She threw me off with the “hauling water”, bit. Homesteading is expensive if you don’t want to do the work. I grew up on a farm. Well water, chickens, grew our veggies, had cows, pigs, sold crops and animals (even pecans from our trees) to make income, drank cows milk fresh from the cow, our chickens/cows/pigs and even goats were food too, hunted deer, Grandma had us eating squirrels and rabbits, fished, we harvested peanut hay to feed our horse (I did as it was mine), Dad had a wood burning stove installed in the house, etc. Yes we had electricity and my Dad also worked but the point is, we had to work to survive and were close to living off the grid. You have to work hard to live off the grid, but it’s not expensive if you put in the work. Back in the days hard work was the normal.
Ditto here. Except no peanuts. Logged timber and trapped/cured animal hides in winter for extra money at the fur auction. Up at dawn to bed at dusk, rain snow or shine. We all worked hard from 4/5 years old. You don't work, you don't eat. Best life ever. Translated into 7 figure hard working entrepreneurs as adults. Funny how easy success is if you wake up and Just Do It!
By the time I came along, being the last of five kids, my parents were doing pretty well. I never knew hard times. But my dad still worked from 8 in the morning till 11 at night six days a week, and sometime much later. I worked for him for two or three years and had the same schedule. Sometimes I would watch Star Trek that came on at 7 and be a little late returning after supper and he would shake his head at me.
But early on they had tough times, and did not even know where the next meal was coming from, because my dad had operation that laid him up for a year. When he was sick he promised God that if he could ever work again, he would not stop lol. I think this is why he worked so hard, and loved ever hour of it. But he was sitting quietly in a back pew every Sunday.
I've lived most of my adult life so that I am set up to be fine if and when the grid fails. If there is going to be any attack against the USA, it will be on the energy grids and communication grid, I figured out back in the late 70's. I have wood power, for heat and cooking, been unplugged for the home heating. I have land I bought in 1987, but it is not all cultivated, I tried, I was married for a few years and I thought my husband at the time, and I, were moving in that direction, he seemed dedicated. We did work though, in the health field, both of us. He left. I managed to stay on the land full time while working, by taking in people who needed a home with care due to disabilities, was able to grow a lot of food for storing for 20 years, but not all of it. Root crops and food for canning. A solar system is out of my economic possibilities, and this far north with weeks of cloudy gloom would not be enough. A small windmill would work, but, again, lack of $$$$$. I have enough food to feed 3 people for a few months, by prepping. Chickens are great, eggs, meat, etc, they can eat corn and jerusalum artichokes, scraps, dried peas and beans, all easy to grow. Foraging for some medicinal roots and herbs and barks. Rabbits are an easy protein to raise, probably one of the easiest. Predators happen, up here it is weasels in the barn which can do the worst damage. I am not a pioneer, but I can live off grid. To live remotely, you need a vehicle to get to market for things you cannot grow, flour, rice, etc. I have the same clothing for decades, "dress up clothes" stay in the closet for years, barely used. I am too old to hunt, but my son does, there is enough game, thanks be to God, and plenty of fish, lots of water. Enough wood too, for fuel. Homesteading definitely requires a certain mind set. You have to love the land, eschew the modern world, enjoy your own company, reject societies idea of what is succesful and what is not, and pinch every single penny, seriously pinch. You have to ask yourself with every purchase "do I want this or do I need this?" Cows require too much land, I prefer goats or sheep, both produce milk and cheese, sheep are more prone to diseases and hoof problems, goats are devils, but are pretty self sufficient and hardy, they do need hay through the winter. There are people who have a nervous breakdown if they can't live with all the conveniences, they will never make it , period. I am not responsible for them. I don't care where you live, get a wood stove, most pellet stoves require electricity, do research on them. Build for passive solar, same with placing your gardens. Stop with the lawns already, dig it up and plant for food. Ask yourself what you rely on, try to rely on as little as possible that is out of your control, it will give you peace of mind.
She speaks the exact truth. Farm work / homesteading is what I call "honest" work. You work hard to literally put everything on your plate. It's glorified now, but few are willing to put in the effort required.
Hell, just 3 dogs is enough. I’m on a little over an acre w a greenhouse, raised beds and hoops frames. In the summer it’s 2 hours per day just to maintain the produce for the summer. We’re expanding and it becomes more and more work. Luckily, I have 3 adult kids within half an hour who will gladly come watch the dogs and do the gardening basics which makes it easy to go away for a few days. A week? No.
Which is why I have a ton of long term storage food, a freezer full of meat and a whole generator running on CNG. We’re on well too.
Just coming in from mending a rooster's toenail that snapped off - mid-quick - If I didn't super glue/baking soda seal it - he would have bled to death.
