Homesteaders

[Chicken girl 15]

Everyone! I would like your input on something. I want to live off grid someday, well not completely off grid, but just do a little self sustaining and some off grid-ish things. And I was just doing some daydreaming about my long term goals, and since I'm living pretty cheap right now (live on parents land, only bill is the electric bill) and I have a full time job, I decided to start saving all my money, and I already have a decent nest egg anyways, sorry off topic, so back to daydreaming. For years I've trying to decide on what kind of house, camper, tiny house, shipping container, regular house, (brief consideration of a yurt), etc. but haven't really been able to decide, well today I decided. Once I save up and buy some land (15 acres +) I want a grain silo house, they're super cute, fairly cheap, and I even found a layout I liked today. But I don't want JUST a grain silo house, I want to put the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and possibly a loft in the silo, and then I want to... bolt? a shipping container onto it, and join it with a little door and put a bedroom or two in the container, and THEN I would like to bury the container, because I think a grain silo house with a nice grassy hill and some flowers behind it would look better than one with a big ugly shipping container behind it. And I thought, I should just put some solar panels behind the silo on the "hill", so I can get rid of the electricity bill, plus I'll have a well, so no water bill, and upon watching "Homestead Rescue", I decided I might like to incorporate an underground tubing natural heating/cooling system, that way I don't have to try and run an air conditioner with solar panels. Also, as an added bonus, the bedroom would double as a tornado shelter

So, maybe this sounds like a crazy plan, but does anyone think it's doable?
Oh, and who knows of a cheap/diy way to insulate a house?

love the idea, so much so I might steal it.

 

[abigalerose]

I live in MO. I'm not wanting to do anything large scale, just 2 cows for personal use (meat and milk) and 5 (?) horses, so 15 acres will be more than enough, I could probably make due with 10 but I'd rather have a little extra. Luckily a lot of the land for sale in my area has no restrictions, so I'm not too worried, although I will definitely check before hand. And I'll be sure to look into the radon stuff as well, I didn't even think of that. Surely there would be a way to vent it so it doesn't become a problem, I'll do more research on underground stuff, I have lots of time. As for the yurt, I just wouldn't feel very secure in there, like during storms and stuff but also against people, in the unlikelyness that someone decided they wanted to break in, it wouldn't be difficult. I'd also be worried about fires in the winter when I'm trying to heat it. I love yurts, but I think it would cause me too much worry

 

[Beekissed]

Canning and drying has started. Canned 16 qt of sweet corn this weekend and dried a couple driers full of tomatoes...that's not much when it's all ground down to a powder.

Stinkin' hot and humid around here right now but it's sure good for the garden and thinks are starting to take off, with vines wrapping around everything. Should be interesting to see what happens in that patch.

Hope to put up 40+ qts of corn again this year, more if it's feasible. Hope to rebatch some tomato juice and make it into tomato soup to can up.

 

[wyoDreamer]

@abigalerose Have you looked at the Earthship houses yet? I really like their designs and layout. A lot of good ideas there.

I don't share the wonderment of the shipping container. Who wants to live in a metal box, I mean seriously? Metal and water don't work so well together and I have this thing about metal houses during lightning storms ... My sister rented a single wide trailer for a couple of years and it was always a bad place to be in a thunderstorm. If you bury it, it will eventually rust and leak unless you do some heavy duty sealing on it, there is no insulating value to metal so major insulation would be needed. they are sealed so you would need to ventilate it. Those boxes are also only 8 feet wide, for a visual - they are built to be put on a trailer bed and hauled down the road - as in a semi and trailer. If you look at the semi's you pass on the freeway, you will probably see them.

In my dream world, I would have a buried concrete house, with the front entrance wall all windows and facing south for passive solar heat. That is the only part of the house that would be exposed. There would be greenhouses on each side of the front door. If not greenhouses, then an overhang for shading the windows in the summer and a place to sit out of the rain. The roof would be concrete and designed to hold 3 feet or more of dirt for a green roof.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Bee, what kind of dehydrator are you running?

 

[Beekissed]

Nesco American Harvest. Nothing fancy at all and not very large. Good to see you, Wyo!

I agree with you about the shipping container. And I don't see a silo being any better, really. Too much space to heat and cool.

My dream house would be a straw bale/cob home backed up to a grassy knoll, wherein I would have a root cellar dug into the hill that contains either an artisan well or a hand pump for a well. That root cellar would open into my home through a very thick, insulated door and my second story would have an entrance out onto the knoll. Wrap around porch on three sides, living roof, rocket mass stove, built in niches, benches, shelves, etc.

I think I'd want a straw bale/cob barn and hen house to go along with that, with a covered walkway from the house to the barn.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I have an American Harvest dehydrator also, they do a decent job at dehydrating. I got lucky and picked up about a dozen trays at an estate auction for $5 and I now have about 20 trays. It is nice that the dehydrator has the ability to expand like that.

I like the straw bale houses also, but our Wisconsin weather is awfully hard on them.

 

[Beekissed]

Lucky you! I'd like to pick up extra trays like that.

Wondering why Wisconsin is hard on cob houses? They've got cob houses still in use in England that were built 400 yrs ago and those just have thatched roofs...pretty wet over there. Maybe folks aren't building them right up there?

 

[wyoDreamer]

It probably is shoddy construction, but it could be the extended periods of below zero temps that we have coupled with the blizzards and thaws and such. Or lack of proper clay/materials. Cord wood houses last better than the cob is what I heard. Still would prefer a concrete house with walls made with the insulated forms.

 

[rancher hicks]

I had or have something that ate my cucumber plants this year. I sprayed with sevin and it might have worked.

The hornets are still here but not as many. I will be spraying again.

I have potatoes growing in my compost and have left them there. Should I leave them there? They're house potatoes. Store boughts tossed in.

My planted potatoes look to have a wilt problem. Should I take them up? and leave those that do not. They're different types of potatoes. They are in towers.

I'll be pulling garlic and deciding on where to plant it next year. Should I plant it in the same place? Can I plant it in the same place? or should I rotate as I usually do? If so what can I plant where the garlic is this year?

tomatoes suck again this year. I hate getting them in late and having bought plants am disappointed. I have better that just came up from last year.

I do need to get more horse manure.