Heather in WI Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Hello! We would like to move to (or build) a 3-5 acre mini-homestead in the next few years. We're not aiming for complete self sufficiency or living off-grid, but are hoping to have an orchard, a huge garden, berry patch, some chickens, a few goats, etc. Can you provide magazine & book suggestions? So far, we have: The "Have-More" Plan by Ed and Carolyn Robinson, Five Acres and Independence by Maurice Kains, The Backyard Berry Book by Stella Otto, The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward C. Smith, and The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery We are hoping for things to educate and whet our appetite while we save money and pay off debt. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joy at Home Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Congratulations on your decision. This is where we were last year. We already had a four acre home in the country, but made huge changes to become more self-sufficient (farm animals, gardens, buying bulk and making most things from scratch, alternate heat, etc). It's been awesome. There are so many great resources out there. One of my favorite books is: The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It And my ABSOLUTE favorite resource is New Harvest Homestead newsletter and yahoo group. She publishes a bimonthly newsletter that is a wealth of information and support for homesteaders of all stages. Good luck!! Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E_Edgerton Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 I really have to second The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It by John Seymour. It is a book I take off my shelf daily...even if to daydream! I would also rec. Mother Earth News....everything from house plans, projects, gardening tips, canning, gray-water systems...etc The magazine is available but most of it can be accessed online at www.motherearthnews.com :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillieBoy Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 By far Countryside magazine and Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living !!!! I was a jet set city girl and that magazine and book turned me in to a homesteader. Awesome, awesome stuff!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momma2Many66 Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 We live on an 11 acre homestead. What got us started and really thinking about homesteading and eventually moving onto one was reading Countryside Magazine and also the book Five Acres and Independence. They helped us to come up with ideas on homestead living, to get a good focus and idea on what type of homestead we wanted and they helped us learn techniques and skills to help us live well on our homestead once we got there. It is now 10 years later since we moved to our homestead and I still read over my old stock of Countryside magazines monthly and the book Five Acres and Independence and learn something new all the time. The best advice though, is to get yourself debt free first, it makes all the difference in "making it" when you get to your homestead. This will also allow you more options once you get to your homestead in what type of homestead you decide to purchase. We purchased a real "fixer upper" that needed tons of tons of work, but we got it for such a great price it was worth it to us. My husband is very handy and has done all the work himself over the years, our homestead has been a true work in progress and labor of love and we are still working on fixing it up some 10 years later. Much of what we wanted to do had to wait for years, because of financing. We didn't want to create more debt, so we saved for repairs over a period of time and did them as we could afford it. That made the difference for us in keeping our homestead when bad times hit us, such as layoff's, sickness, ectera. Many people we knew over the years who homesteaded, went into huge debt to do so and ended up loosing it when hard times hit to foreclosures or they had to eventually sell their dream property to survive. So, that is why it is important to get rid of debt first, learn to live on less, lots less and learn to enjoy the simple things in life. Learn to live on a cash only budget, learn to budget groceries, bills, scale down your lifestyle and learn the real difference between true needs and wants. Start learning to live on less now, it makes things much easier later. Teach yourself as much as you can before you hit your homestead, we read tons of books and researched everything while paying down our debts before we went shopping for a homestead. We didn't want to rush into anything without being prepared, we wanted this homesteading lifestyle not to just be something to do, but to be a true way of life for ourselves. Teach yourself to garden or if you live in town to container garden. Teach yourself to do small home repairs, read lots of books on do it yourself projects. Teach yourself how to live on less, get rid of the cable or satelite now and save that money towards your homestead, you won't have much time for them on a homestead anyway, we sure don't and it will save you a fortune in the long run. Teach yourself to hang out clothing on a line or if you can't in your area, hang it to dry in a room in the house, we used our mudroom and added a line to it for winter weather hang in's. Just learn to live more simply. It really does make all the difference, in fact, you will learn all these things from reading Countryside Magazine and Small Stock Joural as well as Five Acres and Independence. Good Luck to you ! It is a wonderful life, a wonderful way to raise children close to nature and with a deep respect for the world around them. My kids love our homestead/farm and it is such a blessing to our whole family. I love living the simple life, it is not for everyone, but for our family, it has made all the difference ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillieBoy Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 The best advice