Mrs just happened to catch it. Styptic powder just laughed at the idea of stopping the bleeding...He's in quarantine now because his brood were immediately pecking at it after I did surgery. They suck that way.
Waiting for sun to go down to put him back in with his girls hoping everyone is perched up and more focused on sleep than messing with his toe.
It's almost time to bottle feed the goat triplet...God only gave goats 2 nipples...fun stuff.
Just got back from a friends hobby farm - 2 horses, 3 goats w more due, 6 chickens, dog, and 2 barn cats. Amazing this single guy has the whole operation running like a top. Cleanest barn I’ve ever been in. And he runs a business.
I can remember when my dad finally started having our hay made into round bales. We still had some square bales made, but it was not near what we did in the past. Thank God for round bales!
I can remember hauling hay during the summer. We got 3 buck for a days work throwing 40 pound bales on the back of the wagon. I always wanted to the one on the wagon stacking until the stack got too high and then I would swap with someone on the ground. Still a lot of hard work!
Same thing my daddy always said, "When I hear someone talking about the good old days, that's someone who never lived in those days." Then he would say, "Hey, these are the good old days."
I just started reading a book given to my son by an old man (the child on the book cover far right) he is friend with from the church he goes to. It tells of his families harrowing survival during the Nazi invasion, and occupation of Belgium.
My first reaction was, my gosh this generation of people was much tougher that we are today, and I think that they were more acquainted with hardship is true, but I also see it as in the case of this families survival, the mother just doing what she could do to make it though and keep he kids alive.
Sometimes I would see my dad struggling to resolve problem, and when that problem invariably got fixed, I would ask him how was able to resolve that problem. He would always reply, "That was the only thing left to do." He would say, "You'd be surprised with what you can do when you have to" My dad was a true thinker, the smartest, most respected man I will ever know. So many time I would come up against something I was trying to figure out, and he would look at me and say, "Think boy, think." The other thing I usually heard the most was "Get out of my light" when I'd be watching him do some, and be blocking the light.
She threw me off with the “hauling water”, bit. Homesteading is expensive if you don’t want to do the work. I grew up on a farm. Well water, chickens, grew our veggies, had cows, pigs, sold crops and animals (even pecans from our trees) to make income, drank cows milk fresh from the cow, our chickens/cows/pigs and even goats were food too, hunted deer, Grandma had us eating squirrels and rabbits, fished, we harvested peanut hay to feed our horse (I did as it was mine), Dad had a wood burning stove installed in the house, etc. Yes we had electricity and my Dad also worked but the point is, we had to work to survive and were close to living off the grid. You have to work hard to live off the grid, but it’s not expensive if you put in the work. Back in the days hard work was the normal.
Exactly > . Back in the days hard work was the normal.
Still today for alot of us.
Ditto here. Except no peanuts. Logged timber and trapped/cured animal hides in winter for extra money at the fur auction. Up at dawn to bed at dusk, rain snow or shine. We all worked hard from 4/5 years old. You don't work, you don't eat. Best life ever. Translated into 7 figure hard working entrepreneurs as adults. Funny how easy success is if you wake up and Just Do It!
I don't have any experience in this. But, I believe he was saying the expensive part is getting established.
By the time I came along, being the last of five kids, my parents were doing pretty well. I never knew hard times. But my dad still worked from 8 in the morning till 11 at night six days a week, and sometime much later. I worked for him for two or three years and had the same schedule. Sometimes I would watch Star Trek that came on at 7 and be a little late returning after supper and he would shake his head at me.
But early on they had tough times, and did not even know where the next meal was coming from, because my dad had operation that laid him up for a year. When he was sick he promised God that if he could ever work again, he would not stop lol. I think this is why he worked so hard, and loved ever hour of it. But he was sitting quietly in a back pew every Sunday.
Really excellent reading.
Makes you think what would happen in a grid down situation. Most would die.
