Veteran Homesteaders: I need your help--before its too late!

Goodness, you all have a lot of learning ahead of you!!!

First off, there is no reason you all don't already know how to preserve your own food. No one has even made a batch of jelly? When we lived in town we would glean other peoples fruit and make jam/jelly/juice (always make sure to give gifts of prepared food back). Many people just have fruit for looks. You need to start doing things now, not wait for some future date.

Besides that, wow, I don't even know where to start. I thought yours was a troll post when I read your first post and you couldn't possibly be serious. I guess I have one thing, zoning, make sure you can even do what you want to with whatever land you look at, don't think just because it's rural there aren't any building codes and zoning regulations.

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Idleness is leisure gone to seed

I actually didn't think yours was a troll post, not at all. You've asked a question I've thought about before too. That's why I'm a homesteader wannabe, not a homesteader. I KNEW it had to be harder than it looked, but I just didn't have a good handle on the details.

And, everyone, that's ok. I can imagine people far removed from mainstream America who really can't have a handle on the life and the hidden stresses. It's hard to understand what you don't live. I grew up in middle class American suburbia where the idea of, say, canning food was a joke - only silly old ladies living in the past would think of it, right?

I don't have any more answers for you than have already been stated (as I've said, I'm just a wannabe anyway). But I think that what is appealing and right about homesteading is not that it's easy. It's not. It's hard work. But it's doable. It's satisfying. It's real. It's even morally right, I would say.

If homesteading were easy, every joe sixpack would be doing it. Humans are lazy by nature. Instead, most Americans have chosen to chase the dream - and they get a lot more downtime, too. But the work is not satisfying and the downtime is just a distraction. Probably you and your friends have started feeling that way.

Personally, I would not discourage you from taking the leap. But start NOW. Don't just throw your money in a pot and drive up to who knows where. The future of the economy is very uncertain (or, more accurately, I'm certain it's going to tank) and you don't want to be worse off, broke, trying to pay a mortgage on your land while you try to figure out why you're spending more money at the grocery store when you thought you were going to grow it all.

I may just be a wannabe living on a city plot, but starting NOW is something I actually do know something about. I dry foods. Am learning to can. Have a garden and just arranged to have a bigger plot next year. I can cook from scratch from seasonal foods, and do it every day for every meal. I know how to get the most out of a food - pouring off the fat from a meat dish to fry veggies in later, making broth from a chicken carcass, saving chard stems for stir fry or potato salad. I make vinegar from apple peels and cores - it's not fine vinegar but I clean with it! I've made an effort to see chickens processed. Etc... Clearly you've done SOME research, you've mentioned an orchard with grafted dwarfs, you've mentioned a plucker (and they DO work fast! faster than I thought!), etc. Either you have some background, or, more likely, you've been reading like I have. But start doing now, don't just wait until you buy some land. There's much to learn even without a square foot of land.

As for money that might not be much by city standards but might go further in the countryside... I'm not so sure. I mean, unless you're saying you live in SoCal and have a very modest $500,000 mortgage, ok, sure, if you ended up in Okie City you'd be able to spread that further for a while. But the startup costs for land is not insignificant. Are you buying undeveloped? A well, septic (and most locales that I know of require this - too bad, since I'm fine with a sawdust toilet and skipping that farce) and electric hookup is a pretty good amount to start with. Even stuff like putting in a driveway. Levelling stuff. Even if you're handy, you'll probably need some big equipment for some stuff at first.

I have to say it's naive to think that putting in a windmill might mean $0 electric costs. I don't know what area you are looking at, but not all areas are truly suitable for wind power. The mill only turns when the wind blows. And it has to be placed above obstructions. If you really were Lex Luthor, you could install a windmill and a massive solar array, and depending on your location, you'd be able to plan around it and have few interruptions in power (but not none). And of course you'd have to plan for your power needs. I don't know as much about wind, but the payback for solar panels is pretty long, about 7 years. And you'll have to replace them in about 10 on average. I love solar, don't get me wrong, but the math is not that great. I haven't heard anything that makes me think wind is a lot different.

