Thanks!!! Sorry for all the type o's.. smartphone ain't so smart afterall

Welcome to the nut house! Sounds like you will feel right at home with the rest of us. Looking forward to your escapades. My gaots are due to kid next month. Excited about that!

I want goats!!!! :)

If you have corn in your garden you can plant pumpkins between the rows. It will help keep the weeds down. If you plant pole beans with your corn, then you have what the Indians called the 3-sisters. An almost complete diet, and a planting combination that will leave the soil capable of supporting it for years without amendments.

Welcome to the club

Welcome, Outlaw!

I thought 3 sisters was corn, beans and squash?

You should get some goats. They are very economical and super entertaining.

Pumpkin is a squash.

Welcome to the club Outlaw, sounds like you'll fit right in here! Congratulations on your new beau as well :) All of us around here have dreams, some are much further along than others. I grasped at mine but may have to give it up...of course, I'm hoping that's not gonna turn into reality. If it does, I will still come here and drool over all everyone else is doing, LOL!

Good luck and have fun!!

Thanks everyone! I think it will be rough going to start but I figure trial and error. And at least we have family and friends whocan help us along! All our equipment was borrowed on the promise of haying this year. So I think I'm in for a real treat...and workout!

I cannot believe I have not realized that a pumpkin was a squash. But I was thinking some other kind of squash.

Hi, say it ain't so! You have worked so hard and are finally making a bit of your dream come true!

This has got to be one of my favorite threads on DG! I love learning from like minded people.

I wanted to share my dream of homesteading too. My husband and I just bought a small homestead on our anniversary, June 1st, of this year. It's has always been our dream to be self sufficient. We are retirement age (though hubby is still working in the city, for now) and loving living in the country. The only two things we miss are high speed internet, and paved roads. lol I don't even mind the dirt roads, but ours gets almost undriveable when it rains. (When it's dry is has crater sized holes. When it rains there are several inches of mud and great craters filled with water. Scary.) I tend to stay home a lot. lol

Wildlife is so plentiful here, I don't think we will have to raise any animals for food. (wild hogs, deer, rabbits, etc.) Although I would like to have a few chickens for eggs - but hubby doesn't. lol I'm sure we'll get that worked out eventually. We have about an acre we have dedicated for a vegetable garden. Our first garden in many years. We got very lucky, the soil seems to be good sandy river-bottom. I'm sure things won't grow that well - until we can enrich it. But since neither of us want to wait till spring to plant, we will be working with what we have for now. So far everything is still green. lol I think that's a good sign.

The place has two septic systems. One for the toilets and another for gray water from everything else. I've become very diligent about what I use for laundry and washing dishes. The gray water drains towards the back side of the property very close to the end of the vegetable garden area. I think we would like to utilize it for watering plants, eventually.

We really want to build a wind generator - when we can pull together the resources for it . (Our life saving went to pay for the homestead.) We'd also like to try setting up something solar for our water well, as well as the hot water tank. Other projects we would like to do include building a potting shed for me, a shop/garage for hubby, possibly build a smokehouse, and put in a small orchard. It all will take a lot of elbow grease and money. lol As we age they both seem to be in short supply.

Glad you joined us, TXbb!

I'm just now diverting our washing machine drain to a greywater collection/dispersement area above my garden-to-be. I can't find a suitable detergent locally, so I have to order it online, or drive 75 miles to a decent natural foods store. I also plan to clean the water by running the greywater through a couple of small bogs-ponds planted with filtering plants before it reaches the garden.

I'm not a bb since I was born before the war, but you are right about elbow grease and money being in short supply as we age. Be thankful you have a partner to work along with you!

TXbabybloomer, this was the thread that drew me in too. And of course Darius, who processes a goldmind of information. Welcome to Dave's Garden. You might come visit us on this thread http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1217661/
It's an ongoing chat thread. A few people have started threads where they share all of the projects they are working on at their homesteads.

Thanks for the welcome Darius and msrobin.

