MommyofSeven Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 Hey everyone. Just wanted to say hi...again. It's been awhile. I popped in briefly awhile back but then things got hectic and I think I just kind of...gave up...on prepping. But there's been some changes in our lives and it's definitely time to get back to prepping. We bought a house...on three acres! So we'll be turning it into a small little homestead that should hopefully support enough animal life to make us self sustaining. We've been working on improving it, and will hopefully have critters come next spring. If the weeds are any indication, we should also have an awesome garden! DH is working, finally,and I'm not at the moment, but hope to be doing something from home soon. I've been visiting on my cell phone (but unable to log in) and we finally got internet yesterday-five months on the waiting list definitely gave me the heebie jeebies! I'm really glad to be back! Mo7 Link to comment
Motherhen Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 HI! I think I remember your name from before! Welcome back. We just moved as well...still in transition in moving from one house to the other actually. Went from S.Ont to N.Ont.. from 13 acres to 73 in unorganized township which gives us a lot of freedom here on our little hobby farm. You'll surely enjoy your new property. I hope your soil IS good---our 13 acres seemed to only produce weeds. Link to comment
Becca_Anne Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 Welcome back! So good to hear your update! Link to comment
Mt_Rider Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 Welcome back, Mo7!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's have a party! Now that we have CAKE, lets sit and catch up a spell! So you're gonna turn 3 acres into "garden and goats", huh? Any orchard plans? Which animals will you get? How old are the kids still home...are they gonna be helpers? Sheeesh, I wish we had helpers!!! MtRider [...always so good to see old friends!! ] Link to comment
Dee Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 It's great to see you and your cute little cabin back at Mrs. S. Hugs to you Mo7!!! Link to comment
MommyofSeven Posted October 13, 2011 Author Share Posted October 13, 2011 OK here are the tentative plans for the three acres Orchard around perimeter, which will also be fenced into separate paddocks to rotate the chickens in. Once they've cleared the grass out of one, we move them to another, till in the poo, and throw in some grass seed. They'll have shade from the orchard trees (eventually) and we'll spend less on feed and have good soil for the trees and the grass. 20 or so layers. We have a co-op here that pays premium for free range eggs. Plus we're starting a co-op among friends so I can sell some that way as well. 100 feeder chickens (if space allows). Half will be traded with a friend for an elk. We'll do 20-30 the first year, then increase by 20-30 a year, to make sure space works. That gives us one chicken a week, leftovers going to soups. Mama cow and baby cow, baby cow for the freezer once it grows up Mama pig and baby pigs, keep one baby pig for the freezer, sell the rest A few goats for milk, culling and selling each year. Plus a garden. I used Carla's book to determine space needs, and think we can pull it off. It will be tight, but I think it will fly. I'm looking to lease or buy the few acres behind our property that are owned by some random guy who doesn't live here, so that will help. I can also lease hundreds of acres behind his land if we get to that point. What I described above should feed us for the year, with buying grains elsewhere and bringing in some feed but hopefully minimal. We'll put the pigs in the garden in the spring, and the chickens in, in the fall right before we butcher. And we'll stake the goats wherever we need weed control. There are a few outbuildings on the property-one large shed, with two side rooms. Dh has taken over the big part of the shed for his workshop/mancave (do we have an eyeroll emoticon? I don't remember) and I use the two side rooms for storage. I have my big shelves of spices out there, and right now misc stuff because I haven't finished unpacking. It was miserable in the house this summer; but we didn't have enough curtains and my sewing maching is who knows where lol. But I borrowed a friends so we'll have curtains for winter at least. There are two chicken houses and some fencing around those, but the chicken houses were never cleaned by the previous owners so we will demo those and start over. This probably won't be our "permanent" place if things hold out over the next several years, but it will get us TO our permanent place. It really isn't defensible. We have somewhere we could go if we needed to bug out, even permanently, with the animals, but ideally we'd like to purchase the 160 acres about 5 miles from here that includes mountains. So the plan is, if the stuff DOESN'T hit the fan, is to set this place up, improve the house, and sell at a profit. We had an extremely motivated seller who gave us a substantial discount for cleaning up after the previous people who were buying it on an owner carry basis, but we have to pay off in three years. Which is doable, and if something comes up we can renegotiate. DH's insurance policy would cover pay off and improvements if something happened to him, and the land alone is worth what we paid for the property as a whole. Once the house is paid off we'll have extra money to buy things we need for the bigger property like fencing, four wheelers, a four wheel drive truck or two, etc. The big parcel has been on the market for 10 years now, I don't think it's going anywhere soon, especially in this economy. If it does, we'll find something else. If we stay here we will add rooms on to the house. It's only two bedrooms, right now the girls are in the dining room with curtains for walls, so we'll have to add at least one room anyway. We'll do that in the spring. If we stay we'll add one more bedroom, an office, a cold storage area inside and a pantry room. Oh, we'll also be putting in a root cellar-we're looking now for people who are building and need dirt removed so we can take it. It's so good to see you all again. Thanks for the WBs! Link to comment
Jeepers Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 Welcome back!!! I really enjoyed reading your plans for your 3 acres. Link to comment
dogmom4 Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Welcome Back MO7!! Life sounds exciting for you guys...your new home sounds wonderful. Link to comment
snapshotmiki Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Glad you are back again! At first, reading your post, it sounded like you have the house we are waiting on! It's on 3 acres, 2 bedroom and a fixer upper, cleaner outer that is a steal. Difference is that you are in yours!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!! I look forward to hearing what you do with your farm! Link to comment
MomM Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Welcome back Mo7! It is so good to see you back. So very happy for you. Link to comment
Ambergris Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Welcome back! Consider movable fencing and move the chickens every few days. If you don't let the chickens entirely kill your grass, you'll save a sight of replanting. Alternatively, run your cattle through a small lot first, and then run the feeder chickens through. The chickens will break up the cow patties to clean up the grain the cattle didn't digest, and the broken up patties wash into the ground instead of sitting there long enough to smother the grass. This also breaks the parasites' life cycles. You might really want to consider keeping two pigs per year for your own. Link to comment
MommyofSeven Posted October 15, 2011 Author Share Posted October 15, 2011 Welcome back! Consider movable fencing and move the chickens every few days. If you don't let the chickens entirely kill your grass, you'll save a sight of replanting. Alternatively, run your cattle through a small lot first, and then run the feeder chickens through. The chickens will break up the cow patties to clean up the grain the cattle didn't digest, and the broken up patties wash into the ground instead of sitting there long enough to smother the grass. This also breaks the parasites' life cycles. You might really want to consider keeping two pigs per year for your own. Yeah I've been back and forth on the pigs. Probably two is better. I'll be doing a kind of interconnected paddock system with a walkway that's fenced and gates into the paddock areas that will block the walkway so they'll go there (in theory). Not sure what all is involved with moveable fencing and if it will be secure enough to keep stray animals out. Hadn't thought of running the cattle through first. Excellent idea. May need to change where I'll put everything, because the cows would be pretty far from the chickens, but since we've not started building anything, moving would be no problem. Link to comment
themartianchick Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 Welcome back and congratulations on the homestead. It all sounds so exciting... I can't wait to follow your progress! Link to comment
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