1. Farmer’s Markets – From home-grown fruits and vegetables to freshly baked bread, farmers markets offer many areas of income opportunity to the homesteader. Many homesteaders bring their honey, beeswax candles, flowers, seeds from the last harvest and herbs. The variety of things that can be sold at a farmers market is vast!

2. Farm Tours - Many people from the city and suburbs are often intrigued with farm life and excited to learn new skills that you may have already acquired. Set specific tour and lesson dates and get the word out. You may be surprised to find how many groups want to dig in the dirt and get in touch with where their food comes from. Sheep shearing and wool spinning are often interesting events along with a host of other typical homestead activities, that others don’t have the joy of sharing in unless you invite them.

3. Lessons – As we have seen more and more people are getting back to the basics of living more simply. The trouble with that is, many who move to the country don’t have the benefit of having had generations who passed down the skills to do so. You could teach bread baking, canning or animal husbandry with your neighbors who are new to the area.

 4. Share your skills for a fee – Again touching on the newly arrived, greenhorn homesteader, you may want to offer a service of bush-hogging land they wish cleared, tilling the garden spot, hauling in or out debris or livestock for a small fee. You might be surprised what a tiny ad in the local paper may turn up as others move to your more rural neighborhood.

These are but a very few suggestions for making more income come into your homesteading budget. Count your blessings even in the tougher economic times and see just how many options you have as someone who has even the smallest of homesteads, or at least some homesteading skills!

Until next time!

Best Blessings!

Donna

The Millers own and operate Millers Grain House which offers Chemical Free and Organic Grains, Grain Mills, Bread Machines,Grain buckets, Bosch Mixers, the NutriMill, instructional tutorials, recipes and more.

Technorati Tags: budget, farmers market, frut, homestead, honey, income, skills, vegetables

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.

Technorati Tags: acreage, acres, bunny, chickens, crops, dirt, fruit trees, garden, gardening, goats, grapevines, harvest, homestead, homestead garden, hunter, land, livestock, nut trees, rabbit, sheep, skills, woods

Now, as times get tougher, young women are marrying and starting families and lives that require some skills that just got lost on many of the 80’s crowd (*that would be us, your parent’s age*) and many people my age are just now realizing we need some long lost skills no one taught US!

Join me as I hope to mentor and share visually and verbally what I have learned (often the hard way) and would love to share with you to help speed up your learning curve and avoid some of the pitfalls I’ve had!

I’d love to share. Please come see me : http://www.youtube.com/user/thewheatguy

Technorati Tags: families, home, home making, homestead, homesteading, mentor, skills, suburbia