So much going on with spring birth on the homestead. And abandoned lamb was the immediate task to take care of today. A quick trip to town to get supplies and now I’m late getting to this podcast. That’s what it’s all about on the homestead. I have so much to share with you today and most of it is so much fun!!

I want to take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. I appreciate you all so much. I’m so excited to share with you what’s going on at the homestead this week. As I said there is a lot of it and all relates to spring births.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

Before getting to that abandoned lamb, let’s start with the garden and the birthing of new plants.

Spring Garden

If you are new to gardening perhaps you are not familiar with the terms spring garden, summer garden, and fall garden. Spring is the time of year to plant crops that thrive in cool weather. Some can thrive in the heat, like maybe potatoes. But most spring garden plants require cool temperatures. Things like lettuce and spinach will simply give up and go to seed if it gets too hot. Other things like root crops will just not grow in the heat. Their growth stalls and there is nothing to do for it but try again in the fall when the weather cools off again.

This spring we are planting two kinds of peas, snap peas and shelling peas. Shelling peas are those green peas that you buy frozen or canned. Snap peas are best for salads and such. They are eaten pod and all, though they can be shelled as well. But the pods are sweet and crisp.

I’m not going to plant potatoes this spring although Scott did dig up the potatoes that we had left in the ground over the winter. They were just starting to sprout and grow again. Really, we should have had them out of the ground a week or so ago before they sprouted. Fortunately, there are not tons of them. We will be able to eat them before they get soft. In the normal course of planting, I would have planted some of them for a new crop. I have enough potatoes and will forgo them this spring. Perhaps in the fall.

I have yellow, red and white onion sets to plant. Onions make bulbs according to the amount of light they need. There are short season, mid-season and long season varieties. Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and other northern states can grow those long season varieties. During the height of summer, the hours of daylight are significantly higher than we get in Southern Virginia. And farther south from us, only the short season varieties will grow. The farther south you get, the more equal the day and night hours become. While far in the northern States like Alaska, they have sunlight nearly 24 hours at the height of summer. Of course, it is dark for nearly 24 hours in the winter also.

Strange place, Alaska. I was there twice. Once near the spring equinox and the days and nights were fairly equal. But the second time I was there in July, just past the summer solstice. The sun was still up at midnight. It dipped below the horizon for about 3 hours and then daylight began to show once again. It happened in Germany also. I was there in August and it was daylight past 11:00 pm and the sun was back up long before I got up in the morning.

So that’s the story of onions. The rest of the garden will get planted in May. That will be the green beans, herbs and crowder peas.

The 500 strawberry roots are all planted and looking great. Leaves are visible on almost all of them. The beds look fantastic. Scott did a great job there. That bank of strawberries will also have four sections of culinary herbs. I already have a good stand of thyme and oregano. Inside I have started more rosemary as it didn’t do so well last year and I just let it go over the winter. It can survive the winter but needs protection. It did so poorly that I just decided to start over this year. And just today I got some garden sage seeds to fill in that fourth section in between the strawberries.

The blueberries and blackberries are leafing out. The blueberries will bloom soon and we will have berries around the first or second week of June. The blackberries will be ready in mid-July.

On to the cows.

Cows and Calves

Last time I talked with you, we had one calf. Now we have three. Rosie, our new Jersey heifer gave birth to Princess. Then Cloud gave birth to Winston. And finally, Claire gave to birth to a, yet unnamed, bull calf. No one has had any trouble so far, knock on wood. Butter and Violet have a bit of time to go before giving birth, Late May and early June respectively.

Now to the fun part of the cow story. Rosie, though she is her first calf, was giving about 2 ½ gallons of milk per day. We were estimating in the beginning because Princess was getting her share so we guessed about how much she was drinking. We were getting about a gallon and a half in the beginning and guessed Princess was getting about a gallon a day. Well, it didn’t take long and we were getting a gallon a day – and then a few days later, a half-gallon or even less. Princess was getting it all.

At this point, we would normally separate momma and baby and control the amount of milk baby is getting. Calves need about a gallon or so of milk to grow strongly. Certainly not two gallons. But they will drink everything they can if you let them. Take a beef cow for instance. Those calves are never going to get more than a gallon or so a day because that is all momma is going to make. But the dairy cows make lots and lots of milk and the calves simply don’t need that much. So what were we to do.

