For those that work full time off the homestead...

We bought our small farm about a year ago, the farm hadnt been used in the last fifteen years or so. Everything was either run down or grown up.
I work full time with a two hour drive my wife works part time and is a sub. teacher.We have two boy who takes a lot of our time, make that most of our time. Sundays is church so that leaves one day to get our work done. Im trying to get into market gardening, with about four acres in garden ,we have chickens and two cows. Small by most people standards. But its a start. My dream is to farm full time, not in the question right now. Too many bills not enough money.......so if anyone can help i can use it to!!!

I like the idea of automatic watering for the beds. I'm not sure how that would work. I have six raised beds and one 30' x 26' larger bed in front of those. All of these are in the back of the property and we don't have water running out there or to the barn (yet). I have several hoses connected together and have to move it from the barn to the beds and visa versa all summer, depending on what needs done. Yes, it is a pain. DH has been saying for a couple of years now that he will have a water line ran to the barn, at least it would be much closer to where I need it.
I've been thinking and I realize I am overwhelmed right now because I see so many things that need done "now", but I think I will write out a plan to get at least one or part of one small thing done a few nights a week after work. I figure that will help alleviate some of the load of the weekends. Right now I only have Saturday too that I can work on it all. That will change in a few weeks though.

Edited to add - I really should take my signature line to heart and work it!

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If you can dream it, you can do it. Time isn't an excuse; it's just part of the challenge. Pursue your dream whenever you can, however you can. The first step is belief.

The second step is making a list.

The third step is prioritizing.

The fourth step is realizing you will never ever get it all done, but that's ok.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

Here are some of the most important tactics I can think of that help me with time management:

- Focus on efficiency. Do your best to make as much stuff as possible automated or easy for the animals to do themselves. Automatic feeders and waterers for the livestock, sprinklers on a timer, etc. You will pay more up front for these things but the time savings are worth it.

- Preventative maintenance is almost always better than reactive, because it can take up time where you did not plan for it to.

- Do everything in bulk. When I go to the feed store, I get enough food for a month. Otherwise you will spend four times as much time driving back and forth to the feed store if you made weekly trips instead.

- Make the most out of your weekend. My and the wife don’t go to the movies, we don’t go to parties. Basically all of that is dropped on the weekends so we can go to bed early and wake up early to get the most out of the sunlight as we can to get things done. You have about 28 hrs of sunlight per weekend…that’s a lot of time! Use it wisely and plan it out before the weekend comes. Make a to do list ahead of time. I find myself sitting on my porch wondering what to do and wasting time where as if I have a to do list I can attack each item one after another and get much more accomplished.

- Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t think about the end goal and then try and tackle it at once. If I had seen my place as it is now a year ago when I bought it, to think I could have gotten all of this done I would never believe it. You just take one step at a time and bit by bit you start moving in the right direction and will see progress.

Would automatic waterers for the animals work now or would it be best to get water at the barn first? The water spigot is on the south side of the house. The hose just lays on the ground all the way out to the barn and is used from there .........until I need to water the vegetables, then I have to drag it back further to do that. Not very convenient. I will say however that after doing it this way for this long, the hose has now been partially buried in the soil to the point DH does not harm it when he mows. Still, not the optimum set up I know.

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If you can dream it, you can do it. Time isn't an excuse; it's just part of the challenge. Pursue your dream whenever you can, however you can. The first step is belief.

You'll need to get a buried water line for the animals. While a garden hose will do the trick, you'll be serving up hot water during the day. When you get auto-water for the lifestock, life will never be the same. You'll actually be able to sit on the porch and enjoy a sunset.

For the raised beds, a garden hose to a drip system would be at the top of my Mother's Day gift list. Www.dripworks.com. So easy, a kid can put them together. They aren't cheap, but time==money. If you want to know more, I'll post the pieces that I purchased that freed 2+ hours a day of DW's time from watering. Now she has more time to weed.

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Honesty and integrity are homesteading virtues.

I do not know what it is called, but I put an attachment on my hose that I can attach 4 hoses to. So, I have one hose going out, the attachment, then 4 hoses. 3 of those hoses go to sprinklers and one goes to the chicken pen above the water tub.

I usually turn on the water when I go out to work. While I am out there I move the lever and the water then goes to a different hose.

That way I can water 2 things every time I go out.

Manifold

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Honesty and integrity are homesteading virtues.

We both work outside the home. I drive around all day....we are talking at least 50K miles per year! Sometimes I have to leave at the crack of dawn, or even before. Sometimes I don't get home until after dark. I "plan". I am a listmaker. Don't do TV, and if there IS something on I want to watch, it is usually just background noise while I do chores. The key for us was starting out a little at a time. Once you get yourself into a schedule with a little....it is easier to figure out where you can squeeze in the next thing....then another routine and you are ready to add a little something else. We compare schedules and work together to get it done. The garden is not perfect--you WILL find weeds, but they are not out of control. Like I said in a post on another thread today, just take it in small bites and do a little at a time. Weekends are full on work from dawn to dusk, but we enjoy it. Since we both work, we also allow ourselves to pay to have some smaller things done. We have 4 acres--we pay to have it mowed. It is one of the few chores that I feel comfortable in letting someone else do. That frees up hours of mowing and weedwhipping time that I can make Hubs work on that honey-do list!

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http://www.appalachianquilts.blogspot.com

We raise rabbits and have a water system that uses big buckets. We have to fill the buckets about once a week with the water hose. I check the nozzles when I peek on them just to be certain that hard water hasn't gummed up the nozzle. I keep crocks as back up in case a nozzle is messed up and for winter. In the winter when when the pipes and buckets freeze (which is rare as we are in Texas) we water them in crocks and I carry out a couple of pitchers of water for that.

Same here. I'm the only one to do any chores. And there's more than I can get done. It's okay though, one day I'll be better set up and be retired to boot.
Only advice I have...and I learned this the hard way.

Do NOT resort to weed eating or mowing in the dark.