My Homestead Life

I always make handmade gifts and decorations each year for the holidays.  This means having to start early!  So, with that in mind, I have already begun to planned what I will be making this year.  For decorations, I go to Pinterest  for ideas and save pics of the ones I like.  If needed, I also save the link to any instructions.  I do the same for gift ideas.  Sometimes, I print them and place in a notebook for later reference.  This saves me a lot of time.  As sales come up at the craft stores, I buy the materials needed.  These are stored together in gallon size baggies or other containers, basically making my own craft kits.  While doing this, I keep in mind assembling kits for the kids to use so that they can make decorations and gifts as well.  Doing this takes a little time, but is very helpful later on.  

For largest, more time consuming gifts, I start working on them right away.  As each is completed, I label them with the recipient's name and store in a large tote.  If I already have gift wrap left over from last season, I go ahead and wrap it.  I keep track of what has been made in a little notebook.

Over the past few days, we have been getting a LOT of heavy rains.  The first day, our little bridge that we had built over the irrigation ditch in our driveway was washed into the vegetation due to flooding.  We have had a running creek ever since.  The ground is so marshy now that it is a good thing that we didn’t have a garden planted.  It would have been flooded out.

We had two tornadoes get close.  One was close enough that we were side swiped by it.  The rain was nearly horizontal at one point and we had hail that was larger than golf balls.  Thankfully, we did not receive any major damage.

It was still scary though.  Hubby wasn’t home and the thought of running 1/4 mile to the nearest storm shelter with two kids, one being in a wheelchair, and being pelted with that hail wasn’t a pleasant prospect.  Luckily, we didn’t have to do it.

Permaculture: (noun) a system of cultivation intended to maintain permanent agriculture or horticulture by relying on renewable resources and a self-sustaining ecosystem.

Taken the above definition, this is a way of life that many of our ancestors lived.  Of course, back then it was a life of survival more than the movement it is becoming today.

Our grandparents’ generation and those before them lived a lifestyle of sustainability that we are seeing a return to today.  The idea of living off the land without having a negative effect on it was something that they knew how to do.  They understood that if they caused harm to the land that provided food for their families, that the families would starve.  

Today, we see a new surge in the popularity of sustainable living.  There are a lot of fancy terms for it, permaculture being one of them.  The general idea is the same.  We conserve as much as possible, the land that we are using to provide for our family’s needs.

My family is striving for this.  We live fully off the grid.  We are seeking ways to use natural resources, such as wind and solar, to generate the electricity that we need.  Currently, we have a generator for the immediate solution.  If we have a project that require power tools, for example, the generator is our option.  We are not as self-reliant as we would like to be, but we are taking steps towards the end goal.  Currently, we use about 3 gallons of fuel per month in the generator.  That is very little by most people’s standards.  

At this time, we use propane for cooking and other needs in the home.  We use the gas stove in our kitchen year round, though in winter, I cook on the wood stove.  The gas stove provides a more constant and reliable heat level when home canning the harvest or foods bought at a farmer’s market.  

We have a wood burning stove for heat and an antique cookstove that also uses wood as a fuel source.  We find wood for these that come from dead trees or limbs that have broken off a tree during a storm.  The wood we harvest never comes from a living tree.  By using the dead trees and downed limbs, we are clearing away the debris from the wooded areas.  This makes it a little safer during fire season as well as making room for new trees to be planted.

I am looking at the cleared areas as a place to plant vegetables and possibly fruit that does not require full sun.  Setting up the garden areas in the woods has the added advantage of the plants growing in well composted soil that has been relatively untouched for decades.

One of the harshest of lessons learned when we went started our homestead was that we needed to be careful with our timing.  

I found a great resource for buying chicken and guinea pullets at a town near our homestead.  We had a large cage to put them in until we could build a chicken tractor for the little flock.  I bought 3 turkey pullets as well.  I wish that I had not bought the turkeys at that feed store.  They all died within a week from failure to thrive.  They were given the proper feed and yet, they just were not doing well.

The chickens and guineas fared better, but grew much faster than I expected.  We quickly had a small portable coop built for them, but they outgrew it far quicker than we were prepared for.  We ended up making the decision to let them free range during the day.  

They never went back to sleeping in the coop, but would fly up into the tall shrubbery near our house to sleep in at night.  Within a couple of months, they were all fat and happy.  They ate the insects in the yard, including ticks, as well as the feed we set out for them.  

We learned that guineas are wicked in their dealings with cats or other threats to the flock.  A stray cat came into the yard to try and catch one of the young chickens.  The guineas surrounded the cat and attacked it, chasing it off.  Whenever they saw that cat again, they closed ranks around the chickens and protected them.  We never lost a single bird to that cat.

After about 6 months, we noticed that the number of chickens & guineas were dropping.  There was no signs of carcasses, just a diminished number of birds.  It happened quickly.  Within a 2-week time frame, all the chickens & guineas, except for one lone rhode island red hen, were gone.  We realized that they were roosting too low at night and the coyotes or a cougar was snatching them out of the shrubs while they slept.  The animal carried them off without a sound or feather trail.

The little hen that remained was a smarter one.  She roosted high in the trees at night.  She was a favorite.  After weeks of her being on her own, she too was caught.  

There are so many who have impressions of what it would be like to live without electricity from a power company.  Often, they romanticize the idea as they think about the lack of utility bills.  This blog will give you a reality check.  I absolutely love this lifestyle, but am the first to admit that it is not for everyone. 

There are a lot of aspects to life that you have to consider before taking this step.  Certainly, you can make the transition easier on yourself and your family if you plan ahead.