We came up with a very good plan. During this time when the milk volume we were getting was diminishing rapidly, Cloud had given birth. We cannot milk Cloud anymore. About mid-season last year, something spooked her and she began kicking the milking inflations off. Then she began kicking more and Scott got quite a few bruises and even a really badly sprained thumb from her kicks. We had to stop milking her. We thought we might try again this year if she perhaps had calmed down a bit. No luck there. We had her walking into the stanchion before she even gave birth, just getting her used to coming in and getting a little treat. They all get this training. It makes it easy to work with them for just about any vet treatment. Anyway, she got startled again by something and started kicking and we weren’t even trying to touch her udders. That answered that question. Cloud would not be milked this year either.

This is also a dilemma on a homestead. Every animal needs to have a purpose. Her purpose was to have a calf every year and to be milked. Now half of her purpose was eliminated. That means she has become more of a cost than a benefit. And even though we love all of our milk cows, we simply cannot afford to have any of them as pets. They must cover their own expenses at the very least. And of course, we really need them to provide some income. Otherwise, we are using our precious time to maintain a cow that is not giving much in return.

This year, she got a reprieve. We figured out how she could pull her own weight. She could become a nurse cow. Separating a calf from mom is normally a loud experience for three days. However, we separated Princess from Rosie and began grafting her onto Cloud. Princess was happy with the arrangement. Rosie was not. She still moos at Princess all the time. Princess ignores her and has since the second day.

A cow will sometimes easily take on another calf. In fact, we have had issues in the past with calves nursing on any cow in the area. Our Normande cows are pretty willing to let anyone nurse. Cloud was not quite so willing as Claire and Buttercup, but we were confident she would eventually accept Princess as her own.

We put Princess in with Cloud and Winston. And we had them separate from the rest of the crew for the exact reason I just described. We didn’t want Winston browsing around and finding milk beyond Cloud. Anyway, each day we bring all three up to the milking shed. Cloud goes in the stanchion and her head is locked in. She can still see who is back there nursing and the first day, she kicked Princess off repeatedly. Princess is quite resourceful and persistent. She was hungry after all. It didn’t take long for her to figure out how to position herself so that Cloud could not reach her with her kicking. She would get almost right up underneath Cloud with her butt close up next to Cloud’s front legs and her body nearly underneath Cloud’s belly. Cloud is locked in the stanchion and can’t walk away. The first two days, Princess was voracious in nursing. We were relieved and confident that she would be fine. She was filling her belly at least once a day. The third day or fourth day, Princess did not persistently try to nurse. In fact, she was rather disinterested in nursing at all. That told us that she was getting at least some nursing in earlier in the day.

As of yesterday, I did not see Cloud even push her away. At all. Princess was getting some milk with persistence in previous days. Now she is nursing whenever she wants. It’s a done deal. Cloud now has two calves. And we now have that full two and a half gallons of milk.

A yesterday and today’s bonus is that Rosie all of a sudden started producing even more milk. We believe it is the warmer weather. She now gives us over three gallons every day. That is fantastic for a first year Jersey cow of her size. Remember, she is still quite small in stature.

I can’t wait to see how Butter does this year. We are expecting in excess of five gallons a day from her as she is now a seasoned Jersey cow. Butter is as tall as any of the Normandes. She looked like a mini cow when we first got her, but she is definitely full grown now.

That’s it for the cow stories. Now on to the quail.

Quail Babies

Just a brief tale here. We had 68 eggs in the incubator. There were 40 of those eggs that hatched. We lost three babies in the first day or so and now have 37 quail babies in the brooder. They are about 10 days old now and have nearly all of their feathers. In about 8 days, they will be fully feathered and strong enough to go out on their own.

We will do our semi-annual deep cleaning of all of the quail cages just before we turn them out into the grow out cages. The breeder cages also get a deep cleaning during this time. We will sterilize and treat the cages for mites. They will all get fresh new sand in which to take baths and the automatic watering system will be started up again. The automatic waterers don’t work well in winter as the lines and water cups freeze over. Instead, I take fresh water out to the birds every day from late fall to late spring.

So, the cycle of birds is in motion. I’ll keep you updated on each new batch of cute quail chicks.

Sheep and Lambs

The biggest spring birth story is the lambs. It would have been nice to have a 100% success rate like we achieved last year, but alas, we knew it was not likely. Lambs are delicate animals in the beginning.

