The Perfect Farm

[TreeFever]

I love Love LOVE'ed reading all of your ideal farms!!
Confidence in my farm dream has been boosted!!
keep them coming

 

[MissChessy]

Quote:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/19514_my_house.jpg

Did you follow me home?

I'm trying to be a gardener. This year's garden will be better though! Last year, I did get the asparagus bed made. I'm building a couple of chicken tractors to place in the garden spot. I don't have sheep or goats but I'm going to borrow one of my parent's llamas just before it gives birth. (Llamas serve about the same purpose as a goat only they will guard as well. You should see them attack a dog. Teeth and legs fly!) Dad swears that they are much better adjusted if born on the land. Have to build a couple of cross fences first. Do wild pigs count? No bunnies but my girls want some. Got the ducks and chickens. Not a cow but do have a horse. White house on the hill overlooking the property with porches on the front and back. I also have a hot tub on the back porch.

Did you forget a small orchard and a bee hive in your dream or is that just mine? I planted the fruit trees last year. I'm also waiting for my maple trees to get big enough to tap. They are almost there. (Have to be at least 1 foot in diameter.) I want to get a bee hive in a few years.

Only problem is there's so much work on a farm but my dream is slowly coming together.

Man, I'm soooo jealous of your farmhouse! That is awesome! Beautiful snow and the works. Here it is like May, hot and humid. LOL!

 

[Chick_a_dee]

Quote:
Ugh, I am practically glued to escape to the country despite the fact that no one buys anything on that show LOL.

 

[Chick_a_dee]

We moved to heaven this year

8.5 acres of pure bliss in Loyalist country, Ontario!

Needs lots of work, but it's worth the effort, time, sweat, money.

 

[Vcomb]

This is something I've contemplated many many times.

1 story farmhouse with a wrap around porch on 3 sides and a fully-decked out basement with drive up access on one end sitting on the side of a hill out of the wind from the north and west facing wide open rolling prairie. nice fenced yards for the chickens. a fruit orchard / barrel yard for the roosters. mulberries, white mulberries, peaches, pears, apples. some berries planted around for the hens and chicks to hide in - raspberries gooseberries sand cherries. since we're going all out as far as a dream set up goes....2 guard/farm dogs and a small pack of coyote hounds on the outside of the fence. maybe a herd of longhorns and some brown swiss. big long barn for chicken house - breeding and raising pens etc. all lights nice set up big feed room for storage and mixing. another building for show prep and isolation. and a room special for the incubators and such with a computer set up in there for records. a studio, oh and a machine shed for my vehicles and trailers. oh and in the house a nice aquarium display and a room for raising fish. small flock of waterfowl with a pond out in front. chocolate runners, exhibition rouens, khaki campbells, buff americans, buff and blue dewlap africans.

 

[joebwe25]

Beekissed's farm

http://www.sufficientself.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=728
The house on Funny farm is perfect minus the corps in the garden and the mailman!
two story farm house and original cabinets inside, pond, red barn, goats, dairy cows, LOTS of chickens, woods, a stream, old rundown outbuildings, a Gator, huge gardens, a roadside stand, hills for sledding, maple trees, a cheesemaking shack, an orchard, a secluded wooded spot for birdfeeders,
Bramble bushes and lots of beehives.
Is all this possible?

 

[Jena]

Hi Chickadee,
I love Escape to the Country, in fact I am sitting here now on New Year's Eve watching it on TV, Alister is in Cornwall.

The American house I saw was last week on Grand Designs, Love that show. Kevin was being his usual cynical self. But it worked out beautiful.

lol... maybe one day someone will wave a magic wand over my little Steel House. I will keep dreaming for now.

Love your house, it looks wonderful...Live the dream. Happy New Year.

Jena.

 

[eggzettera]

Mine would be a log cabin house totally off the grid. Solar panels for electricity, a 2 sided completely functional (can cook with) STONE fireplace (2 sided - opens toward kitchen & living room), wrap around porch. I would like to have well water (with recycled grey water for flushing toilets) along with a stream & a pond (for fishing).....you get the idea. Full orchard, garden, bee's, chickens & dexter cows with a couple of sebastian geese thrown in.....

 

[Rosalind]

Mine would be the kind with a handsome young man to do all the chores for me while I sit around drinking margaritas and enjoying the view...

I don't terribly mind the getting up early. I really genuinely like minding the orchard and wish all food grew on trees. The chickens are easy to care for. I rather like heating the house by means of a woodstove. I can maintain the pool by myself, no problem.

I want the young man to deal with my woodlot and split and stack wood, put up & repair fences, maintain and help renovate buildings, weed the garden, build dry-stacked rock walls and haul compost/mulch for me. Also to mind a herd of goats, which are too much work for me to do by myself, but I like fresh goat milk.

Right now I have 2 acres not too far from Boston. The farmhouse is a real antique with exposed timber frame construction. Well is inside the house, 2 fireplaces, one large inglenook-style with a cooking crane and one with a woodstove shoved in it. We have a smallish red barn able to hold a smallish flock of sheep, some poultry, a pig and 6 dairy cows, although it currently contains a bunch of squirrels, mice, a bunch of old furniture and two large barking dogs. We have about an acre of woodlot backing onto conservation land, a big garden, a 30-tree orchard with all kinds of fruit and berries, a ton of outbuildings in varying states of repair (including chicken coop with 18 chickens), a rather nice swimming pool and brick patio.

Let me tell you, it is an insane amount of work. The house alone takes Murphy's Oil Soap by the gallon. All those picturesque old farmhouses, you need a whole extended family working on them just to keep them clean and the fields in good condition--never mind actually producing crops. 14 hours/day 365 days/year is not for everyone. Lots of people like to come visit us and are astonished that we can't drop what we're doing to entertain them. Work work work work.

 

[hcammack]

I am in the same exact situation as you but my dream is a tiny bit bigger. I would like to live as a farmer no extra job just farming. I love the many things you have to think about while farming. I would love to do a bit of everything. I would love to run a whole food CSA.

Dairy maximum 6 jeresey cows and one bull
25 highland and highland X cows 1 bull
5 toggenburg does 1 buck or use AI
Pigs
10 + bextel meat x sheep
batches of 75 broilers often
Turkeyes
Geese (buff dewlaps)
Ducks (silver appleyards)
Layers (mixed color egg flock + breeding birds) (Welsummer,Marans, true ameraucana, leghorn, and RIR)
Huge Enormouse veggies garden

I work on a farm where they do all of these things and have a whole food CSA! they butcher and slaughter all their own meat which I am learning about they make butter and cheese. Its a great farm they also us belgium draft horses!

Henry