Your costs will be front-loaded, but still ongoing. You need equipment, tools. Felling trees, you want a good chainsaw, and you'll be going through chains. If you choose a cross cut saw, great, but that's also a few hundred. You'll need to sharpen it too. Now where do you put the wood? A good woodshed or something will protect your fuel investment. How do you get the wood from where you felled it to your woodshed? A big truck might be needed or at least a tractor with a bed. I can't even name all the tools and such, but everything you need to do will require a tool of some sort. You mentioned a plucker making chickens easy, that's great, I don't know how much they cost but they're not nothing. And they aren't worth it if you're just processing one chicken a week, at least I doubt it. You guys might all pool for a plucker, though, that might be reasonable. You need sharp knives to slaughter and butcher. A cone is nice for slaughtering chickens, plus something for them to bleed into. Or maybe you'll use an axe. Tools, tools.

Food preservation does take time, I can talk a little about that. So your tomato harvest came in. You're not just going to throw those tomatoes in a can and label it. It's like a dawn to dusk chore during that time of year, at least if you like spaghetti. Skinning, seeding, cooking them down into a sauce. It even takes a long time just to bring the darn water bath to a boil. And you can only fit so many cans in the pot at once (about 7 quart cans), so the process just goes on and on. OK, you have apples now, you want applesauce? Peel, core, chop, cook, boil, wipe, label, working through each bushel. You're in the kitchen all day. (And during tomato season, it's hot). Drying apples, peel, core, slice, soak in lemon juice, arrange on trays, dry, check on them, then to be safe you vacuum seal them (or freeze them if you have the space), then do the next batch unless you have unlimited drying space. I don't work at top speed or anything, but it takes me several minutes per apple just to get it peeled, cored, sliced, soaked and arranged on the tray. And my fingers get sore after a while and that can slow it down. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm not saying it's not worth it, I'm just saying that it's work and it takes time.

Pushing a seed in the ground and coming back later to harvest it, yeah, I'm going with everyone else: that's naive We would all be farmers if that were the case.

I think it's doable though. People do it. They go back to the land. I'm sure some come crawling back to the city, but know some people stay. Two of the farmers I know in this area did not grow up in that life. Both have college degrees, one in agriculture but the other in poli-sci!! At a big name college, no less. He realized in the middle of his education what he really wanted to do. Finished the degree but really studied agriculture and now runs an organic vegetable CSA, looking into his 3rd year. Three years isn't long, but he's not running scared, he's getting the hang of it. A lawyer friend of mine manages to have it all - he's a lawyer and he really brings in the dough. But he goes home to his homestead where he has fresh eggs every day, he processes chickens every month, grows tons of vegetables, you name it. Maybe a lot of folks would say he's not really homesteading, and I totally agree his life is fundamentally different from someone stressed about the mortgage and putting food on the table, but he's doing it. And you can too, and I can too.

I've always been very independence-minded, but when we made the big changes from career/economy to near 100% self-sufficiency, I was doing a lot of research on many fronts, and came across one quote that really got me to thinking.
Paraphrased, "a nation's wealth and security is directly incumbent upon the fertility of it's soil". Immediately it was impressed upon me that the same holds true for a community.... as well as a family. I had grown up gardening and dabbling in compost, so had the foundation in place, but I put the bulk of my energy, from that time and since, into composting. I wrote about it.

Extreme Composting

__________________
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

What is your time line? Learn the skills now!

It is winter time: make soups and stews if you haven't, bake bread, mend clothes, and learn to preserve food. It is very easy to make jerky in a dehydrator but if you are drying it in front of a fire that means tending the fire for 12-16 hours. Ditto with canning:
I water bath tomatos and a canner will hold 7 quarts and once it boils you need to time it for 20? minutes until those 7 jars come out. Then you do 7 more. Canning tomatos for 30 people would be a full time job for how many people?

