Canadian Homesteaders

Howdy partner! I also am from the Great White North, but in Ontario. We are on a small 2 acre farm about 1/2 hour from Toronto. We live in an old farmhouse built in 1870, with a cistern under the front porch.There is no furnace & we heat strictly by 1 woodstove & 1 cook woodstove. (DH has about 4 years of wood,hauled & chopped all by himself) We raise chickens (meat & layers) turkeys,muscovy ducks & rabbits.I want a goat for milk,but DH is fighting tooth & nail....he still thinks we are "city folk"! :no: I have not found any sites for Canadian homesteading, but I honestly Luv this one....so no loss! Welcome aboard Hoosier ,eh !:haha:

 

Where abouts in sask are you located? I was born and raised in sask, just south of yorkton in a SMALL town called Calder. I now live on vancouver Island and have a SMALL farm as that is all we can afford with Island prices. We have turkeys, chickens and ducks, potbellied pigs and a couple goats. We grow produce for restaurants and the local folks, I have a soapmaking biz, and the DH is a partime mechanic at a dealership. It would be so great to have a canadian homesteading group. I do love this one though, man are there some knowledable folks here!
corry

 

Hello! Fellow Canadians here as well. Were in Alberta, about a half hour from Vegreville. Just moved to our first homestead in mid November, so we are still very new to this lifestyle and loving it. We live on 320acres in a schoolhouse built in 1907. Heat with wood and haul water in buckets from the well. We live here for free in exchange for light caretaking duties. I will be getting some chickens and perhaps some rabbits in the spring and cant wait to get a garden started. Welcome to the Boards!

 

Wr, yeah it was pretty cold here for awhile, but we stayed pretty cozy in the house. I actually find it too hot upstairs in the bedrooms at night. Our only problem with moving out here when we did, is that we had to hurry and haul as much wood out of the woods as we could before the really cold weather hit and before the snow got too deep to get the truck in and out. So far we've made it through the winter fine, I'm hoping for this warm weather to stay, but knowing Alberta we have at least another blast of cold and snow before spring.

We actually got quite abit of snow so far this year, at least a foot and a half if not more, we defenitely could use as much as we can get.

There are soo many old farmhouses and buildings out here. The man who owns the land we are living on gave us some good advice about these buildings. He told us that most of the farmers who owned the land and the buildings have no use for them and would be more than happy to sell us the building and a couple acres on which to start our own homestead. He said to look for a decent building thats sturdy of course, with a power pole and a good well and offer the farmer $2000 and acre. It doesnt take much to put in windows and fix it up. So thats our plan as of now, well save for a couple of years and look around in the meantime.

 

Thats good advice wr, Thank You!

 

Hello there

Another one from Ontario, we are about 1 hour north from Toronto, just starting out on our 7 acres. Only chickens, ducks and vegetable gardens so far. Hopefully get a couple of milk goats come spring and expand the garden. Nice to hear what everyone else is doing.
T

 

Whereabouts north of Toronto, MrsBob? I grew up in Muskoka -- near Gravenhurst.

Tracy

 

Hi all

I'm in the north of Ontario, about 3 1/2 hours north of Toronto, not far from where the Dionne Quintuplets were born. I have laying hens and ducks, and meat birds in the summer. Hope to do some turkeys this year as well. We live in an old farmhouse, heat stricktly with wood, gas stove in kitchen though, so we can still cook when the power goes out. We have approximately 50 acres, with about 5-6 clear, part of which is a very large pond. Next door neighbours live in a stack-wall house made of cordwood, they're off the grid and use solar with backup generators. They have a petting farm so there are llamas, goats, horses, cows, sheep, rabbits, assorted poultry (all my extra hatchlings go there), pigs both regular and pot bellies, and whatever else shows up. My hubby won't let me have goats either - says the only old goat I'll ever get is him! I keep saying "but what about a young one?" I get THE LOOK, and told if I need to pet a goat to go to the neighbours.....

And Tracy - I was down to Toronto for Canada Blooms last week and waved to Gravenhurst for you on the way by....

Bernie

 

Thanks, Bernie!!! Dad injured his shoulder last month, and I've been itching to go home and see how he's doing. He tells me he's fine -- and my sister says he's fine -- but I wish I could see for myself! Maybe I'll get home again this summer.

Tracy

 

Hey Bernadette, sounds like we are living @ the same place!!! (except you have neigbours with critters, I'd be there All the time) We have raised turkeys (for meat) for the last 3 years, you will enjoy it. Turkeys are so low key, they don't freak out like chickens. We would let them free range @ nite & they would follow us around like devoted dogs.....so cute. They can be nasty when the toms start fighting though. * Mrs.Bob where abouts are you? You can't be too far from us, we are about 1/2 hour from T.O. * Isn't this kind of freaky, finally talking to neighbours? All my friends just roll their eyes when I start "talkin' chickens", heck I even chatch DH doing the same thing sometimes!!! :no:

 

Hey Poultryprincess, do you sell fertile turykey eggs? Im looking for about half a dozen eggs. Im located 45 minutes East of Toronto. And would you ship?

 

Hey BarW..

I'm a fellow Canuck saying Hi.. I'm in Montreal.. But will get to the land one of these years.. Welcome aboard ... Enjoy this site.. its one of the best..

HelenRose.. aka KindredCanuck