The first ewe’s lamb was born without a hitch. He is strong and healthy. The second ewe, not so much. She had a big beautiful boy and a very, very tiny girl. The girl was born an hour or so later and we suspect that she was in the birth canal too long and was oxygen deprived. She passed within a couple of hours. She was never able to get up.

We only have four ewes giving birth this year and I thought perhaps that would be the only issue. Unfortunately, that was not the case. This story has a better ending. I had to rush into town to get colostrum for an abandoned lamb. In all of our 11 years of raising sheep and lambs, this was the first abandoned lamb that we had. Well, Lambert was close to being abandoned. That was two years ago. He was small and one of three. The other two were getting all the milk and we ended up bottle feeding him.

Today’s spring birth of lambs was, again, twins. But the ewe never touched the second lamb. Right after milking this morning I went out to check on the ewe because I could tell she had given birth. I had looked out the window and I could see the one up and running around. He was already dry. But she was laying down and straining again, so I thought another was on the way. And perhaps she was having an issue as the other was already standing up quite strongly and dried off. I feared a repeat of the previous situation where the lamb was damaged in the long birthing process. Nope, not this time. When I got out there the lamb was born and was actually standing up. She was significantly smaller than her brother, but still quite strong. She was as wet as she could be and still standing strong. I could tell that mom had not licked her at all. Who knows why it happens? But it does happen. Mom just rejects one of the lambs, usually the second or third one. As I said, we have had lots of issues with lambing but this was first time we had experienced the complete abandoning of a lamb. I tried rubbing the birthing fluid that was still on the new one onto the older one. Perhaps I could fool mom into accepting both as hers. No luck. She simply ignored the other lamb.

What to do? What to do? We quickly put all three in a smaller enclosure. We tied up mom and put baby girl underneath her and showed her where to nurse. While this little girl was strong, she seemed to have no clue as to how to nurse. Finding the correct location was no issue, but latching on was not going well. We fiddled with her for about an hour before giving up and deciding that we were just not going to be able to get her to nurse. And even if we did, mom was going to push her away, or walk away and leave her behind. She had already done that. When I first arrived, she took her boy and moved away from me. I brought the girl up to the boy and laid them together. Mom approached as a I walked away. She sniffed and licked the boy and completely ignored the girl. Then she walked away again with her boy in tow, abandoning the girl.

So, what happens when a lamb is abandoned? Well, we have to get colostrum into her within 24 hours. If you ladies out there have children you know what I mean when I say colostrum. Or if you have your own homestead you will know what I’m talking about here. For those of you still considering and learning, colostrum, not milk, is created for about three days or so. In sheep it contains lots of protein and a higher amount of fat than other species. The fat is important for lambs. The other really, really important part of colostrum is it contains the antibodies for common ruminant diseases. Lambs, kids, and calves can survive without it, but their chances of getting sick and dying due to lack of the antibodies to fight the infection is very, very high. All newly birthed ruminant animals need that colostrum for survival. On top of that, the ability to absorb the antibodies declines quickly after 24 hours. Therefore, it is imperative that the newborns get that colostrum immediately.

Once we made the decision to bottle feed the new lamb, we now needed the supplies. We have never really kept lamb colostrum on hand since we reduced our flock to a half dozen ewes. We picked the best moms and we’ve never had an abandoned lamb, as I said. I was aware that this stuff can be hard to come by for lambs. All kinds of calf colostrum which will do in a pinch. But the lambs really need the extra fat. That means I had to get on the phone and find some ASAP. The closest Tractor Supply that had some was an hour away. No problem, put everything else on hold, get in the car and make the trip.

I got back with the goods, fixed up a bottle for her and she drank it down in a couple of minutes. She is a really strong lamb and I think she will do fine. The other thing I needed to find was lamb milk replacer. Again, this formula needs to be made for lambs. The fat content of ewe’s milk is very high compared to cows or even goats. Fortunately, the Tractor Supply store that had the colostrum also had the lamb milk replacer. Phew. I got it all done. I feel pretty good about this little girl’s chances of survival. It was as flurry of activity, but that’s pretty normal for homestead life in the spring.

There is one more ewe still to give birth. Praying all goes well for her.