At home I can let the timer run while I start dinner or read a bit: if I were living rough it would be a lot harder!

Do things now so you have the skills. A good mess of fish or a nice fat rabbit will not do you much good if you cannot get the fire going: if it is windy it can be tricky!

If you folk are still in the city next summer, everyone should plant a garde of some sort. Anything from a big tub to raised beds to traditional rows would do you a lot of good, and teach you folk more than we ever could!

Lex, it sounds like you are talking about a 1960s commune or Amish community.

The following is a noobies advice based on my research and what we are in the midst of doing at the present time:

One thing you will want to take a look I haven't seen mentioned yet is producing your own power. I know when I looked at windmills and then got a quote of about $60,000 (yep, sixty thousand) for one that would meet the needs of one house, I almost died. Looking for land is another thing, if you want to be near a city (even a small one), be prepared for sticker shock. We are in the midst of moving from a medium sized metro area (1.5-2 million) to what I consider a very rural area (way northern Indiana nearly to Michigan, way north to this Southerner!) and the farmland is almost as expensive as subdivision lots. Acreage is expensive. I am retired and am selling this place to move there and have a decent retirement income, the wife is a nurse, so we will be able to make it with or without the crops, chickens, eggs, but I want to give it a shot, like you do. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, in my opinion, but research things and heed what others are telling you. The quote I think is most appropriate here is "learn from others mistakes, you will not live long enough to make them all yourself." The same goes for things that others have tried and made work, copy them, its not a bad thing to do.

There are scads of forums on here, read them, I know I am. Also, get some books and read them. I went to a bookstore and got the "Complete Idiots"" Guides to lots of things to learn. I even got them on Solar Power (and grids) and am a retired Electrical Engineer. You can find the books at the library or most any bookstore on most any topic.

After reviewing the available information about being a Homesteader, you can make an intelligent decision if its for you or not. We have taken years to make the decision and now is the time for us to implement.

-Mick

30-40 PEOPLE!!!!! I think you will need a MUCH bigger garden.
And I would probably count on 39 of those current friends as being your arch-enemies in about six months. What will you do when 1/2 of them refuse to only do that one hour of work a day?
If NONE of you know any of the skills you are asking about .... well, God bless you.

It's probably a good thing that one of you joined this forum.......

ps- add the cost of seeds or equipment for saving your own to your list.
You should probably realize that sheep eat HAY in the winter. It's about $4 a bale this year...oh, being self-sufficient...that's $8K for a used tractor, and another $10K for baling equipment. Maybe you need to switch to raising rabbits?

I know it's not easy but also not as impossible as everyone makes it sound. If you read the Good Life you'll see the Nearings did the back to the land thing with the rule of only working 4 hrs a day including building the house and outbuildings. So it is possible if your willing to live a very simple way. They had no power at all and didn't keep any livestock so they went with a vegan diet (I wouldn't want to do that but it saved them labor) You may not like the lifestyle but you can't say it can't be done when people have done it. As far as alternative energy people say it's to expensive but they usually are talking a "typical American home" If you just want a few lights and basic essentials it doesn't have to cost a fortune. I will agree it's tough to afford acreage but he said to assume you've got that and the basic stuff going. It just seems everyone is saying it can't be done so don't try and I want to point out it has been done so don't give up without at least doing the research for yourself.

Might I suggest that you read "Possum living" by Dolly Freed? She and her Father lived in their city home and he worked just a few weeks a year.

There were fish in the river, vegetables in the back yard, and chickens in the basement. The buses were free and so was the library. Their house was paid off because, quite frankly, he cheated on his taxes and paid it off.

It is a very interesting read!!!!!!!!!!

Gardening, producing one's own power, taking care of livestock, and taking care of your own equipment and land requires a lot of good footware, durable clohing.

You wear out a set of clothing about every 3 months if you are actually doing the work.

