Homesteaders

[KentuckyMom]

I am new to a building up a homestead (when you even can call it a homestead on 1.5 acre).
I got inspired by a family I watched a clip on
youtube. Since then I started to plant
vegetables, fruit trees and so on.


Just wonder what you all made become a homesteader and how your beginnings were. I also would love to see some pictures to get more ideas for good layouts.

We are a family of 7. My husband said he'd always wanted to find an old farmhouse in the country to settle down in. We have been married 22 years and have 5 children. He pointed out to me last year that NOW was the time.... So, last year we moved to this place with 3-4 acres and an old farmhouse. I have been canning for quite a few years using mostly food acquired from others who had extra or small gardens we have raised. Here we will be able to do more. This year we also bought chickens for the eggs. The more self-sufficient we can be , the better in these present times. We have also planted 2 apple trees, a plum tree, and a peach tree. There is also a pear tree here that has been long neglected. We are not afraid of hard work and our children will be learning to work right along side us.

 

[akelley]

KentuckyMom y'all are living the dream! I look forward to when DH and I have kids; I am going to homeschool, and the homesteading life is perfect for teaching! Just think of the lessons in responsibility your children are getting! In this world of entitlement I think that's the most important gift we can give our children.

 

[KentuckyMom]

Yes, I agree. My 17 year old son is a hard worker and he never lacks for something to do. People hire him to work-- help with fence, cattle, hay, tobacco... And always comment on what a hard worker he is and how very hard that is to find these days! My oldest daughter is 19 and she is the one who bought the fruit trees and grapes too. Our youngest three boys are 10, 8, and 7 and are loving every minute of being here. My husband purchased an old 1947 Ford tractor to plow with and he and my son worked all summer getting it running right and looking fine! We have homeschooled since my oldest was in 3rd grade. She has since graduated and is working and my oldest son is a senior this year. It is not always easy but we wouldn't have it any other way.
We are renting this place with the option to buy someday . The Lord had brought us through much to get to this point but we ate on the right track...

 

[UnlabeledMama]

Apples are funny. They can't grow from seed. They are "created" from crossing the genetic material of two different kinds of trees so that may make their needs a bit different, but here is a simple write-up on their cross-pollination. We do have two different types of tress on our property, though at my previous home the two trees produced very similar fruit so I guess I always assumed they were the same type of tree, but maybe they are just different enough. :-D

You can grow apple trees from seeds, but you don't know what kind of apple you will end up with!

 

[UnlabeledMama]

I am new to a building up a homestead (when you even can call it a homestead on 1.5 acre).
I got inspired by a family I watched a clip on youtube. Since then I started to plant vegetables, fruit trees and so on.
Just wonder what you all made become a homesteader and how your beginnings were. I also would love to see some pictures to get more ideas for good layouts.

We are "homesteading" on only 2/3 of an acre! We have fruit trees, grape vines, blueberry, blackberry and raspberry bushes, chickens, rabbits, herb garden and vegetable garden.

 

[UnlabeledMama]

My Grandpa and Dad shoot the squirrels and Starlings at their house, but they feed the stray cats that live there and we have yet to have a mouse problem, they eat all the cherries and walnuts from our three trees so I feel bad but at least I know the kittens are getting plenty of food through the year. I know squirrel is very popular in some areas but ours are really scrawny so we don't eat them. I have been threatening the squirrel that lives on our block "Nutty" that if he plants one more peanut or walnut in my pots I will shoot him, but my boys would be really upset, and the whole apartment complex feeds him, along with the neighborhood "stray" dog. Our town has an ordinance that you can have up to 6 hens, and/or 2 goats as long as they are clean and kept contained. It got changed a couple of years back because enough people signed a petition and went before the city and fought to be able to have them in their own backyard.

I got started "going back to basics" when I started seeing all the stuff about what China does to our food, and the recalls because of it. Plus I think that buying from my own country is important, and I just love the idea of growing stuff, and I found a man who can save it when my black thumb comes out. LOL But it really started sinking in that I could put up a lot of produce when I stumbled into my late Grandma's sewing/canning room and saw all the empty and filled jars. My Grandpa and Dad have a garden every year, and it really got big when we( my Dad and I) moved in my senior year, we started planting tomatoes, corn and the squash popped up from years before. Then Grandpa started telling stories of having bees, grape vines, blackberry rows 20 feet long, turkeys in a chicken house, 100's of acres for cows and hay, and the horses to cover it as well. It made me want to go back to those days, and bring the life back to a house that was so sad after Grandma died and the family started falling apart. I also want my boys to grow up being able to say that milk comes from a cow instead of Walmart, and "brown cows make chocolate milk, and the red ones(red angus) make strawberry milk." My lovely husband taught him that one, so the whole trip from the airport to home we heard that repeatedly.

Hubby is starting to come around to get horses as long as they are Clydesdales, and training the dogs to pull sleds; he is starting to understand why I say that they were bred to do this and its not fair for them to simple sit on the floor all day or running around the yard, they should do what they were bred to do(with proper training of course). He is ok with 3 hens for now, and just wants them for eggs; maybe a calf or two in the spring, once we get the property, for fall "harvest" time. He isn't too sure about killing something that we raised, which I understand completely, this is new for both of us, so it's going to be very interesting watching our story start to unfold over the next 10 years or so.

