New Homestead- Lessons learned?

This has got to be one of the best threads I've read on the forums!!! You might have figured out by now that I can be a nit-picker, but IMO every single response has been spot-on and I would follow the advice given as much as possible. Guidance such as has been given here makes me joyous, and restores my faith in people.

A minor addition. It took extra money to set us up away from the road, but every time a truck with jake brakes goes by, or one of the few boom boom cars, I think "Yep, that was worth it."

Oh yeah, almost forgot, build near water. Water, food, shelter. The basics. Git 'er done and then worry about the other stuff.

in your planning stages you should read Gaia's garden and introduction to Permaculture..you can find them on scribd.com to read for free..that will help you to do your planning.

my biggest mistake here was to not get my windbreaks in early on and you should plant your fruit and nut and windbreak trees your first year..plan for that first, they take the longest to grow and bear.

if there is something you eat regularly that you can grow in your zone..get it in the ground as quickly as possible, that will save you money in the future that can be used for other things.

learn how to do cuttings, slips and how to propagate seeds and make divisions, that way you will spend less $ on purchasing things..but do that second..first..get the knowledge by reading the good information and the planning behind you and plant those trees..

water would also be # 1..try to make sure that your water sources are uphill if possible from the house, barn and also from your gardens ..if at all possible..so you can use gravity to feed those areas from the water source..if not you can also site a barn or house up from the gardens and barn to use water catchment off the roof in a gravity fed system....but good source of pure water is most important..

shelter for you and your animals should be built as soon as the water is located and trees are planned.

Everyone is giving some great advice here. What I will add is, don't get in a hurry.Take your time and plan it all out as much as possible.We have had our "homestead" for six years and still have not moved onto it. Over this time we have completely fenced and cross fenced, built a weekend cabin and a goat barn,dug a spring pond, planted many fruit trees, built a tractor shed and built a road. This was all done with a lot of thought and drawing a layout of the area.
If you get in a hurry, you will look back and wish you had done something different.
Good luck and have fun with your "homestead".

Hank
http://www.doublemfarmandchuckwagon.webs.com

I suggest that the first thing you do, if you don't have electricity, is contact your local staking technician (or whatever he/she is called) to determine what is the shortest distance for your power to be brought (assuming you want it). When you locate your house site as to electricity, then you have to get approved well and septic sites. Do these things FIRST.

I speak from bad experience because I set up my garden and chicken pen and coop first. Later I dealt with my house site. Instead of it being where I wanted it to be, the health dept made me locate it a considerable distance from my poultry where I was out of sight. Last fall, after I had spent spring and summer and a couple of thousand in feed, someone slid in and stole all my birds. So be sure that your livestock are where you can see them from your home!

Remember you aren't always going to be young. That house on the hill is nice but after the first hip replacement, it becomes a challenge, after the second one it is a liability. Two story house are great but make sure there is at least one bedroom and a full bathroom on the first floor. Less stairs is a great idea. Locating water filters in the crawl space, seemed like a smart space saving idea, now it is a pain in the rear, literally. Hay in the hayloft is great insulation and use of space but at some point you will be trying to find someone you can pay to put hay up there, today's teens don't want that job. Build your place as if your grandparents were going to try to maintain it, you won't regret it later!

Kathie

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It's really hard to cut down trees if you've already run fencing all around them. Take out any questionable trees before running fencing.

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I wish we'd put the pens a little closer to the house. In the summer, it's great, but in the winter, with temperatures here sometimes reaching -40 or below with whipping wind, it seems a LOT further.

I wish we'd spread our orchard over the property, with a tree here, and another there, rather than planting them in a select spot in rows.

I wish we'd put all of our gardens in the back field, and invested in putting in a well back there, rather than having a big veggie patch to the side of the property where everyone driving by can see it. I'm not worried about theft, really, but working out there in the daytime, it would be nice to wear a bit less clothing than I would be comfortable wearing with vehicles passing by. My assets are a bit too plentiful for me to be comfortable with anyone other than family seeing me in a bikini top.

We need to cut back our shelterbelt and get new growth started -- a shelterbelt that comes within a falling tree's distance of the house during a wind storm is scarier than you can imagine.

Proper infrastructure makes all the difference. Don't get livestock thinking that "we'll make do" if you can help it -- invest in proper fencing and appropriate shelters before investing in the animals, and your work is much, much less. If I have to go chasing after one more escaped piglet, I'm going to scream.

Make friends with your neighbors -- offer your help and friendship to them, without expectations. Investing in your neighborhood pays off over time in ways too numerous to count. Having good neighbors takes BEING a good neighbor.


ETA -- If you're building your house, design it so that you have a large mudroom at the back with an extra-large sink and hot and cold running water. I can't tell you how much I use my mud room!

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I've seen the village, and I don't want it raising my children.

www.newcenturyhomestead.com

This is brilliant advice.

While you plant the fruit trees don't forget a nice big shade tree for the south side of your home. We have an enormous one that keeps our house nice and cool during the summer.

Do your research and pick the right kind of fencing for the type of animal you plan to keep. For instance goats can get their heads stuck in regular 4" or 6" woven wire fence, but 2" x 4" wire is okay. Spend the money for good fencing. I hear of people chasing down their animals all the time, but since we built ours right the first time we've never had an escapee.

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Christine
Front Porch Indiana Blog
Come on up to the porch and sit a spell. We'll talk about the day's events and maybe even tell a story or two.

Build so the animals have shelter from the winds in winter and if possible have the doors to the south. Build close enough to the road to have a short driveway, but plant a shelterbelt to block the view/dust/noise from the road.
The idea to build for when you're old is a good one. Have your washer and dryer on the main floor, preferably in your huge mudroom that also has a bathroom with shower. There's nothing worse then walking right through the house when you're dirty.

Oh! And never plant wildflower seeds - there's usually some that are classified as noxious weeds and they're hard to get rid of when you broadcast the seeds over an acre or two.

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A wise person speaks when they have something to say but a fool speaks just to say something

You have gotten some great advice but this is one that I heartily endorse if you live where you get serious rain. We had a storm the other day that resulted in a veritable river running through the property ( 6.5 inches in about 6 hours)but because the land was graded properly by the previous owner we had no damage and all of the water ran to the second pond. What we did learn though was that a site we were contemplating for the planned chicken coop and pole barn shop would have been flooded. We have had this place for almost a year and this was the first time we had that kind of storm but we are glad we have taken this year to learn the lay of the land before we do too much infrastructure building. There are some pictures of before during and after the storm in our blog and the amount of water we had moving through the property was shocking to us.

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