Darius, I like the idea of using small ponds to filter the grey water! May have to give that one some thought for here.
Believe me, I am very thankful every day that I have a partner to work along side me. The Mr and I have been together since 66. We weren't exactly a match made in Heaven, but I think we came pretty close. lol

msrobin thanks for the invite to the chat thread. Looking forward to it.

Hi, I live in south Ga, Ocilla way out in the middle of no where! But I love it, not very many people around and it is quiet. I can hear the birds singing, see deer, squirrels and other critters. This month makes a year since I have been here and my hope is to be self sufficient. Next spring I am going to try to grow a garden, I have never attempted it before, although I do pretty well with houseplants and other plants outside. I just planted a fig tree, two grape vines and a bush, I want lots of fruit and nut trees along with blue berry bushes, and other flowering bushes. I like flowers, but just really not that interested in having a flower bed, I would however, love to have a small pond and a fountain. I have big dreams, hopefully, I will be able to accomplish everything I dream about. Being single and not having a male companion makes it kind of hard to do some things. Since I have been here I have had to put a control box and some other gadget that I cannot remember the name of on my well and wire it myself. Last week I had to fix my kitchen sinks, the seals were completely gone and put new strainer baskets in them, but thank the good Lord, he gave me the wisdom and courage to fix it, and thankfully they aren't leaking anymore. One day I even want to be totally off the grid, but I am sure that will be quite a ways down the road. Little by little, day by day...........

Welcome, MS Ocilla! We share a lot of ups, downs and know-how here, so stick around...

Welcome. MS O. So good to have you. Look forward to hearing of your adventures.

Hello to all,
I am new to DG and just found this forum.

This is what i have wanted for as long as I can remember. I lived on farms on and off as a child and was never a city girl like my mom. For a while, I think she thought there was something wronge with me (lol).

My first husband was not the person he presented to me in the first few years of our marriage and wanted nothing to do with a lifestyle that involved so much work. By the time he showed his true colors, we had four children and I was forced to choose to stay in a bad mariage or loose my children to his wealthy family so I stayed for 25 plus years .

I raised my children and after 3 years and $50,000. I won my freedom and that was with me willfully giving up everything from the very begining. Duriing the first year of the divorce, by pure chance I met my soul mate and shortly after the divorce was finalized we gave away and even threw away 90 % of what we owned. We did our home work had our property and employment lined up and had plans in place so we packed our few remaining belonging and made the jump. That was August 13 of 2010.

We moved to 82 acres of sand and sage brush just over a year ago and are starting with absolutly nothing but what we brought with us and can provide or build on our own. We are 38 miles from the edge of town and we are 100 percent off grid.

We have no address, so no fire , police, or medical services of any kind out here.
When we moved here our plans were to gradually build up to a self sustaining life style over a period of a few years. We had a savings and job options all lined up. Instaed, the economy tanked and I lost any hope of working due to my health.
We were kind of forced to decide on the spot if we realy wanted to do this or if we were going to go back to the city. We decide this realy is what we want to do and have been sticking to it.

We haul water, we are building solar panels, have a geni for night time power and heat with scavenged wood and use straw for insulation for both us and the animals. It took a full year for Tim to find any kind of work at all we lived off of saving and my tiny disability income until then and now most of his pay goes for fuel to get to work (79 miles round trip every day) .

I was not able to get a pair of goats until Aug 25th of last year. We still need two more does so that we can keep a clean heard of 3-5 goats going at all times for both meat and milk. We have chickens ( the first thing we put out here, Reds, Amercanas,Siklies, and Bantoms) as well as Ducks and Pheasant.
We plan on Turkeys and Geese this year. We also plan on rabbits in the future ( the new zelands ) but have a large wild population to hunt for now. We will be saving for American Guinea Hogs and Irish Dexter Cattle. If we must, we will do a Dexter / Jersy cross for the cattle.

