Wow! Great Homesteading Advice

by MJ
(Idaho)

I must know everything you know about starting and working a homestead.

I was born poor and have been scratching my way up this mountain side called life since that day I came screaming into the world during a freak snowstorm in Ohio. I now live in Idaho and I am trying so very hard to make my little 6 acre plot work for me.

I have 4 goats, two horses and a mini, some giant blue Cochans, and a heck of a lot of sand. I am also getting into Flemish Giants and that is how I stumbled onto your site.

I am even going to go pick up my first three on Tuesday (I am exited). I feel I am so out of my depth since I too am doing this alone with two kids to support. I need to figure out how to grow the food I feed the animals and so far... meh, not so good at it. So I must know everything you have learned!

Do you have a book? If not you should put one together, maybe even using the posts on your blog, and sell it on Amazon or something! I absolutely must download all this info and use it as a textbook!

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I'm sorry but there is no easy steps for homesteading.

That would be like asking an old woman to tell you everything about how she lived her life. You can tell stories about events, but to tell the whole story would be impossible.

Dave and I are doing a video this year starting with January 1 and taking it through the year.

This will cover the birth of our Akbash puppies, training the pups to be livestock guardian dogs, Lambing season,butchering, tagging, castrating, shearing, washing and preparing the wool, spinning, literally everything we do all year, from hatching eggs to gathering natural plant dyes and herbs will be on the video.

You will see me covered in mud, in my PJs and so on as it will be a real life, how we live (low budget) film. This is the best I can offer.

A book about every subject would be extensive and most, have already been written.

The one thing I don't think is conveyed in books is what its really like to not just have a garden, or just have a few chickens, but to actually live from season to season. To get no sleep at all when you are lambing and go straight from that to getting a garden in, or the hatching season when you are up at all hours again taking baby chicks out to the brooder.

To can, butcher get all your food for a whole year ready in just a few weeks is difficult. People, I believe think homesteading is a relaxed life, and at times it is. It is certainly filled with joy, however I don't think the reality of farming can be conveyed in a book.

Watching us laugh and cry, work and play may help people wanting the whole story to understand it better.

Hope this helps
Gypsy