Archive for March, 2009
Tuesday’s Tip to Homesteading: Start Smaller than your Dream
March 31st, 2009
Tuesday’s Tip to Homesteading: “Start Smaller than your Dream” is by NO MEANS a damper on your vision of homesteading! If anything, it is to keep that from happening.
Once you’ve gotten the homesteading ‘bug’ it is almost impossible to get rid of it. We had a short stint in Southern California suburbia that down-right almost killed me! Who mows the lawn with an electric PLUG IN mower? Yikes!
But that ‘bug’ can also make you bite off more than you can chew. Those dreams of land spreading out so far and wide, possibly crops or livestock, rolling hills or wide open prairies, mountains to climb or root cellars in the ground, stream, creek, river or lake, it doesn’t matter, your mind can wander all day long once you’ve gotten the homesteading ‘bug’ – but if you can’t keep up with that land (and yes, any homesteader knows it really doesn’t just SIT THERE) then you will lose sight of your dreams as they give way to tired bodies and aching muscles. So start small.
Our first journey into homesteading was my back yard garden in a quiet suburban neighborhood. I didn’t know what I was doing, I just know I loved the smell of the dirt, getting dirty and then reaping the rewards.
Next we moved to about 7 acres and expanded to some fruit and nut trees, figs, two rows of grapevines, and a much larger and more productive garden. Closer to the house we built a small chicken coup with a run outside (although the chickens roamed freely all day) and a bunny cage with four bunnies (for fertilizer purposes, they were pets). We also managed to have an acre out back for some sheep and goats. This was quite manageable even with small kids and work, this was enough room, yet not too much to manage. It was a very, very productive little homestead.
Currently we are on 15 acres of which about half of it is woods. Don’t let those woods fool you, they too need occasional tending. When they are yours, and a stray cow or neighbor’s livestock wander into your woods, you need to know you can get through there to find it. Also, woods tend to attract ‘wayward’ hunters and their hunting dogs (that will wreak havoc with your livestock if they spy them through the trees). So don’t assume a lot of woods mean ‘care-free’ land.
On what can be utilized we have expanded our fruit and nut trees, have other grapevines and the garden is about 20 times the size what was in the first back yard garden. Our livestock did not make the move here, so we are slowly rebuilding the chickens, bunnies, goats and sheep. The grain business keeps us busy as well.
But I share all this to say it is a process. Don’t shoot for your dream 288 acres right out of the gate! You might just get overwhelmed and give up and regret giving up! Build those homesteading skills like any other skill – with fundamentals and practice.
Take into consideration what you want to do, start small and build on it. Most people who truly want to homestead know the patience of growing things and the seasons it takes for planting, growing and harvesting are in order. So, don’t jump the gun and bite off more than you can chew (how’s that for combining two clichés?) and get overwhelmed!
Two books that I highly recommend are listed below. You can find them online.
Five Acres and Independence: A Handbook for Small Farm Management by Maurice G. Kains
Ten Acres Enough: The Classic 1864 Guide to Independent Farming
by Edmund Morris
Best Blessings and enJOY the journey!
Donna Miller
Donna Miller is a work-from-home wife and mother. She delighted to share her trials and triumphs of learning to homestead anywhere. The Millers own and operate
Millers Grain House which offers Organic and Chemical-free Whole Grains, Bosch Mixers, the NutriMill, instructional tutorials, recipes and more.
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Tuesday’s Tip to Homesteading: Rewards worth the work are not easy
March 24th, 2009
Even though we have grown our lifestyle from a small patch in the backyard to 15 acres, we still have plans for a larger lot of land with larger rewards – and with that comes more work. We dream of the hundreds of acres of views and orchards, peace and riding trails, fences and garden spots. Then, we wake up.
Homesteading can be a topic of day-dreams or a glamorized ideal of what you may want, but the truth is: It is work. Anyone who tells you differently is selling you something useless.
Grant it, there are days that I look around and see all the ‘to do’ items on a list that never ends and it may get overwhelming, but it is worth it. I would much rather have the rewards of my hard work than a life of ease and ‘give-it-to-me-on-a-silver-platter’ expectations any day.