though, is to get yourself debt free first, it makes all the difference in "making it" when you get to your homestead. This will also allow you more options once you get to your homestead in what type of homestead you decide to purchase. We purchased a real "fixer upper" that needed tons of tons of work, but we got it for such a great price it was worth it to us. Many people we knew over the years who homesteaded, went into huge debt to do so and ended up loosing it when hard times hit to foreclosures or they had to eventually sell their dream property to survive. So, that is why it is important to get rid of debt first, learn to live on less, lots less and learn to enjoy the simple things in life. Learn to live on a cash only budget, learn to budget groceries, bills, scale down your lifestyle and learn the real difference between true needs and wants. Start learning to live on less now, it makes things much easier later. Teach yourself as much as you can before you hit your homestead, we read tons of books and researched everything while paying down our debts before we went shopping for a homestead. We didn't want to rush into anything without being prepared, we wanted this homesteading lifestyle not to just be something to do, but to be a true way of life for ourselves. Teach yourself to garden or if you live in town to container garden. Teach yourself to do small home repairs, read lots of books on do it yourself projects. Teach yourself how to live on less, get rid of the cable or satelite now and save that money towards your homestead, you won't have much time for them on a homestead anyway, we sure don't and it will save you a fortune in the long run. Teach yourself to hang out clothing on a line or if you can't in your area, hang it to dry in a room in the house, we used our mudroom and added a line to it for winter weather hang in's. Just learn to live more simply. It really does make all the difference, in fact, you will learn all these things from reading Countryside Magazine and Small Stock Joural as well as Five Acres and Independence. :iagree::iagree::iagree: Great advice, that's how we did it too. Worth every minute! I still have all my Countrysides starting in the 80's and 3 editions of Carla's books. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heather in WI Posted July 24, 2009 Author Share Posted July 24, 2009 Thank you all!! This is exactly the kind of advice I was hoping to receive. I just subscribed to a magazine and requested two of the books from our library! And, Momma2Many66, thank you for such a thoughtful post. I'm going to copy/paste/print. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momma2Many66 Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 If I may make one more suggestion, once you get to your homestead, don't rush into getting farm animals. We made this mistake, we naively assumed, that since we had a homestead, we needed to fill it up with animals. It was our biggest mistake when we first started out and the one mistake I wish we could have "did over". We sort of had this storybook version of a homestead/farm with lots of animals. So that very first spring after our move to our homestead, we purchased ducks, chickens, 2 more dogs (we already had one), 5 goats, rabbits, and thank goodness, my husband didn't allow me to get the pony I so wanted for our kids. The animals were lots of fun for the summer months, but when fall and winter came, they were very costly to feed. It would have been one thing if we purchased the animals (not the dogs) for meat consumption and butchered them before winter hit, but we got them for pets instead and we all fell in love with them. They also took up a great deal of our time in daily animal care, time which would have been better spent in the beginning, in getting our gardens and orchards started and making repairs to our homestead. It was our most costly mistake, we ended up having to give alot of them away, because we couldn't afford the high price of feed in the winter. We kept only our dogs in the end. The chickens never did lay enough to make up their feed cost in eggs, we let them free range in the summer, but between the foxes and hawks, we were constantly loosing them to predator wildlife. If I had to do it all again, I would have added animals very slowly as we gained experience in homesteading and farming. If we had a ready homegrown garden food supply for the chickens, we could have kept them at very little cost. But we were still learning ourselves how to garden and grow all our own fruits and veggies, so trying to feed animals was too much and we just couldn't do it. We still had many years ahead of us in which we would learn the how to's and do's and don'ts of gardening and fruit growing and adding animals was something we should have really waited on for a future time when our gardens and orchards could sustain them economically. Animals just added an unneccessary pressure for us, since we wanted to try to live as simply as possible, trying to feed all of them, was really eating up the money we should have been putting into working on and fixing up our farm. Anyway, all this to say, take your time and add animals very slowly to your homestead, it is some advice I wish someone who had been there and done that would have shared with me back then. I had the "dream" of this fantasy life of my children playing with animals and enjoying them all day long, the realities of the high cost of caring for them and the upkeep really brought that dream into reality quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heather in WI Posted July 24, 2009 Author Share Posted July 24, 2009 Another post to copy/paste/print, Momma2Many66. That seems exactly like something we would do and I appreciate the advice of someone who has BTDT. My husband read your earlier post last night and we discussed ramping up our debt payoff plan for a long time last night. Now, I can't wait until he gets home to show him your new post! