ATTN homesteaders!

[JSossong]

@nayeli Congrats on buying a house! Sounds like you have some exciting stuff underway. Good luck with everything! I'd love to get into raising more birds. Is raising quail and ducks similar to chickens? The whole worm thing interests me too, I'm just a bit squeamish lol.

@Ole and Lena Thanks for the advice! Maple syrup would be a great thing for me to get into- I have access to a lot of land with a lot of maples.
The carpet thing is something I would never think of! What great advice. It makes so much sense!

 

[nayeli]

They are really easy to raise. With the ducks you just clip their wings, feed, and water them and enjoy eggs and babies and meat.

Quail are a little more work because they are constantly running out of food, water, or sand but still easy.

You can follow my sig and see my cheap easy to make quail pen. WIth Quail you do have to incubate the eggs though since they rarely go broody.

 

[nayeli]

Also the worms you pretty much never see. They are in a bin and you just add scraps to it and they turn your waste into good soil... and you can feed them to your quail, ducks, chicks etc.

 

[jenamh]

Solar can be a good investment long term, but unless you are heating your house and water it's probably more cost effective to concentrate your expenditures on increasing the efficiency of your conventional energy usage. In a cold climate, consider wood heating before solar, it's a more productive use of your time and money if you are able to obtain and process your own wood. Low-tech solar, on the other hand, is definitely worth pursuing. A few black painted pails full of water make a heat sink that can heat a greenhouse overnight or add warmth to a room. Just the proper use of curtains and shades combined with the paint/stain colors in your rooms and floors will reduce your heating and cooling bills. Here in MN, I have a dark brown rug and a light grey rug in my South facing room. In the winter, the dark rug catches the sun, in summer the grey rug is moved to the sunny spot. Amazing what a difference that makes.

This is so true. When I first started researching solar, I became very aware of our energy use. We are new to living in the country, so I don't have a good average against our summer costs yet, but I've noticed a good drop in our usage/bill since I became more proactive. Our property is total electric on a well/septic. I don't have solar hooked up, just buying pieces now, but the goal is an off-grid system/backup.

We just got our baby silkie chicks yesterday. Our coop setup (old doghouse we will add nest boxes to) is by the garden and will be inside the future goat pen (milk!) so we can give them more range room during the day outside of their pen. We'll eventually get other chicken types and set them up in a small orchard area I just planted nearby. Who knows - maybe we will have bee hives someday too - I have friends who are into beekeeping that I will probably solicit for help one day. It will mean honey and making a home for the garden pollinators.

 

[AxisOfBeagles]

A comment on the solar - photovoltaic cells will 'work' in daylight, as opposed to direct sunlight, but at reduced efficiency. The more obscured the light, the less power generated.

I'm out here in California where we have a zillion sunny days a year - solar was a no brainer. 12 years into a roof mounted, 44 panel system now. I'm convinced that ALL buildings in the SW USA should have solar panels on them. But if you live where its not sunny, then some research into others with solar systems in your area would be a good idea.

 

[CrazyChickGirl]

I would love to be a homesteader, but we only have a few things going right now.... We have the chickens and a few fruit trees and a garden. We also have two rabbits but they are pets only. Still thinking about dairy goats and would like to learn how to garden better. We do a lot of cost savings/ energy savings type things at our house also.

 

[WildWestChick]

Another power source to think about is wind turbines, we are going to use solar and wind out on our property when we finally get out there. But you also have to have enough wind to make that work. (Where we are the wind blows about 97% of the year lol

 

[BirdsOfAnarchy]

I have heard that solar panels require not so much sunlight as daylight. The only trouble is I think they are quite an investment and I don't know what the annual return on the investment is? having said that there is little in them to break down.

You don't need "full" sun, we use panels and still get a charge on cloudy days. It is wise to have South facing panels if you live North of the Equator. You need a battery back up system to store your power for nighttime use and stormy days. As for cost: Solar is now just under $1/watt and there are NO parts that can break on you. My husband and I have been off grid for several years (on the 5th yr. 2yrs in PA 3yrs in Maine) and we have had cracked panels, totally spider webbed like a busted windshield and they still put out 100%.

Wind is a joke. It's unbelievably expensive, it injures and kills birds and bats, it requires serious maintenance and they are known to break quite easily.

My advice NEVER buy into wind. Perhaps a micro set up like a small turbine for boats could be a fun experiment but as for larger turbines I can't stress it enough how horrible they are. You'll blow 20 grand on a large turbine and NEVER get your money back out of it.

Micro hydro turbines are a great idea. We plan to install a simple set up in the next couple years. The important thing is to not dam up or block water flow. Simply rerouting some water with a hose to a turbine set up that then feeds back into your stream is the way to do it. causes no environmental impacts, can be done on the cheap and output is constant, unless you're tapping into a seasonal steam.

 

[BirdsOfAnarchy]

you are on the right track Justine. I left nyc to live off grid in Maine. we grew a garden, built a coop, greenhouse, renovating our cabin, put in a pond, forage wild edibles, expanding on our electrical system etc. It's a good move. Stay on it!

Continue to save your $. I shy away from banks and don't do mortgages, so we buy and sell commodities, primarily in precious metal markets it enabled us to buy our 63 acre land outright.

If you could avoid debt, it's obviously best to do so. Nothing is sadder than a family losing their farm to a bank. I've seen it happen a few times.

Good luck on your journey. Feel free to visit my website. Www.thearkhaus.com We are documenting our cabin renovations (we repurposed 2 shipping containers into a living space), and we plan to offer homesteading workshops & camp sites in the future.

I started this thread just to possibly gain some knowledge on any of the above subjects, have conversations, hear stories, make some friends with similar thoughts etc, etc. with other homesteaders or self-sufficient experts out there! So if any of you are interested in sharing anything with me I'd be more than happy to converse! Thanks for reading! Hope to hear from some of you soon!

Justine 

 

[BirdsOfAnarchy]

On my website we are constantly updating our library page.

I strongly encourage all interested in homesteading to check it out: http://www.thearkhaus.com/p/library.html?m=1

These are the books & films that changed our lives and are currently sculpting our future. If you have time for only one book I HIGHLY RECOMMEND "THE GOOD LIFE" by Helen & Scott Nearing

But seriously everything on that page is absolute gold! We are always reading and doing tons of research as we go so check back regularly for updates to that page.

Your quest will be filled with challenges, but you will get through them.

Leap and the net will appear.