Final Thoughts

That’s about all I have time for in this podcast. It’s time to go bring up Cloud and make sure once again that Princess is being fed properly and we need to give Cloud some calorie treats daily as she needs to supply milk for two calves. I’ll feed and water the baby quail and get another bottle of colostrum ready for the ewe lamb. She will get fed at least three times a day for a few days. Then it will drop to twice a day for at least two months.

It’s all in a days work on the homestead.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please hop over to Apple Podcasts or whatever podcasting service you use, SUBSCRIBE and give me a 5-star rating and review. If you like this content and want to help out the show, the absolute best way you can do that is to share it with any friends or family who might be interested in this type of content. Let them know about the Peaceful Heart Farmcast.

Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

To learn about herd shares:

• Visit our website Herd Share page

To share your thoughts:

• Leave a comment on our Facebook Page
• Share this show on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

To help the show:

• PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW for Peaceful Heart FarmCast on Apple Podcasts.
• Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play Music, TuneIn or Spotify
• Donate on Patreon

Website

www.peacefulheartfarm.com

Patreon

www.patreon.com/peacefulheartfarm

Facebook

www.facebook.com/peacefulheartfarm

Instagram

www.instagram.com/peacefulheartfarm

Locals

Peacefulheartfarm.locals.com

We’ve learned a lot about homesteading and living the homestead life over the past 16 years. Today I want to share some of that with you. If you are looking at moving to a rural setting, dreaming of it or simply respect those who do make that choice, there is always so much to learn. One of the benefits of the lifestyle is that everything changes on a daily basis.

Let me take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. I appreciate you all so much. It makes my podcasting life worth it. Thank you so much!  

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

I’m not going to say much about the animals this time, except in the context of the rest of the podcast.

I will say that we are eagerly anticipating the arrival of lots of babies on the homestead. I’ll have much more to say about that in the next episode. Cloud and Claire are “bagging up”. That means their udders are toning up and filling with milk and birth is imminent. Cloud’s due date is only three days away and it is seven days for Claire.

We could be seeing baby lambs in just two days. We shall see. They are pasture-bred and the first possible date is in two days. Of course, their actual delivery date is determined by when they actually came into heat and were bred. Was anyone bred on the first day? Who knows. The next two weeks will be fun for lambs.

The 68 quail eggs in the incubator go into “lock down” tomorrow and within two to three days we will hear the peeping of the first hatching babies. Lots and lots of new babies from all sorts of species in the upcoming week.

Garden and Orchard

I’ll briefly mention that the garden is getting cleaned up as I speak and we are nearly ready to plant peas. The 500 strawberry plants have arrived and those will be planted in the next couple of days. It’s the usual spring rush. Babies born and gardens planted.

I have lots of tomato plants growing strong that will be ready for the market in a few weeks. The California Wonder peppers had to be replanted. I also have some hot peppers that are doing well. The herbs are moving along slowly and that is normal. All will be ready for your gardens in May and June.

Creamery

Work on the creamery is paused as we get the garden going. The dairy inspectors came by today and approved all we have done so far. They also provided new resources for getting the milking parlor up and running. We have a good relationship with these two people and they always provide us with great information.

I want to move on now to my topic of the day. There is much to say and I’m trying to keep this to ½ hour or less.

We’ve Learned a Lot About Homesteading and Operating a Small Business

Every step we take seems to correct some other step that we made previously. Our journey started way back in 2003 when we bought our first piece of property and moved onto that property in 2005. Well, let me back up a little bit. It really started the idea back in 1999 and 2000 when Scott and I first met. We spent hours talking about living the sustainable, homesteading lifestyle. It was a mutual passion to learn to provide as much of our sustenance as possible on our own. And that dream leads to the final point that I will cover today. More on that later.

We Read and Read and Read

There is so much to learn. It’s not like you just put a seed in the ground and it grows. That doesn’t happen. We took a step-by-step approach, learning about one thing, then another, then another. Some people just jump right in and do everything at once. We continued to work outside jobs so that just wasn’t the right move for us. Our method was to learn a lot about one aspect, give it a try, and make other choices based on what we discovered.

We learned about gardening. Raising animals was also a central study. We went from chickens to sheep to milk cows. Other animals were added along the way. Each one involves a learning curve.