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharon H in IL Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 (edited) Run, do not walk, and buy yourself a copy of Living Up Country: A Pilgrim's Progress by Don Mitchell. It's one of the genre of 'a funny thing happened on the way to the homestead' but it will have you peeing in your pants from laughter. A sample taken at random: Several years ago, Vermont performed an important service to the nation by accepting immigrant Whole Earth devotees in numbers wholly disproportionate to the state's tiny size and population. The newcomers wanted -- if one takes them at their word -- to Go Back To The Land. Almost unconsciously, they recognized a point of ideology where the existing, conservative Vermont ethos merged with their desire to foster a "greening" of America: both extremes shared a mania for unfettered individualism, for personal liberty. But as ideologues are wont to do, the newcomers sought new architectural forms that would give concrete expression to their deeply held beliefs and values. Amost overnight, unique and organic and sculptural residences began to emerge from a landscape formerly renowned for restrained, homogeneous, white clapboard houses. In itself, this architectural revolution might not have produced a bumper crop of late-model Handyman Specials, but it was a tenet of the back-to-the-land set that each person ought to design and build his natural abode. Whether he knew how to or not. Many of these immigrants had squandered their prime hammer-swinging years in universities, pursuing advanced degrees; they came to construction work with a minimum of practical experience. And a maximum of philosophical baggage. I remember particularly from that era a generalized abhorrence of the right angle. Right angles were deemed dull and cold and obsessively rational, a symbol of excessive cultural rigidity. Compared with, say, spherical icosahedrons. Edited July 24, 2009 by Sharon H in IL I should check my spelling before hitting 'post.' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heather in WI Posted July 24, 2009 Author Share Posted July 24, 2009 That looks hilarious Sharon! I think my husband (a carpenter) would like it, too. I'll see if my library has it! :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 If I may make one more suggestion, once you get to your homestead, don't rush into getting farm animals. We made this mistake, we naively assumed, that since we had a homestead, we needed to fill it up with animals. It was our biggest mistake when we first started out and the one mistake I wish we could have "did over". We sort of had this storybook version of a homestead/farm with lots of animals. So that very first spring after our move to our homestead, we purchased ducks, chickens, 2 more dogs (we already had one), 5 goats, rabbits, and thank goodness, my husband didn't allow me to get the pony I so wanted for our kids. The animals were lots of fun for the summer months, but when fall and winter came, they were very costly to feed. It would have been one thing if we purchased the animals (not the dogs) for meat consumption and butchered them before winter hit, but we got them for pets instead and we all fell in love with them. They also took up a great deal of our time in daily animal care, time which would have been better spent in the beginning, in getting our gardens and orchards started and making repairs to our homestead. It was our most costly mistake, we ended up having to give alot of them away, because we couldn't afford the high price of feed in the winter. We kept only our dogs in the end. The chickens never did lay enough to make up their feed cost in eggs, we let them free range in the summer, but between the foxes and hawks, we were constantly loosing them to predator wildlife. If I had to do it all again, I would have added animals very slowly as we gained experience in homesteading and farming. If we had a ready homegrown garden food supply for the chickens, we could have kept them at very little cost. But we were still learning ourselves how to garden and grow all our own fruits and veggies, so trying to feed animals was too much and we just couldn't do it. We still had many years ahead of us in which we would learn the how to's and do's and don'ts of gardening and fruit growing and adding animals was something we should have really waited on for a future time when our gardens and orchards could sustain them economically. Animals just added an unneccessary pressure for us, since we wanted to try to live as simply as possible, trying to feed all of them, was really eating up the money we should have been putting into working on and fixing up our farm. Anyway, all this to say, take your time and add animals very slowly to your homestead, it is some advice I wish someone who had been there and done that would have shared with me back then. I had the "dream" of this fantasy life of my children playing with animals and enjoying them all day long, the realities of the high cost of caring for them and the upkeep really brought that dream into reality quickly. This is absolutely 100% correct and I second it. This is the mistake that my mother and father made as well. When SO and I finally get our place, the only animals we're getting in year 1 are meat chickens and hens that will be butchered at the end of the year. And a dog :D ETA: Countryside would be my number 1 recommendation for a magazine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swellmomma Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 I am writing down all these titles. I have been dreaming about this for a while and am part of a group here in my city trying to change the bylaws to allow backyard chickens, but ultimately would like to move to a small acreage and have a small homestead. Like you not be totally off the grid, but raise enough on my own to save $$ and be healthier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiver0f10 Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Get a subscription to Countryside Magazine! Also check out www.homesteadingtoday.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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