You need boots that work in a muddy garden, mucky critter lot, sloshing through mud or snow, and chasing around after criters. Gonna need 4 pairs of good footwear. Durable boots that treat your feet right are what, $120 or more. Find something on sale for $60-80, but probably won't last as long.

Socks wear out every month. Need good socks in winter.

You're looking at $500 of footwear, might get that to last 2 years.

Rainwear, winter wear, fence repair wear. You go through a lot of jackets, coats, jeans, shirts.

The mittens or gloves! I wear out a set every couple weeks in the planting & harvesting season.

If you actually have to work for your living, with construction, fencing, livestock, gardening/farming.....

You gotta work when the work is needed, not when the weather is nice & you feel like it. You need some real clothes to funtion.

--->Paul

Doing this as a group brings in all new issues. This has been tried so many times. Do some research and see if there are any long term communes that survive today. If you do it, protect yourself. You know how ugly a divorce can be, what happens when 40 people want to split up a farm and all that goes with it. If I were going to do it jointly, I'd at least split the farm up into units that each could own by themselves and just help each other and share equipment. the key to starting this and any other business if front end capitol. If you are short on money to begin with, you will fail. If you have enough to keep you out of debt, you have a good chance. If you are city guys, you have a whole new set of skills that many farmers do not have. You have your finger on the pulse of your customers, city people. Vegetables are about the quickest things to raise so get started and raise heritage varieties and sell them at city farmer's markets etc. Get a name for your farm, get a web site, and get out there promoting yourself. Not sure where you are looking to buy but make sure you do have a major population that you can reach by truck (yes, you must have a truck) so they can fund your adventure. If you are going to do it, go all out. Look into starting a raw dairy, speciality cheese, or a you pick orchard, etc. The reality is, you must have money so if you are not going to be employed, you must raise something to sell. I too think it can be done as long as you don't go into debt.

I only have one bit of advice.
Take some time and READ this forum. EVERY subforum (except, maybe, General Chat ). We're pretty good about detailing our successes and our losses.
Invite your friends to read as well.
Reading books are all well and good, but that just gives one person's account in one area. On here, you'll find many different versions of Homesteaders in many different areas.

__________________
" It's better to ride even if you get thrown, than to wind up just wishin' ya had."

Chris Ledoux

OH! You ARE serious...... Maybe this can help. Good luck and stay in touch here. http://www.lakevillagehomestead.org/index.html

geo

HHAHAHAaaa hheeeee OH hahahhahaa good one........

I don't even know where to start to explain what you are missing:
-the road washes out from the heavy rain and you have to ask a neighbor with a tractor to help you fix the road
-a tree falls on the barn
-coyote eat your chicken
-kids get sick
-raccoons eat all your corn
-a bear tears up your apple trees
-an accidental fire from the burn pile burns up part of the tool shed
-none of the peppers sprout
-ice on the roof crushes part of the flashing on the chimney
-moles eat the roots of the peach trees
-caterpillars eat up the leaves of the blueberry
-a copperhead bites you on the toe

Welcome and read and read and then read some more. Ask questions as you go along planning and be prepared to ask more questions later. Everyone will help you if you are serious. Have a nice day.

Homesteading is a state of mind. You are going to need a attitude of wanting to work, the ability to pick yourself up and do things even when you don't want to. Can't get mad when things aren't "easy". When a group of people come together, some things might be easier as you can divvy out jobs, and any job is easier if one likes it. Things being easer can have alot to do with the ammount of money you want/can spend. A tiller will will cost alot more than a shovel and your back, but some folks don't like what tilling does to the soil. You'll have to figure that one. After splitting wood my whole life with a splitting maul, I used a mechanial splitter the first time last year, WOW, now I have one , and it's kinda Fun (still) to split wood small enough for my beloved cookstove. You'll be fine, but I can say-dealing with a whole pack of people is going to be your biggest Issue.