First, We Thought About a CSA

While still in the talking and reading stages way back in the early 2000’s we thought about starting a CSA. After we bought our property, we even started a few raised beds just to get our feet wet. In the end, we decided vegetable gardening and CSAs were not for us. Part of that decision was based on the fact that all of our land was on rolling hills. There were no flat places to make gardens large enough to grow the amount of produce needed to sustain a business. Changing the landscape was visually undesirable as well as financially impractical. The work was excessive and not conducive to our aging bodies. We wanted exercise as part of living into our twilight years, but we didn’t want hard labor. Of course, the hard labor can be reduced with equipment. But again, we are talking financial investment. The idea of a CSA just did not make our hearts flutter with anticipation. Growing for ourselves, yes. Growing for profit for others . . . not so much. 

For those unfamiliar with the term “CSA”, it is simply an agreement between the farmer and his customers that they will invest in the farm for the year or season and the farmer will produce food for those customers. Each week they pick up the results of what has been farmed. I’m giving a very bare bones view of this process. The farmer has to calculate what they believe they will grow, communicate that to the CSA members so they know what to expect, and then there is the actual growing of the food. Many unfortunate things can happen along the way with a CSA. We participated in one for quite a while when we were commuting from VA to SC every week. We supported a local farm in Beaufort, SC until they went out of business. It was a sad thing. The farm had been in the family for a very long time. The owner and his son were making a last stand with the farm with this CSA. They produced lots of great food. And I believe they were profitable. At least they were profitable enough to stay in business . . . and then the rains came. The floods came.

Disaster Strikes and Ruins a Small Farm

This was back around 2012, 13 or 14. I can’t remember exactly. Some of you may remember when much of South Carolina and North Carolina were under water. It wasn’t a hurricane – at least not directly. No, it was simply rain, rain, rain and the rivers were flooded. The low lands were flooded. Eventually, much of these two states were flooded. Many crops were lost. Many animals were lost as rivers overflowed farms were flooded. Horses, cows, pigs – and many other animals were lost. To be fair, lots of people joined in and saved many. In the end, the losses were too much for our family farm CSA. The farm survived, but many customers were lost.

Non-farmers do not understand or change their mind when they find that a CSA means sharing the risk. You are investing in the farm just as the farmer does. In the end, whatever the farm produces is what you get for your money. And the weather or disease or some other disaster can devastate plants and animals that form the basis of a farmer’s income. Disaster happens. The farm produces nothing or nearly nothing. The farmer takes his losses and keeps going. Many times, CSA members just move on and go back to buying from the grocery store where they can be guaranteed of receiving product for their money. We understood and continued to support our farmer. But too many others did not. The farm continued for another year or so, but ultimately succumbed to the losses from the floods.

The Upside of CSAs

I don’t mean to turn anyone away from this idea. CSAs are great and we have many in our area that are doing very, very well. The resent pandemic has been a boon for many of them. There were times when food shortages were prevalent in the super markets. CSA farms got lots and lots of new customers. Suddenly, the produce from a local farm was more accessible than food from the grocery store. It does work both ways.

I’ll wager that many of you are interested in this lifestyle simply because the food supply chain seems a bit unstable. You want more control over your food supply for you and your family. The pandemic has been quite the motivator for many of you who have been sitting on the fence for quite a few years, putting off fulfilling your dream of self-sufficiency.

You will definitely want to stay tuned and pick up a few more tips and benefit from some of our learning experiences.

Reusable Canning Lids Work

The pandemic also brought shortages for those of us already in the thick of growing our own food. It came in the way of not being able to find the seeds we needed. Canning supplies were, and still are, in short supply or completely unavailable. I’ve picked up extra jars as they became available. Those jars come with lids. But the jars I already have need lids and those are still unavailable. Fortunately for me, I have a large supply of reusable lids. If you haven’t tried, these I say give them a try. I don’t use them for things that I can for the farmers market, but I use them successfully for our own food stores.

The brand I use is Tattler. I bought literally hundreds of these quite a few years back and wasn’t really using them because I had plenty of metal lids. I had used them enough to know that they worked really well. Even though there are lots of reviews out there that say they don’t seal well, I have found them to seal just fine. Sometimes you just go for it and give it a try. I treat them differently than the metal lids.

With the metal lids, you tighten them finger-tight and then don’t tighten them again. Lots of times they come out of the canner quite loose. With the Tattler lids, I tighten them finger tight before putting them in the canner. But I immediately crank the metal ring down tight when I bring them out of the canner. Using this method, I have a 99% seal rate. I will occasionally have one jar that doesn’t seal properly and we eat that veggie with a meal within a few days. But most jars seal just fine.

