Who works a full-time job and homesteads?

We've got 10 acres. 5 is pasture. Right now, we've got goats and chickens. Have had pigs, a bucket calf and horses. DH fed the horses. DS did the bucket calf, pigs and goats. (all 4-H projects). I do the chickens. DS lets them out each morning, but I feed and gather the eggs. Both DH and I work full time away from home. Guess we are hobby-ists. We both do the garden. DH sprays the bindweed (unsuccessfully, I might add). We both like to work on stuff outside, but I've been encouraging DS to help dad more. He's 14 and needs to learn how to do this stuff!

I've always wondered why on earth someone would buy a place to homestead then work 40+ hours away from there. Makes no sense to me.

The way I'm doing it is paying it off before we go (about 4 yrs left unless I find a decent job) then go. After that I might take a part time job for a couple months a year for taxes, depending on how sales at farmers markets and such go.

Of course we didn't buy something that would take years to pay off either. Why do that, by the time its paid off and you can move you'll be to old to enjoy it. Hmmp no thanks...

Kinda reminds me of a friend I was talking to the other day. Shes a city girl and don't understand anything other than $$. Anyway she ask "why do you want to be a farmer? You know they don't make much money right? I of course tried to explain that money doesn't mean much to me. And ask her to tell me a job that paid well. She starts talking about her doctor who owns 5 houses and a farm with 160 acres. I said thats nice, but what does he do with it? Obviously if he is a doctor he doesn't have much time anyway, and with five houses and a farm to maintain, when does he have time to farm it?

Of course she had no answer. I'll tell you you can be far richer in life with no money than with it..

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"Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Rumi

Perhaps it depends upon your definition of homesteading. If you can work 40 hrs offsite and still grow your own vegetables, keep your chickens, rabbits, pigs, whatever, why wait? Despite both working full time jobs, DH and I grow all of our own vegetables, keep chickens for eggs, we have planted an orchard, our children are growing up in the country rather than in a town. I see no reason to wait, we are living our life now.

Pension - no such thing anymore in many of our worlds. 401K's if we're lucky and individual IRA's if we're dilligent. I feel so bad for people who've lost their pensions/retirement funds because of company buyouts, cutbacks, etc.

Jenn, there are a lot of ways to cut down workloads. I ended up getting big waterers and feeders for my chicken coop so that I can avoid filling them daily. I can just run in, grab the eggs, double check the feeder/waterer to make sure nothing went wrong (like tipping the waterer over), etc. I found a hanging feeder & waterer work best, but I use heated dog bowls for the cold winter months.

If you only have a few (2-4) head of cattle, you can use 2 large watering tanks and fill them every other day unless it's brutally hot weather. You only need to add a bucket of corn the last couple months if you are gonna butcher them for meat. I know nothing about dairy cows or goats yet, but hope to learn. Pigs need a mud hole to wallow in to keep cool so we usually threw in about 15 gallons of water a day into it. We used a makeshift water tank out of large PVC type tubing and a spigot that they'd touch with their nose to drink from. They had a feeder that would hold enough food for 2 days. I think I'd check into other feeders than what we had because the food would hang up a little from the moisture. We only raised the steers and pigs for butchering so we didn't have to work with them thru winter months.

I'd suggest taking things slow to make sure you can handle the load without getting in over your heads, which really helps. But the more food we raise like this, the less it costs us for grocery bills and our food's not injected with growth hormones and who knows what else! Having your freezers full of meat is a wonderful feeling.

You're in a great profession where you can go just about anywhere and get a job, so the best of luck to you!

I suppose your right. My definition is probally different than most. To me if you're not living on and working your homestead full time, then your just a hobbiest. But I'm more determined than most I suppose.

of course you can so some things before you move to be more self-sufficient. such as raising a garden.

I understand wanting to raise your kids out of the city, but, working full time do you have time to homeschool them? If not then whats the point?


Then again I tend to like doing things in a more natural way. For instance I plan on doing most of the work one would do with a tractor, with a team of horses.

At any rate at least we all have the choice to choose..

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"Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Rumi

Exactly!!

I'm just like that........ except with money........