Thanks Lex, I needed that post.This was my third weekend of shoveling and spreading sheep manure and it was a good pick-me-up.
With that many people, you could have a good spread of skills. A good mechanic can keep your equipment running. You'll all have to learn what your land is like where ever you end up. It's all different. Plan on a wide mix of crops since some will fail every year.
No matter how good you are, you'll never be 100% self-sufficient. You can do pretty good, though.
Best of luck and while I do recommend doing some reading, It's better to start making your own mistakes. The learning curve is faster that way.

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Oak Harbor, Ohio

http://thelaubachermarriagechronicle.blogspot.com/

And that's what's expensive.
The less you know how to do, the more you'll have to pay others.

Mechanic work, electrical and plumbing, construction, livestock, the fine arts of farming... All of these are skilled trades in their own right, and rightly so!
However, all of the above are fairly straightforward and learn-able. The more you practice, the more you'll save.

__________________
~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Well, "community living" is as difficult as homesteading; and you are doing both at the same time. ROFL ROFL ROFL No, I'm not making fun of you (or anyone going in with you). I simply know something of what you are all going to be dealing with .... "personalities"!

I would suggest the very first thing your group does is to all sit down and negotiate out a firm "contract" as to BASIC RULES. This can include anything your group comes up with; but most assuredly needs to include how the land is "legally" set for each person/family. It needs to include how the yearly taxes will be dealt with and all the "what if's", i.e. what if one party decides to pull out. Doing a lot of "brain storming" with the entire group "before" you all purchase the land and make the move will save you all a lot of anxiety later on.

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I am what I am! Acknowledging this is the beginning; and my growth is yet to end. http://motdaugrnds.com/farmsales ~~~~~ http://motdaugrnds.com

I can't believe somebody actually believes you "need" $120 boots in large quantities. I buy mostly surplus combat boots for something in the $25 to $30 range and they last a long time. I also manage an occasional good deal on a pr. of boots being clearanced from a good quality manufacturer so I'll pick some up. I think I pd. $65 a pr for Chippewa boots made in Ft Worth because they were a discontinued style. It's just a matter of planning ahead and shopping smart rather than buying things at retail when you need them. Being cheap is a way of life LOL.

Thanks, Roachhill. Yeah, I have to question some of the cost estimates when they end up being more than the cost of just buying the food at the supermarket. What I'm hearing is that my cost of living is going to shoot sky high as a result of growing my own food, and I'll have no time to work a job to make up for it with all my newfound responsibilities.

And as for the group dynamic, we all fully realize the pitfalls of commune living (which I think I stated before) hey, I'm a libertarian! Best everybody has their own responsibilities unless it just makes sense to share certain things (and certainly the expensive machinery). All this, of course, being subject to modification. The best laid plan of battle never survives its first contact with the enemy.

I must admit I always do imagine things to be easier than they actually are, but am old enough to realize that. Which is why I threw this question out there. I'm never afraid to ask questions and have always found a wide range of usually conflicting information thrown back at me. Piecing it together gets tricky. You have to take into account personal agendas, misunderstandings, hyperbole and ego, just to name a few. I find myself reading though the postings and analyzing the writer about as much as the information presented. But I'm sure most people out there are completely well-intentioned and would probably be the first to help out if things went wrong.

And once again, any additional insight is always welcome.

My advice is this: get everyone in your group started on a research project. Have a couple of people look into food storage, canning, freezing etc. and then start doing it. Find a local farm that let's people help out in exchange for food shares and get out there and start learning to garden. Get someone studying the building skills you need, etc. etc.

Intelligent, healthy people with good intuition can accomplish a lot but you are looking at a very steep learning curve and a lot of very hard work. The clothes comment shows you are starting from zero knowledge, not a smack just pointing it out. You need very sturdy and not cheap clothing to do farm work. Good boots, heavy pants, good winter gear etc. You will destroy clothes like nothing you have ever seen before on a farm!

Everything costs more in the beginning just because of the waste in not knowing things. After a couple of years your expenses will go down but like other people have said expect to triple or quadruple your estimates for those first couple of years.