We only want the smaller heiratige breads of the larger livestock since they are much nicer to the land ( I can comfortably range 3-5 dexters on the same amount of land as 1 of the standard breads of cattle and that 3-5 animals is all we will need ) and they can comfortably handle our major temp swings with out health issues.

I only managed a small experimental bed last year. It was to see if I could grow all of the things that the folks here has major dificulty with since they are some of the mainstays in most home gardens (tomatoes , peppers, beans, greens, and mushrooms ). With a lot of creative gardening , it worked. So this year will be my first real garden attempt.

This is not an all inclusive list but we also plan things Quinoa , flax , sorgums, sunchokes, sunflowwers, barley, oats, rye, buck wheat, soybeans, alfalfa, millet, wheat and clover ( because all of these they are good for both human and animal consumption). Most of these things can be grow together because they devolpe and mature at different times, many are symbiotic relationship plants
( think 3 sisters planting,like corn, beans and squash in the same bed), and they also build and maintaining the soil. We have not yet aquired most of these but hope to soon.

They provide food crops and fodder crops at different stages so the production is double duty. With carefull and selective harvesting and seed saving we can set aside next years crop of some of the anuals like the buck wheat.

We have plans on a small orchard and I received a gift of a few nut trees for birthday ( 2 hazel nuts 2 pecan and an almond) and they should arive in june. We will also try to take advantage of the native plants to incourage the continued diversity of wild life we have out here.

If the Fox, Cyotes ,hawks,eagles, mountain lions , badgers and other bigger preditor types have an ample food sources, our animals are less attractive to them. We also get better polination , and bug controls.

I am an experianced gardener but not in this zone 5 and with these kind of temp swings ( We are alpine high desert with -5 to -15 in the winter , 100 plus regularly in the summer and a last frost date of june 10 ).
I can tell you it challenges everything you think you know.

All of this may sound incredibly difficult for some and cray to others but as difficult and crazy as it may be, we love it and I am so very glad we made this choice.

It is so nice to find others who are not afraid to live the life they want to live. I am lookin forward to learning and sharing ideas with every one here.

Hey demonshollow, and a big welcome! Sounds like you are making steady progress towards your goals.

We LOVE pictures here, btw...

Wow! I am really impressed. Sounds like you have done your homework. Can I ask why you want cows and goats both?

Thank you for the welcome. I would love to share pick as soon as i can figure out where the camera is and then how to get them posted here.

There is not much to share yet though, well, except the sand a sages and open range cattle that belong to other realy big ranchers in the area.

Liz

I will be looking forward to hearing of your adventures. I have lost the wire to unload my camera so I have not posted pics in a while either. :(

The goats for meat, milk and cheese. The cows for meat , , butter, heavy cream and more milk and larger hides . We are big milk drinkers 3 to 4 gals a week between the two of us.

Butter and cream can be obtained from goats but it is very difficult unless you can afford to spend $400.00 or more for a cream seperator or like the tase of hard butter.

I also have a very heavy cream addiction that I have had since I was a child and I love to cook and never use any thing but real ingrediants, cream not 1% butter not margerine etc.


If I were not so lucky to have a very fast metabalisim I would probably weight 300 lbs.Lol.

That is a lot of milk for 2 people to drink. :) My DH hardly drinks milk at all because it causes him to have sinus problems. I milk my 2 African Pygmy does but am not milking them at the moment. I have borrowed my friends buck and he is here working his magic so we will be looking forward to summer kids. I have milk in the freezer I put up to fill in the gap.

I would love to have one of those mini jerseys or a dexter but I have no room for one.

The dexters are about perfect, they should provide about a gal to 1 1/2 of milk per day. The jersey on the other han can produce a whole lot more.Some as much as 6 gals per day. I know it is supply and demand but I also remember how miserable I was when weaning my children from the breast. I don't realy was our cows to have to go through that. Plus thier is a greater risk of mastitis going that route.