How you feel about your lifestyle choices not just your lifestyle choices determine your richness. My wife and I both have jobs, and we love our farm. I don't think I would change a thing. My wife grew up on a dairy farm in northern Michigan, but she chose an off the farm job in medicine because her richness comes from helping people.

I am probably the only one "stuck" in a job, but its not that bad and I can retire in seven more years and hopefully get my kids through college (if they choose).

The money comes in handy too.. I fought starting that 1951 JDB for years , it sure is nice being able to get a tractor that starts

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Brad Bachelor
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"Loving an old bachelor is always a no-win situation, and you come to terms with that early on, or you go away.”
-- Jean Harris

I couldn't agree more. Why would I want to be in the city if I have to work fulltime anyway?? My mortgage will be paid off while I'm still young enough, and I won't be physically falling apart and attempting to build shelters, pound posts and run fences, clear brush, etc. Yeah, it's tough doing everything now, but at least I'm on my land doing what I love! Please, please let's not turn this into "You're not a REAL homesteader unless you......".

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I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.

I work full time 35 miles away, raise chickens for eggs and roasters, (sell surplus eggs), and grow my own veggies on my little 5 acres with a dw home that I just bought last summer. Heritage turkeys are on my soon-to-get list. Over the next few years I will be adding fruit trees and berry bushes to develop a PYO fruit farm.

I am 54 years old, single-again, and started over financially in life just 4 years ago. (In 1999 I had lost everything in a business investment that went south). I have a mortgage that I will be paying on for the rest of my productive life. But my job provides not only necessary income, but a real sense of fulfillment (I work for a non-profit organization that helps troubled children and their families).

I am currently making my own bread and soap, as well as learning how to can my own produce (and so far am thrilled with the results!). I do not live off the grid or even heat with wood; nor did I build my own home with my own hands. But I have arranged with a farmer neighbor to purchase a quarter hog and a quarter of a beef at butchering time.

Am I homesteading? Some would say not, but I believe that I am, to the very best of my abilities. I was not fortunate (or perhaps smart) enough to get started early in life with a great savings program (and no financial disasters), a spouse dedicated to my dreams, and inexpensive land. But I do the best I can with what I have.

I really admire HilltopDaisy for all she manages to accomplish!

Am I a hobbyist? When I lived back in Pennsylvania, I was a hobby farmer with 5 totally non-productive horses and a two-acre landscaped lawn to maintain. But what I do now, I do in earnest. For my daily living and for my future. This is not my hobby; it's my life!

Barb in Montana

We have 18+ acres and raise and sell our goats. We have chicken for eggs and guineas on bug patrol, plus a vegetable garden and some fruit trees. We've also started a tree nursery this year. We both work 40 or so hours a week off the farm. My commute is over an hour each way, so right now I leave in the dark and come home in the dark. My DH is able to get home earlier than me, so he takes care of the chores during the week and on the weekends, we do what's needed together. Eventually if the nursery business takes hold, my DH will retire in 5 more years and me in about 10 (or at least go part time earlier).

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"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back..." Maya Angelou

I work a full-time job away from home. Currently, it's just my son and I here (he's 16, and helps when he can between school and his job).
A few years ago, I had an 80 acre farm that was 65 acres of hay that I cared for and baled with just myself and two smaller kids (6-8-ish in age), 77 milk goats (and their kids 100-250 a year), 2-4 beef steers, 2-3 hogs, 9 horses... 7 that foaled each spring, and an assortment of chickens, turkeys, ducks, and rabbits. We had a 3 acre garden that was cared for and when harvested was canned, frozen etc each year. (don't even bring up the year of "tomatoes and pole beans to my kids though! lol) We kept busy for sure, but those times were our "family time" and all 3 of us remember that time fondly.
I am saving to buy a lil patch of land again, have some goats comming in the spring, along with a couple hogs, and chickens. Way I see it, the work doesn't kill me, it actually gives me energy and makes me happy.

Kaza

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You're right. I should probally just keep my ideas to myself. Sorry I keep breathing..

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"Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Rumi

I was going to post something about cutting the work load too but no need to repete it.