I know this is going to sound really bad(I hate thinking about it) but after my Grandpa passes, my Dad gets the property and wants us to move in to help with the day to day upkeep since he is a long haul truck driver so most of my ideas are based off of my Grandpa's property, which is 7 acres with a running creek and animal rights. Most of my plans are just to take it back to what my Grandparents had originally planned, like finishing the basement, adding the second fireplace and finishing the master bath. Then keeping everything the same outside, the garden won't change location, the chicken house with be rebuilt and the fruit trees, vines and such will be replanted in the same spot, or close to how it used to be. With the exception of the chickens instead of turkeys the property will be the same as Grandma and Grandpa had wanted it. But the shag carpet is going to be replaced with something else because it does not go well with a wood stove, let alone two on different levels. That is my biggest reason to starting on this path is that I want to raise my children as close to the basics as I can and I really want to see my "family home" in its glory. I have heard my Grandpa talk about how big it was when he bought the property, and seen him built it up to what it is today by his stories and actually walking the property with him and hearing how bugs and disease took most of the apple, and peach trees, and how a certain horse killed Grandma's favorite apple tree by eating the bark, that I just really want to be able to see what he did when he bought the property. This way my children and future generations will always have a piece of the past in their future.

Now that you know my deep dark secret/dream please don't be too harsh on me.

I think that sounds awesome! I started this because I wanted good food for my children and for them to know where food came from. My 7 year old is coming to terms with rabbits being food. She cries when we say it is time to process, but she finds the butchering fascinating and cheers when I tell her rabbit schnitzel is for dinner!

 

[UnlabeledMama]

KentuckyMom y'all are living the dream! I look forward to when DH and I have kids; I am going to homeschool, and the homesteading life is perfect for teaching! Just think of the lessons in responsibility your children are getting! In this world of entitlement I think that's the most important gift we can give our children.

Yes, I agree. My 17 year old son is a hard worker and he never lacks for something to do. People hire him to work-- help with fence, cattle, hay, tobacco... And always comment on what a hard worker he is and how very hard that is to find these days! My oldest daughter is 19 and she is the one who bought the fruit trees and grapes too. Our youngest three boys are 10, 8, and 7 and are loving every minute of being here. My husband purchased an old 1947 Ford tractor to plow with and he and my son worked all summer getting it running right and looking fine! We have homeschooled since my oldest was in 3rd grade. She has since graduated and is working and my oldest son is a senior this year. It is not always easy but we wouldn't have it any other way.
We are renting this place with the option to buy someday . The Lord had brought us through much to get to this point but we ate on the right track...

We homeschool as well!

 

[newbie32]

I wont homeschool my children-to each their own but not for mine. But the rest of your ideas and plans and actions are right along the lines of what I want for my family! I see quite a bit of south on this thread. I was thinking more Northern states but that's just because I made the mistake of moving to the desert after being raised in Colorado! I am watching property and dreaming until that time.

 

[Paganrose]

I am new to a building up a homestead (when you even can call it a homestead on 1.5 acre).
I got inspired by a family I watched a clip on youtube. Since then I started to plant vegetables, fruit trees and so on.
Just wonder what you all made become a homesteader and how your beginnings were. I also would love to see some pictures to get more ideas for good layouts.

I grew up on the outskirts of a small town. Mom always had a large garden and friends who were farmers. I sorely missed the countryside when we moved into a mid sized city.I always liked the idea of being self sufficient, and my husband practically grew up on his grandparents farm when he was little. We started small- with a garden taking up a quarter of our rented urban house. We shopped at the farmers market and I learned to can and make wine. My friend had a place out in the country, where she had a community garden, where I grew potatoes, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, beans, etc... in addition to my home garden. We moved up north so I could complete my degree, and we rented the schoolhouse on a acre.

We homesteaded for 4 years on that rented acre. We had a large garden, and soon added chickens, ducks and geese that free ranged over the property, and the orchard next door (with permission) although they rarely went to the orchard except when over ripe fruit was dropping. The last year we were there we added 4 sheep (2 icelandics, 2 shetlands) to the menagerie. Their pen was a 1/4 acre and we had 4 - 12' steel cattle panels we moved around our yard daily for them to graze, we later changed it out for 8 homemade wood corral pieces that were lighter and easier for me to move. We didn't have to mow our lawn that year! We did discover that 4 sheep on an acre was too much in a drought year and we often used the orchard next door for grazing space.

Just recently we bought our current homestead a few months ago. It is a 5.4 acre farmette, almost 3 of it wooded. No garden this year since we are focusing on getting up fencing and reading the barn for the animals we already have. Store bought tomatoes are the worst! I did manage to can several jars of black raspberry jam, and have blackberries waiting in the freezer to be made into wine. We also have gooseberries, mulberries, elderberries, wild grapes, walnuts, and maples on the property. Now we only have the two Icelandic sheep and they have 2 half acre pasture lots we rotate them through. We have plans to add another pen and another ewe. Hubby who was orginaly reluctant about the larger animals wants to buy more land next door and get horses!

 

[LBejaran]

This thread is so cool! Thanks, Newbie32, for showing me the light, haha!

I'm only 21, but the dream has always been to have enough land to do the homesteading thing. I live with my parents now on a 1/2 acre, which is enough to do what we want. I'm already scheming for next year. Hopefully, if Dad can get the tiller fixed, we can have a garden next spring. I've already started de-weeding (by hand, no chemicals here) and I'm starting up my compost pile with the old chicken bedding and manure. I'm going to get some cow manure from my Tio, so that'll be free, as well. Hopefully, after sitting a couple months, the garden area will be ready to use.

Hopefully between now and then, I'll have a steadier income (I'm a freelance graphic/web/multimedia designer, with an Associate's Degree) and can afford to pay for some quality heritage vegetable/fruit seeds. Down here where I live, the soil has a bit too much clay in it. And the heat can be insane, so I'll see what I can do. Oh, I've got so much plotting going on. Dad has no idea what's coming, haha!