You will know the jar isn’t sealed by testing the lid about 24 hours after it comes out of the canner. Take off the metal ring and pull up slightly on the edge of the lid. If it comes free, refrigerate that product and use it within the week. You can also try again with that jar if you have another batch ready to go in the canner. Make sure the rim of the jar and the lid and seal are very clean, then give it another go. I don’t usually do that. I’d rather just chalk it up as the occasional failure and just eat it. 

The Homestead Garden and/or CSA

Even though a market garden is not the center of our life, gardening is still a part of our homestead. It really does take a lot of veggies to provide for your needs year-round. . . more than you think. What you grow depends on what you and your family want to eat. For instance, I gave up growing lots of lettuce. Scott has always said that he really likes vegetables – and he does. However, he is not a big salad eater. Green beans, asparagus, peas, carrots and so on. Basically, cooked vegetables are the ones he wants. Now I only grow these kinds of vegetables. If I want lettuce – and I do especially this time of year, I buy it from one of the growers at the farmer’s market.

Animals on the Farm

There are lots of things to learn about having animals on the farm. Start with your comfort level. Chickens are a great entry into raising your own animals. And prepare yourself ahead of time for the ultimate end. Those chickens or rabbits or whatever are there for you and your family to eat. Homesteading really gets you in touch with what it takes for humans to survive. There are lots of animal rights activists out there that do not want you to eat meat because an animal has to die. Unfortunately, our evolution as a species has been, and continues to be, dependent upon eating meat and fish. Civilizations evolved by living near the water. Seafood was available. Salt was available. Green things grew near the water. And animals would come to the water to drink and could be harvested for food for our tribal families.

I’ll admit that I have yet to actually kill any of the animals on our homestead. Scott has always done that for us. Or we take the animals to a USDA inspected facility for processing and someone else does all of that part for us. Having said that, I have no doubt that if I was the only one available to do the deed, I would do it. I would say a prayer to God and do it. This is a hard one for many people. Becoming vegetarian is an option I suppose. And perhaps many of you have already made that choice. It’s a valid choice. I don’t believe the entire world will ever be vegetarian. It’s just not sustainable for those living in northern climates. Homesteaders there may have to come to a peaceful place with knowing that animals die so that they can live there. Not everyone can live in the tropics and grow vegetables year-round. And the need for protein still exists. I’m not educated enough to know what it would require for a vegetarian to grow enough beans or grains to fill their needs for protein.

Not Everyone Will Agree with Your Choices

There are those in your circles who will continually ask you “why are you doing this?” Sure, we could have kept on working our very lucrative jobs and buying good quality food from local farmers. We didn’t need to do it ourselves. There are lots of other things we could be doing. Making lots of money, traveling, and so on. I think about that sometimes. But on the other hand, I’ve already done a lot of that. I’ve traveled all over the US and a few places in Europe. I loved it. But then the airline industry went down hill and traveling all the time became more of a hassle and less of an adventure. The biggest driver I think is the inner urge to provide for oneself. To feel the confidence in being able to support your family no matter the circumstances.

In the end, not everyone feels it and they never will. The bottom line is whether it is worth it to you and your family. It’s a lot of work. We all know that. And maybe you get into it and find that it really is more work than you are willing to do. Maybe that call to take several cruises and travel to Europe (or America if you are already in Europe), or travel to some other destination different than your home country – maybe that urges you on. Go with that. You can always live vicariously through and support your homesteading friends by buying their products.

Producing an Income

And that brings up another point. Products. Even the most self-sufficient homestead will need to sell some sort of product to buy things that cannot be produced on the farm. Clothes, paper, books, certain cleaning products, gasoline and so on. We chose to create a small business within our homestead. We don’t really need that much money, but one thing led to another and here we are. We love making cheese. And it has been worth it to us to take even longer to complete the homestead part of our dream while we build the creamery. It was only four years ago that we quit working for others and jumped in full time to live our dream. Up to that point, we were building a little bit at a time.

We built fencing, added animals, learned that growing our own hay was more than we wanted to do, added more animals. And finally, fell in love with our cows. We hit our sweet spot. If we had to do it all again, I think we would still do it in steps before making our final decision on the central theme of our homestead. Deciding to make cheese was huge of course. The cost of the infrastructure is why not many people do it. But that barrier to entry also keeps the competition to a minimum. There are always pros and cons to every choice.