So if you are new to homesteading, researching or an old hat at homesteading, let me offer these words of encouragement.
If you’re new or thinking of homesteading: Don’t give up – unless you think green beans always come in a can from the store and the only thing you need is more new yard toys to make your homestead work right. You are in for a rude awakening – so get ready to live!
If you’re homesteading already: Don’t give up – the rewards are well worth all your hard work. Just plan some down time to rest and take little bites at a time. No homestead is ever ‘finished’ anyway.
Any reward is worth working hard for…so enjoy the fruits of your labor of love.
EnJOY the journey!
Best Blessings!
Donna Miller
Donna Miller is a work-from-home wife and mother. She delighted to share her trials and triumphs of learning to homestead anywhere. The Millers own and operate Millers Grain House which offers Organic and Chemical-free Whole Grains, Bosch Mixers, the NutriMill, instructional tutorials, recipes and more.If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Tuesday’s Tip to Homesteading: Be patient in your diligence
March 17th, 2009
I am hoping to add a new Tip each Tuesday to the “Tips to Homesteading” site here. Help keep me accountable will you please?
This Tuesday’s Tip to Homesteading is: Be patient in your diligence!
Now, maybe to you it sounds like two tips. Be patient and be diligent. No, these are tied so closely together in homesteading that they just ‘have to’ be paired up into one tip.
To be patient is one thing. Waiting for the rain to stop so we can work in the garden takes patience. We can do nothing about that rain but be glad we have some.
To be diligent is another thing. While it’s raining, don’t just sit and wait, sort the seeds, draw the plans, move on to another project that rain doesn’t affect.
Being patient is necessary because often the hard work of diligence doesn’t show for a while on a homestead. Breeding, planting and harvesting all take work, but also time. Being diligent at all tasks on the homestead is vital. If we rest back for too long, playing ‘catch-up’ is far more overwhelming than staying on top of tasks.
So be you a new homesteader or a seasoned vet, be patient in your diligence. Don’t give up! The pay off comes with both time and hard work!
EnJOY the journey!
Best Blessings!
Donna Miller
Donna Miller is a work-from-home wife and mother. She delighted to share her trials and triumphs of learning to homestead anywhere. The Millers own and operate Millers Grain House which offers Organic and Chemical-free Whole Grains, Bosch Mixers, the NutriMill, instructional tutorials, recipes and more.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Homestead, Hobby Farm or Farmette?
March 3rd, 2009
I’ve seen several articles in magazines referring to this new trend as a “Hobby Farm”. Admittedly at first, this bothered me. The two terms, “Hobby Farm” and “Farmette”, being used across the board, gets me on the defensive when describing someone’s property and lifestyle. Many homesteaders in various levels of homesteading (andthere are thousands of us) work far too hard on our land and livelihood to be as self sufficient as possible to be labeled with these terms.
If you want to know my opinion on the terms “Hobby Farm” and “Farmette” – it is as if they are terms for places where people ‘play’ and don’t really have a serious commitment to homesteading. Now, I know it may not really be that way and that many who are considered Hobby Farmers grow to become full-fledged Homesteaders, but it just seems to be a demeaning term for the amount of work to truly sustain even something considered a “Hobby Farm” or smaller farm “Farmette”. Why not just call them beginning homesteaders? The term “Hobby Farm” would work of course if they always just play at it, but my experience is that once it truly gets in your blood, you can’t go back to life as usual. So “beggining homesteader” works better.
A small menagerie of animals as pets does not a homestead make. However, it is a starting point and THAT is what should be called a beginning homesteader rather than a ”Hobby Farm.” Anything under 8 acres, I would call a “Farmette.” That too depends on what is happening on those 7 acres, more than the size of it. To call all homesteaders either of those two terms is, well, selling us somewhat short.
So what if I don’t grow a crop for profit. We have 15 acres on which we are living quite self-sufficiently. We grew from what some may term as a Hobby Farm/ Farmette of 7 acres to a full-fledged homestead with vineyards, two acre sized gardens, a peach and apple orchard, beehives and soon more livestock.
It’s not a hobby. It’s a homestead. It’s a life.
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