Said no one… EVER!

At this time, having a young toddler makes homesteading a tag team effort. Typically, my husband watches our daughter while I tend to the animals and work on projects around the yard. Sundays are very busy for us because it is the best time available for us to complete projects. Every Sunday starts the same. Tend to the animals, clean out the barn, move soiled hay to the garden, and start on the day’s project.

Winter is a great time to get caught up on the little things around the homestead. Picking up the limbs that fell during the previous winter/summer storms. Rake up leaves and pine straw to add to the garden beds, compost, and the chicken coop/pen. Pull weeds out of the one flower bed our chickens refuse to scratch around in. Fill in the holes our dogs dug chasing after moles. Prune the fruit trees so they grow straight and healthy.

Winter is also a great time to plan, plan, plan. We make a chart for the garden. Where to plant this or that and how many. We are looking to add a watermelon patch and a squash bed for the summer, so now is the time to turn the soil and add some of those free leaves and pine needles for mulching. We love free!

2018 Homestead Goals

• Add asparagus beds
• Add turkeys to our flock
• Build a free standing hay feeder
• Build a greenhouse
• Build a lean to at the goat barn - for storing hay, straw and feed
• Build new chicken pens
• Fence off more area for goats
• Put up a fence around the garden
• Solar powered well at the goat pasture
• Start beekeeping

We have been planning a greenhouse for a while now. I have not thought about the interior design yet, but we know we want to construct it out of landscaping timbers and cattle panels. I also want to have a raised bed on the outside for more growing area. We will also use a rain barrel system for watering the plants inside and outside the greenhouse.

The hay feeder will probably be the first project I do. It will be pretty basic. A roof to cover the hay and help protect from rain and frost. It will probably have a pvc or metal roof on it and we will use some left over fencing that we already have.

Currently, our chicken pen consists of two dog kennels put together to make a 20’ x 20’ area. I want something that will better protect them from predators and something with a good stable roof. These will be 10’ x 20’ pens that are connected. We have 1 rooster, about 35 hens and 4 guineas. The guineas will stay in their current pen and they will get some upgrades. The hens will be separated by breed into 3 pens and we will get two more roosters so we can raise chicks. We also want to get turkeys. The 5th pen will be used for straw, feed storage and a slaughtering area. We will use metal for the roof, 4” x 4” wood posts, and fencing for the main construction of it. I will also build a simple, easy to clean coop for each pen. We will use rain barrels for much of their water supply.

Current Chicken Pen

Once we have these projects planned, we will research materials that we can repurpose and upcycle.

We will post the how to’s to our projects once we complete them.

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