Trust your instincts. Know that you can do far more than you ever thought you could. There are ups and downs. And there are joys and sorrows. I can’t tell you the sorrows of losing lots of animals. Or the sorrow of the farmer I mentioned above that was wiped out by mother nature. But we must try. We must give it our best shot. All of life is a risk. Homesteading is a risk but the inner joy is so worth it for us. Perhaps it will be worth it for you as well.

You Just Can’t Do It All

The last thing I want to mention is what I talked about way back in the beginning. The passion to produce as much of what sustains you as possible. The bottom line is that you simply cannot do it all. You will start in a direction and add lots of stuff only to find out in a very real way that there are only 24 hours in a day. And if you stretch yourself too far, the joy of that homesteading life can turn into drudgery and a chore.

Here are some of the ideas we have either tried or at least talked about but have now fallen by the wayside.

The cashmere goats were brought onto the homestead to provide fiber to make yarn and knitted things. I wanted to make our clothes. Way back in the past I even had flax seeds ready to grow flax for fiber. Both of those things are full time operations. You would grow a small garden and have a few animals for yourself and the rest of your time would be spent on those projects. Would it be worth it? Perhaps it is a long-held dream for some of you. Go for it. For us, it was just another task that needed to be completed that never got done.

One project that has fallen by the wayside but may make a comeback in the future is cutting and stacking wood for the wood stove. For the past two winters, we have simply paid higher prices for electricity in the winter. Scott needed to work on the creamery. We have a wonderful wood stove that can heat our entire house in the winter and save lots on electricity. We shall see how that progresses in the future. It may be that we find someone else who is making wood cutting the center of their homestead operation and we just buy a few cords of wood from them. It will still be much cheaper than electricity.

Let’s see what else have we scrapped. My herbal tincture business. That was a fairly well-defined business. I studied for years, earned my degrees, and practiced my craft. But in the end, marketing more than one business is simply not practical. I still provide the needed herbal medicines for our family, but I no longer try to make it cost efficient. Making my own medicine from natural herbs still fulfills me. It’s great to know that I can take care of some of my medical needs. But in the end, becoming an herbalist that helps the community had to be put aside. It’s a full-time job in and of itself.

Follow Your Dream

I’m sure there are other things but you get the picture. We all start out wanting to do everything. Then reality sets in and we have to pick and choose. Once the creamery is built and our cheese business is in full swing, there are other things that we still want to do that we have not yet done. So as some things fall off, others come into greater focus. We love pork and chicken but have not had the time to master these two animals. Before the creamery we did not have them because they require daily care and we were not here every day. After we came to live here every day, the creamery became the focus of our efforts.

By next year, we will be ready to start these other new adventures that compliment our cheese operation. Both the pigs and chickens will benefit from the spoilage and waste generated by the cheesemaking business.

One really great thing I have learned about the homesteading lifestyle is that there is always something new just around the corner. And more often than not, it is a joyful thing. 

Final Thoughts

That’s about all I have time for today. Next time I’ll have great updates on the wonderful new animal babies on the homestead. We love spring time and new life.

I hope you’ve gotten some ideas to think about as you make your journey. Whether you are already in the process or still thinking about it, keep going, keep dreaming. It’s so worth it. And if it’s not your cup of tea, come visit us and benefit from the great food that we grow for you. We’d love to chat and show you around. Not everyone will be a homesteader. You just be the best YOU that you can imagine. Keep going. Keep dreaming.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please hop over to Apple Podcasts or whatever podcasting service you use, SUBSCRIBE and give me a 5-star rating and review. If you like this content and want to help out the show, the absolute best way you can do that is to share it with any friends or family who might be interested in this type of content. Let them know about the Peaceful Heart Farmcast.

Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

To learn about herd shares:

• Visit our website Herd Share page

To share your thoughts:

• Leave a comment on our Facebook Page
• Share this show on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

To help the show:

• PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW for Peaceful Heart FarmCast on Apple Podcasts.
• Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play Music, TuneIn or Spotify
• Donate on Patreon

Website

www.peacefulheartfarm.com

Patreon

www.patreon.com/peacefulheartfarm

Facebook

www.facebook.com/peacefulheartfarm

Instagram

www.instagram.com/peacefulheartfarm

Locals

Peacefulheartfarm.locals.com