Please share your tips and tricks! Any homesteaders out there? Anyone trying to live sustainably or off the land?

[MysteryChicken]

I love sheep! You'll have to keep us updated!

I will. We want to get Dorper sheep so we don't have to sheer.

 

[LizzzyJo]

I will. We want to get Dorper sheep so we don't have to sheer.

That's exciting! I am the opposite, lol. I want mini harlequins so that I can sheer and use the wool. I like to knit. I'm terrible, but I'm learning.

 

[LizzzyJo]

I too have homestead dreams. Three and a half years ago we moved to a small acreage. We have six layer hens and a rooster. For now, we take the eggs. Soon I will allow one of the hens to sit a nest full, and we’ll see how that goes! The rooster does a great job protecting the hens. We have tons of predators. Eagles, owls, hawks, coyotes, (my friends’ dogs when they come to visit) raccoons, bobcats and apparently there is a mountain lion who roams this mountain. He does help alert them to everything. And we’ll hopefully be able to hatch out our own chicks. We move the chickens around in an electric net and their coop is on wheels.
We added two kiko goats this past spring. In the summer they were moved around in an electric net. At night the were out in the barn. One day I’d like to build a moveable shelter for them as well.
We do have a couple of wood stoves we use in the mornings to warm up the house so that the heat pump doesn’t work as hard. I normally don’t use it at night because we haven’t figured out how to keep it warm in the downstairs bedrooms. If we have the fire going then the heat pump doesn’t come on because it’s plenty warm where the thermostat is!
We have been thinning our woods, removing a lot of the Doug fir. Hopefully helping the oaks to thrive and in the mean time supplying us with lots of firewood.
We fenced in a large garden area and I am improving my preservation skills.
Next up will be two different water catchments. One for the garden and one for the animals.
As far as electric goes, we are on the grid and I’m not sure that will ever change. Solar and wind are both expensive inputs. I’m not sure how reliable either. My fencers are solar and die out after a couple of cloudy days and the wind doesn’t always blow.
We are considering a small cow calf pair for milk. Most likely a dexter. It is just two of us now and I don’t need a six gallon a day jersey! Even if we calf share as we think we would that’s a lot of milk!
As far as reference materials. I think the best thing is to invest in great books. YouTube is great for ideas, etc. but they all finish their projects in half an hour. Just like hgtv, a house can be built in half an hour!
Everything takes a lot more time and effort than you plan for because something always comes up. You either need to fix something that isn’t right about your wok or, you need to fix something totally unrelated to your project.
Things I have learned : Plan out your projects. I’m guilty of starting too many things and completing none! Pick one and finish it before moving on to the next! This is my goal for the new year.
By the way-happy new year everyone!

What an awesome set-up! I am so jealous! I am thinking about dairy as well, but it will likely never happen as it's just the two of us and my husband is lactose intolerant. I couldn't justify milking twice a day to use it all myself. Maybe if I have a goat or a sheep with a baby on then I will steal some and feel self-sufficient

 

[LizzzyJo]

I remember. Tried to buy some fresh bean seeds that year and found empty shelves at our garden centers. I still had old seeds from previous years, and just planted everything I had. Fortunately, the sell by date on the packages is not a throw out by date. Most of my old bean seeds sprouted. Anyway, since then, I have learned how to save some of my bean crop seeds for the next year. Don't want to get ever get caught empty handed again...



I drive Dear Wife crazy with everything I keep for reuse or repurpose, somewhere, somehow, at some time in the future. I'm the type of guy who can pat myself on the back for not throwing something out that I find use for maybe in a year or two, but I will kick myself in the rear end if I throw out something and then find I need it a few weeks later.

I think I get that attitude from my grandparents who lived through the Great Depression. Grandma washed plastic baggies until the day she died. Grandpa would straighten out rusty nails and reuse them until they broke. That was how they managed to get through life when everything was very hard. My life is not nearly as hard, but I still have a hard time throwing anything away that still has some potential value.

Hey, no worries! I wash out and reuse plastic baggies, plastic utensils from takeout, and glass jars from the grocery --- and I was born in the mid 80s. The worst cultural issue I grew up with was the mullet and I still hoard everything

 

[MysteryChicken]

That's exciting! I am the opposite, lol. I want mini harlequins so that I can sheer and use the wool. I like to knit. I'm terrible, but I'm learning.

I do felting, but getting woolly sheep seems a bit more difficult, since cleaning wool is a long process.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Actually, you should not have any trouble. Just put the eggs in the refrigerator for the winter (they have a dormant period, and would not hatch right away anyway.)

Silkworms are insects with several life stages, so raising them goes something like this:

You can order the eggs online, and they come in the mail.
They hatch into tiny caterpillars, who eat mulberry leaves and grow into big caterpillars.
Then they spin cocoons and sit inside for a while, before coming out as moths.
The moths do not fly, but they do mate and lay eggs-- LOTS of eggs.
You stick the eggs in the refrigerator to wait for next year.
If you want to raise another batch this year, just pull out more of the eggs from last year, that are probably still in the fridge.

If you want to reel the silk from the cocoons, instead of letting the moths emerge, you put the cocoons in boiling water (softens the sericin that glues the silk together) and start unwinding them.

Chickens like to eat the caterpillars, pupa from the cocoons you unreel, the moths, and I think the eggs as well-- so if you have chickens, it's easy to deal with "too many" silkworms at any stage of the project.

I have mulberry trees in my backyard, so I ordered silkworm eggs and raised them for a few years. It was a fun experience, but I learned I don't really like processing the silk, and I didn't want to keep raising silkworms just for the caterpillars/moths. Although I kind of miss the adult moths: they are white and fuzzy, and sit nicely on your finger without flying away. But since they only live a few days, there's no way to just keep a few as pets.

You can also feed thrm dyed leaves supposedly which turns them and the silk they produce that color

 

[LizzzyJo]

I do felting, but getting woolly sheep seems a bit more difficult, since cleaning wool is a long process.

Oh it absolutely does. I just love little sheep though and I like for everything on the homestead to have a job or a contribution. I could milk, but that means breeding and medical stuff. It's a hard call!

 

[LizzzyJo]

Wow! Silk worms! I've never in my life thought of that! How interesting!

 

[MysteryChicken]

Oh it absolutely does. I just love little sheep though and I like for everything on the homestead to have a job or a contribution. I could milk, but that means breeding and medical stuff. It's a hard call!

We'll be breeding them once, or twice a year for meat. Just hope the Ewes we get produce maybe 1-2 lambs each.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

We'll be breeding them once, or twice a year for meat. Just hope the Ewes we get produce maybe 1-2 lambs each.

If you want lots of lambs (also look into selling bottle babies if you go this route. Usually you can get people lined up ahead of time and they sell surprisingly well for the most part), look at either Finland or finnish sheep, or something like that. They tend to have 3-5 in a litter