growing 90% of your own food support group

level land has so many advantages not having to worry about tipping the tiller or tractor over come to mind .I have read that god made these rocky steep hills so poor people could afford land though .

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That's so funny since it's the rich people that have built on the few hills we have. They get to look over the city from their superior perch.

You have beautiful land!

This is ours front and back:

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Hilly land rich land near the city, poor land out where I live. The hill land also tends to be smaller lots.

I grow things in what we call patches or spots level enough to cultivate I have my 1 acre garden in front of my house near the barn yard to grow things like sweet corn that need protection from the raccon and deer as do my chickens and rabbits and honey bees need protection as every varmit from skunks to bears like the easy meals offered up on a homestead .this job falls on my faithful Mt. cur dogs who allow no varmits near . then tomatoes peas cucumbers that the chickens love but arn't bothered by deer or coon much are grown farther from home in another patch . most old homesteads were built in hallars or small vallys between the ridges as is mine ,this way the spring water can be piped in with gravity power there is a spring fed creek also so watering the livestock is not a problem I also have a gasoline powered pump to water the garden with if need be .

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I love it! Just tell me that pig isn't in your house.

What would be wrong with that?? LOL.. grandpa always said 'if it's clean enough for the skillet, it's clean enough to eat from the table'.

But I'm not sure that's what he meant.. lol

Arnie, in the last pic, is that sorghum?

I'm looking at it on my phone so the pic is small, I cant tell if it is sorghum or sweet corn.

you got it Dixie bee ; we were cutting kane to make mallases ANd crazyfarm no that friendly pig was an excape artist refuseing to stay in her lot just hung around the farm yard like a dog she was mooching potato chips from my cousin at the picnic table during the stir off ;till I put her back in her lot . her talent at sliping through the fence even with electric led to her trip to the butcher a couple months earlir than planed for extra tender pork .one thing about those cute little pigs they grow into pushy obnoxisous hogs extreamly intelligent by bribeing them to follow you back into the pen with food;you actulay train them that excapeing leads to a treat and they discover its fun to play with the calves in pasture steal chicken food and root for worms under the rabbit cages .though I also was at fault for treating her like a pet talking to her as she followed the tractor to feed the cows and laphing as she bathed in the creek . the first pic is the old kane mill made by catanogga plow company in 1917 still works like new but we riged it up to run off the tractor hydrolics instead of the horse and in the next pic i'm skimmimg the mallases at the evaporator pan and furnace ; all which we have along with a giant picnic table under a a shed we built with treesand poles blown over on the farm tat spring ,and the tin roof came from a old (some say haunted) house someone tore down near here the tin cost us 50 $ so that and the nails was the only expence . the next is the rabbit shed built in the shade of some big trees next to the creek was ms.porkys favorite hangout while on the loose . that last pic is of blackberry dumplings and homemade ice cream ; letting mother nature help us out in growing part of our food for us can be a big help ;and add some tasty viriaty to our table last year was a great season for wild vitamin loaded berrys, as well as tame fruits

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Thank you both for the replies. If you are going to hand pump that vacuum pump why not just hand milk the goat? I have a very nice small electric pump and when I can get a milk goat I will make a milker like this with the pump. I will use a gallon jar and two lines. I will wait until I find the goat to go after the teat cups so I know what size I need. The milk goat I had years ago was a French Alpine and that large syringe never would have fit her udders.

That is funny Crazyfarm. Back around 1992 I was working for Town & Country Cedar Homes near Petoskey, Michigan and still had my CDL so I got to drive a company truck to Missouri to drop a load off and go to my cousin's wedding. The drop off was for the John & Trudy Valentine house across the Missouri River from my cousin's place.
Trudy's parents practically owned Anheuser-Busch brewing company.
They bought property high up a huge valley then bought all the land they could see from their property. The only place they couldn't buy was a farm owned by an old man that did not need or want their money. They just paid for an option so they got it from the estate when that old farmer died.

Someone round here has an ad in CL asking for free used critters-I suppose they do quite well.

you don't have to constantly squeeze the pump ;just enough to create a vacume then only to keep things flowing . for an old timer with a bad back it saves lots of bend over time , the closed jar also avoids any hair bugs or a foot from contaminateing your milk , I milked a cow by hand for many years spent milking time with my head pressed to her side for 15 mins. twice a day hot cold wet and dry , and now enjoy brushing her or filling her hay manger instead of hand milking

Arnie, I love the pics of your place. How much land do you have and of that, how much is devoted to gardening?

thanks theres a few hundred acres .mostly wooded hillsides with one garden being almost an acre and two more about 1/4 acre the cane patch may be over an acre . there is one mile of dirt farm road to get to the state road and my first neighbor, one reason not to get excited ifthe pig gets out of its pen . and why the cur dogs are needed to keep the varmits away . I sure don't have to worry about a chicken getting run over by a car :-) .

love the pics arnie....i can tell we are neighbors from the pics...lots of vertical land.

love them mt.curs.

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i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life,.......,and not,when i came to die,discover that i had not lived...Henry David Thoreau

I didn't figure you had to constantly keep pumping it. That is because you have the vacuum gauge that tells you when it needs more pumping.
One of the main reasons I like that system is the closed jar. I do see it even more out of kicking range though. When I make mine I will use a vacuum gauge and switch to turn the pump on and off. The vacuum pump will be under the stand in a box. The jar will have a pocket to set it in on the side of the stand. When I had my milk goat I had a milk stand similar to yours but I always used a stool to sit on. I sold that nice stand when I sold the goats.

with the early spring hatched chicks soon to reach fryer size , cucumbers starting to climb, the potatoes and tomatoes blooming away . are you ancious to start bringing stuff straight from the garden to table yet .

i am ready to start making refrigerator pickles and i need to make a batch of 14 day or what many call icicle pickles....they are great.

i like to load the refrigerator down with refrigerator pickles late in season so i can eat as far into winter as i can.

this year i am going to drop in a hill here and there along to try and keep them coming.

__________________
i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life,.......,and not,when i came to die,discover that i had not lived...Henry David Thoreau

We had about 2-2.5 inches of rain yesterday, so today I waded through the mud of my gardens.
Tomatoes are blooming, have a few peppers forming, cucumbers are trying to produce, cabbage looks great, pea pods are starting to fill out.
Now I just need to do more weeding around my green beans.

We also had rain,finaly. Dragging hoses thru the gardens has gotten old. It has been unusally dry here, the grass looks like it's july.Cammomile is ready to harvest. The hoophouse is done, except for the 5 Purple Royality Rasperrys I planted in there that I got from the county sale. They will go in one of the new raised beds I built daybefore yesterday-to be filled with rabbit manure and cleanings from the chicken coop. 3 bakeing sheets filled with blanched asparagus are frozen in the freezer,they will be bagged and vac sealed today.One of my French Copper Marans is setting and in a seperate coop a Lavendar Orpington is setting.Angora rabbits need shearing real soon and the bottles will be going in the freezer for the upcomeing heat waves.The do list is very long in the spring.