I free range the sheep, goats, horses, chickens, ducks and pigs. I am almost fed up with the rabbits and may set them up with a ground warren.

As far as daily animal care, during warm weather I look at them each day to see if they are ok. milk if I need to, collect eggs when I need to. check they have water. In winter I supply water and hay, a little supplimental feed.

It sounds too easy, but it works. I have to be here in case something goes wrong that I might could help fix. Like cutting off a broken horn or unhooking a leg from a fence wire.

Most of my time is in bulding something, cleaning something, canning something or working the soil, training dogs or my child.

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Thumper/in Okla.
Growing a Homestead from the dirt up.

save the grass, eat a cow
C.L.F.
{chlorophill liberation front}

Have 6 acres in the land of taxes. Work 40 hrs, yeah right, more like 50-60 / week at FT job plus an occasional PT job. It's just me most of the time, but my girls (11 & 15) help when they are with me & their homework is done. We plant big gardens in the summer + field crops, usually corn & beans. Missed the fall planting of wheat but hope to put in broom corn or buckwheat this spring. We also have a small orchard of mature apple & pear trees, plus raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, currents, figs, grapes, blueberries, cranberries and a couple of immature cherry trees. We have two greenhouses, one on the barn, the other attached to the south side of the house. The barn greenhouse is used mainly for winter crops like chinese cabbage, lettuce, & kale.

All of the rabbits, emu, quail & pheasant and some chickens were killed by predators this summer. We have a few chickens left. Figure we'll wait out the winter before starting over in the spring. Studying up on bees this winter...hope to have a hive in place by next spring.

Working FT & keeping the homestead going means there is always something to do. Not complaining mind you...beats the heck out of sitting around.

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CJ

Yes, if you can do it now, why wait?

I work full time.
DH is retired but we do not farm. We have mostly retired from homesteading in a big way until I retire in another year.
We do raise a lot of our own food still but do not butcher right now. I can a lot of stuff and we have our chickens and a milk goat. We drink the milk and I also make our own soap using the milk. I also sell some of that and give it as gifts too.
We have an alpaca that i sheer and spin the fleece and make things from it for gifts or to sell. Not in this for the income though. Just in it for the peace and pleasure.
When I retire we will probably raise our own meat again.
It may not sound like we do much to supply our needs but as we get older we have less needs.
We don't spend much at the grocery store and that is only a few times a year to restock.

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Corky

LEAD ME NOT INTO TEMPTATION. I CAN FIND IT BY MYSELF.

I work 24 hr shift paramedic work 1 day then off the next 2 just 10 days a month not bad just have to feed extra the day before I work 5a plus 3a have to mow it all glad its fall

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why did I leave the plow in the field and look for a job in the town

Thanks for all the interesting replies!!

We have a little over 1090 acres. Most of that is sugar bush and timber. We have about 25 acres or so that we farmstead. There is a central four acre field around the house with the veggie gardens and such and then outside of that the near by fields and then beyond that the forests.

No. We do have home businesses. We do direct sales via our web sites and my wife does portraits. Those bring in outside cash in addition to our timber and livestock (mostly pigs but also some sheep and chickens).

Everybody pitches in from age 2 to 43. We generally do outdoor work in the mornings. Then during the high sun we come indoors for lunch, book work and other indoor things. We home school our children and the book time is in the afternoon. Sometimes we do some more outdoor things in the evening, generally lighter than morning work. What we do each day is very weather dependent.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

No need to be sorry, half the time your breathing in, no problem at all----it was the other half, when the wind was blowing out and dragging words and attitude that the lady was refering to .

5 acres. i work full time. leave at 730, home by 430 unless there's a home ball game, then i'm there for the duration if i'm working concession, until the 2nd game is over if i'm not.

right now, dh does most chores, kids help. i milk the goat. when the kids are at their dad's, i do their share. we have pigs, rabbits (some in cages, some in a colony), chickens, ducks, turkeys (down to 1 for now, and she's freezer bound), goats (1 milking now), dogs and cats. most feeding and watering is done in the evenings, so we aren't rushed in the am's, only 2 of us are true morning people....the rest of this house is cranky in the am.

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when i call on Jesus, all things are possible.