Hope you see great results from the buck. Since we purchased our to goats as kids last fall, we may not see any kids or milk till fall or maybe even next spring if the first session does not take. We are hoping for fall of course.

In the mean time we are forced to deal with the watered down stuff you get at the grocery store. I can hardly wait for the dexters to get here but because they cost so much (About $4500. total for a pregnant heffer and a young unproven bull plus transportation costs, much more than a standard breed would ) it may be a few years ( hope not!) before we get them. Plus we still need fence and build the shelters and milk parlor for them.

Between now and then , we have the goats.

If I remember correctly, which is not often, the mini jerseys give a couple gallons a day. That would be plenty for us and some to trade with. But we don't have much flat ground here. The goats do well on the hillside but a cow would have a hard time of it. Where will you get your dexters? It's best to have your shelter and fences ready before your animals arrive.

There are quite afew reasons I like the African pygmies over the larger dairy breeds for our situation. One of the reasons is that they will come in season any time they are around a buck so I can breed for kids when it's best for me and not have to worry about missing breeding season. What breed of goats do you have?

We have looked at a few different places for the dexters but since we are not yet ready for them, we are unsure of exactly where they will come from yet. We have all flat to slightly rolling terain so they would all be fine here. This is open range and we have huge cows out here right now that belong to one of the local ranchers.

We also want the pigmy goats for the same , any time ,convienant breading, but the Nubians became available first. We wanted and planed to get both breeds out here. I would also prefer the first breeding of the nubian doe to be with a pigmy . It's a bit easier for a first timer to deliver a smaller kid and makes it easier for us should there be any complications with the birth.

Even though we are comfortable with the person we purchased from , any thing is possible .

Another reason I like the pygmies is that they are small and easier for me to handle. I have MD. Only drawback with them is that the fencing needs to be lower and tighter. Wouldn't be a problem on flat ground but it makes it very hard here on the rough and rocky hillside.

Ok, found the cord for the camera, this is what we are working with. I know a lot of people would not want to live on land like this but we love it. We have no clay like a lot people around hee have because we chose out side of the dry lake areas, dry lake bed are only dry in the summer. Last winter one of the dry lakes about 8 miles from us had 4 to 5 foot of standing water in it until late spring and mud and muck till early summer. No planting in that stuff!

It's beautiful!

We think so. Weather this year has been rough though. No snow to speak of , Much more wind then last year and yo yo temps that have been driving me crazy. One day we are 26/15 the next we are 63/25 and so on.

This was a Jan. pic, we should have had at least 10 inches of snow or more. It has been very dry.

As a group I have to say you are all quite inspirational. Thank you for posting all these stories.

My wife and I live in a rural spot in SW Virginia on one acre. We have two beautiful children who live at home, two who are married, two dogs, two early garden plots and forty-two baby chickens. We also put in two apple trees, one cherry and two blue berry bushes. Last week one of my older boys cleared a spot for fig trees. We eat a lot of raw, local, organic. By the grace of God we are all healthy and are cultivating some big dreams that include ducks, goats, a root cellar and a jersey to share milk with our neighbors.

Earlier this month we started our sixth flock of chickens with those forty-two chicks. My youngest, six, told me he wanted to sell eggs so he's starting his first business early. *grin* One of the forty-two "girls" has a suspicious comb and may be a roo... but after loosing our last flock to predators (and building fort chicken) I have lost the desire/ability to make any boys into meat birds. And besides that my amazingly kind daughter has already started naming them.

There's so much more but I lost myself reading your stories (and loved it) so my time is gone. Thanks everyone.

Glad you stopped by, LaysEggs. Don't be a stranger! I'm in SW Virginia, too, but about 2 hours south of you. I get up to your area every other month to do some food shopping since there are no natural foods stores near me.

Darius, awhile back you mentioned that you are using certain plants to filter your grey water. Which plants are best for that?

I haven't built the bogs to filter the laundry water yet, so I only have notes/links.