I've lived most of my adult life so that I am set up to be fine if and when the grid fails. If there is going to be any attack against the USA, it will be on the energy grids and communication grid, I figured out back in the late 70's. I have wood power, for heat and cooking, been unplugged for the home heating. I have land I bought in 1987, but it is not all cultivated, I tried, I was married for a few years and I thought my husband at the time, and I, were moving in that direction, he seemed dedicated. We did work though, in the health field, both of us. He left. I managed to stay on the land full time while working, by taking in people who needed a home with care due to disabilities, was able to grow a lot of food for storing for 20 years, but not all of it. Root crops and food for canning. A solar system is out of my economic possibilities, and this far north with weeks of cloudy gloom would not be enough. A small windmill would work, but, again, lack of $$$$$. I have enough food to feed 3 people for a few months, by prepping. Chickens are great, eggs, meat, etc, they can eat corn and jerusalum artichokes, scraps, dried peas and beans, all easy to grow. Foraging for some medicinal roots and herbs and barks. Rabbits are an easy protein to raise, probably one of the easiest. Predators happen, up here it is weasels in the barn which can do the worst damage. I am not a pioneer, but I can live off grid. To live remotely, you need a vehicle to get to market for things you cannot grow, flour, rice, etc. I have the same clothing for decades, "dress up clothes" stay in the closet for years, barely used. I am too old to hunt, but my son does, there is enough game, thanks be to God, and plenty of fish, lots of water. Enough wood too, for fuel. Homesteading definitely requires a certain mind set. You have to love the land, eschew the modern world, enjoy your own company, reject societies idea of what is succesful and what is not, and pinch every single penny, seriously pinch. You have to ask yourself with every purchase "do I want this or do I need this?" Cows require too much land, I prefer goats or sheep, both produce milk and cheese, sheep are more prone to diseases and hoof problems, goats are devils, but are pretty self sufficient and hardy, they do need hay through the winter. There are people who have a nervous breakdown if they can't live with all the conveniences, they will never make it , period. I am not responsible for them. I don't care where you live, get a wood stove, most pellet stoves require electricity, do research on them. Build for passive solar, same with placing your gardens. Stop with the lawns already, dig it up and plant for food. Ask yourself what you rely on, try to rely on as little as possible that is out of your control, it will give you peace of mind.
An excellent narrative of what it takes to farm! i will appreciate so much more the food i buy direct from farmers!
She speaks the exact truth. Farm work / homesteading is what I call "honest" work. You work hard to literally put everything on your plate. It's glorified now, but few are willing to put in the effort required.
Y'aint goin nowhere...
Got animals? Your ass is in sync with the sun and feeding/putting them up.
You'll be leaving the party early...
You can trust a man that has to leave to feed his anomald
Animals
Hell, just 3 dogs is enough. I’m on a little over an acre w a greenhouse, raised beds and hoops frames. In the summer it’s 2 hours per day just to maintain the produce for the summer. We’re expanding and it becomes more and more work. Luckily, I have 3 adult kids within half an hour who will gladly come watch the dogs and do the gardening basics which makes it easy to go away for a few days. A week? No.
Which is why I have a ton of long term storage food, a freezer full of meat and a whole generator running on CNG. We’re on well too.
Yep...got 3 of them too...
Just coming in from mending a rooster's toenail that snapped off - mid-quick - If I didn't super glue/baking soda seal it - he would have bled to death.
Mrs just happened to catch it. Styptic powder just laughed at the idea of stopping the bleeding...He's in quarantine now because his brood were immediately pecking at it after I did surgery. They suck that way.
Waiting for sun to go down to put him back in with his girls hoping everyone is perched up and more focused on sleep than messing with his toe.
It's almost time to bottle feed the goat triplet...God only gave goats 2 nipples...fun stuff.
Just got back from a friends hobby farm - 2 horses, 3 goats w more due, 6 chickens, dog, and 2 barn cats. Amazing this single guy has the whole operation running like a top. Cleanest barn I’ve ever been in. And he runs a business.
I just learned about the 3rd goat kid today.
I had an old man tell me when I was just a teen that all the talk about the "good ole days" meant to him was he was glad they were GONE! KEK
I can remember when my dad finally started having our hay made into round bales. We still had some square bales made, but it was not near what we did in the past. Thank God for round bales!
Sometimes you need moar than one updoot
I can remember hauling hay during the summer. We got 3 buck for a days work throwing 40 pound bales on the back of the wagon. I always wanted to the one on the wagon stacking until the stack got too high and then I would swap with someone on the ground. Still a lot of hard work!
I was too small to toss from the ground until I was 13, I was a stacker and driver until then.
Same thing my daddy always said, "When I hear someone talking about the good old days, that's someone who never lived in those days." Then he would say, "Hey, these are the good old days."
I just started reading a book given to my son by an old man (the child on the book cover far right) he is friend with from the church he goes to. It tells of his families harrowing survival during the Nazi invasion, and occupation of Belgium.
My first reaction was, my gosh this generation of people was much tougher that we are today, and I think that they were more acquainted with hardship is true, but I also see it as in the case of this families survival, the mother just doing what she could do to make it though and keep he kids alive.
Sometimes I would see my dad struggling to resolve problem, and when that problem invariably got fixed, I would ask him how was able to resolve that problem. He would always reply, "That was the only thing left to do." He would say, "You'd be surprised with what you can do when you have to" My dad was a true thinker, the smartest, most respected man I will ever know. So many time I would come up against something I was trying to figure out, and he would look at me and say, "Think boy, think." The other thing I usually heard the most was "Get out of my light" when I'd be watching him do some, and be blocking the light.
Your dad said it was the only thing left to do. Lol. I know the feeling there.
Excellent article, very interesting.