Greywater Wetlands
fiesta.bren.ucsb.edu/~chiapas2/...files/Greywater%20Wetlands-1.pdf

The Edible Pond and Bog Garden
http://www.pfaf.org/user/cmspage.aspx?pageid=79

Plants for use in a Rain Garden
http://www.stonesiloprairie.com/id82.html

Here is a list I found for a bog, have to see which are good filters:
Common name____________Botanical name
Arrowhead ______________ Sagittaria
Bat-faced Flower _________ Cuphea llava
Canna _________________ Canna
Cardinal Flower ___________ Lobelia cardinalis
Cattail, dwarf ____________ Typha minima
Corkscrew rush ___________ Juncus spiralis effusus
Hair grass _______________ Eleocharis acicularis
Horsetail ________________ Equisetum hymenale
Iris/Yellow Flag ____________ Iris pseudacorus; and other water/bog iris
Marsh Marigold ____________ Caltha palustris
Monkey flower ____________ Mimulus cardinalis
Papyrus/Nile grass _________ Cyperus papyrus
Miniature Papyrus __________ Cyperus haspan
Pickerel Weed _____________ Pontederia cordata
Common Sweet Flag _________ Acorus calamus
Variegated Sweet Flag _______ Acorus gramineus ‘Variegatus’
Taro ____________________ Colocasia
Umbrella Palm/grass, dwarf ___ Cyperus alternifolius
Water Thalia/Water Canna ____ Thalia dealbata
Water Nasturtium/Watercress __ Nasturtium officinale

DH, is that called sage brush? We didn't have much of a winter either and though we will fight more pests this year I was very glad of a rest from the cold. The prior 2 winters were horrible.

Layseggs, I am in extreme eastern KY. We have to watch for coyote, fox, bear and snakes but they are not too big of a problem. We did lose our cat a few months ago but we are not sure what exactly happened to her. We have not lost any chickens or goats to predators. Your plans sound great. Hope you keep us updated on your progress.

My garden is coming along. We are eating lettuce, spinach and onions right now. The peas are looking good as is the broccoli and the strawberries. Just got 40 taters planted. Hoping they do well. I will be planting my melons in tires this year as it's the only option I have at this point. I will fill the centers with composted hay, sawdust, horse and goat manure and plant the melons in it. The seedlings are about 5 or 6 inches long right now but I will keep them in the house a couple more weeks. I need to get my squash and eggplant seeds planted. My seedlings are slow this year and I am blaming the Jiffy seed starting mix. It is nearly impossible to get and keep it wet so my seedlings have suffered from lack of moisture. I will not use the stuff again.

LaysEggs, welcome, that's a lot of chickens! We can hardly wait to get the gardens going. Our fresh food sources are very limited here and very expensive. I was so dissappointed with my trip to the farmers market last year. They had minimal selection and the prices of what they did have were unreasonably high. Even if we go to Reno or Elko, the choices are not a lot better and we must also factor in the fuel costs for the 300 plus mile round trip. It is just to much for our very tiny budget! Sounds like you are off to a great start.

Darius, thank you for the links, you always seem to have so many great links to share. I was surprised that I actually had several of the same links on my other computer before it died. It is nice to have access to them again. Now I need to get my but busy building more solar panels so I can spend more time going through them. We want to do some thing similar to some of those systems in the future. Right now, we are using a percolation method for our grey water. It just made sense to use with all of the sand we have at our place. Only real draw back is we loose a lot to evaporation from the wind and heat.

Cajuninky, yes, that is what we have for sage. It is actually a few varieties of sage and other plants I have not ID yet as well as desert grasses , mostly needle grass is what I have seen. We have no Creosote bushes though. Some areas around here a full of it and don't have much else. We also have a large variety of desert flowers but most have such a short bloom cycle you have to be realy looking to find them. I snapped this just a few days ago and as the season progresses, the colors and varieties will change. We also have had our first scorpion of the season and the chickens all fought for it as if it was going to be their last meal. It is always so funny to watch.

Liz