We recently purchased 10 acres of totally raw land. We currently sit on 1 acre, so that'll be a huge jump for us. We plan to build it into our dream homestead. Of course, that takes times and funds and patience. But we plan to get started on that this spring. I am focusing on a few things I can do that need an earlier start but don't need me to be there everyday to monitor, like fruit trees, nut trees, and maybe some bee hives and perennial plants. We will be juggling that project along with what we already have and both of our full time jobs, so it's definitely not going to happen quickly.
I am so happy for you!!!and jealous at the same time. I hope your new homestead is all you are wishing for. Can I ask which state? I have been looking and haven't found anything that my husband will look at. I'm just ready to jump in and he just doesn't want to go through the moving process.
That is amazing! Before you start building and while you are planning please watch your land and how it behaves during each season, that way you can build your homestead with mother nature instead of fighting with her. She can be a great partner or a terribly destructive toddler.
Im with Josh on the sleep and its not just an age thing for me, Ive always been that way. I had five kids and they were taught young what things were important enough to justify waking mom😂
Carolyn, you are a beautiful person. You guys make my heart happy. I am looking forward to the news that you share here. Thank you guys for being You and spreading your love on to all of us.
(In PA) In September, we used some fence posts we had on hand & used your “instant garden” instruction for 2 spaces closer to the kitchen. Next to the house we built the layers up with the top soil & planted our garlic(we’ll add perennial herbs to that space) & put a 50 gallon rain barrel in we purchased on sale late Fall(we pay for water-rates DOUBLE this month) In the yard across from it, we used the fence posts to terrace a section, putting in the layers from grass cut short-fresh peels, cardboard, then composted manure, newspapers, etc, topped with a dense layer of wood chips, doubling our garden space. Very excited to see how those spaces do! OH & after 3 years of waiting for a good sale, I got a 9 shelved Excalibur dehydrator-TODAY! Saved $156 on it too! So EXCITED!
Our goals.... First a fence for splitting our cows, moving our garden, moving our chicken pen and saving for buying a pressure cooker. Moving away from so much in the freezers. Thank you for sharing. God Bless you all.
OUR HOMESTEADING GOALS: This year I want to get our green house completed and create an apiary for our bee boxes before we get our bees. Then learn to can more of what we grow ourselves.
Wow didn’t know you were having a baby . What a blessing . I had my last baby at 39 . She was number 8 and my oldest daughter was 21 and had twins 22 hours after I delivered. We were always being asked is they were triplets when we were out together. Having babies when your older is much harder but you have so much more patience and enjoy the time when they are little because you know it goes by so fast. Congratulations to you both. I pray your home birth goes well and a healthy baby, which sounds like he’s very strong. God bless!!
Not only does it do no good to be bitter about what life throws at you, it actually makes your experience worse. By focusing on joy within your circumstances you actually improve not only your mood and outlook, but by exhibiting this to others, you improve relationships and end up actually improving your experiences even though you cannot change the circumstances that instigated the problem. (i.e bad weather, broken car, cold and flu, etc.)
We decided to hold off on expanding into meat livestock, and just focus on our large vegetable and fruit gardens and laying hens instead. Switching to only working part-time next month, so my goal is to get our garden and home management systems locked in and finally have the chance to learn skincare and candle making. Once we've accomplished those things we can start thinking about adding bees or meat chickens/rabbits.
We have some big goals this year! We need to get our house built as we’re currently living on site in a wall tent. And we need to get the garden started. We may squeeze a few chickens in but we don’t want to bite off more than we can chew.
That’s awesome! We are in the same boat. Building in the winter is difficult for sure, but what an amazing adventure! Always nice to hear about other adventurers/homesteaders. 😊
I just received Melissa's book and it's amazing!! I'm so impressed! My hubby grabbed it from the mail box and asked , "what did you order, a brick?!" It is packed full of info and more than worth the price.
Great idea on making a calendar for things to do. Like that idea. Especially with getting ideas out on paper and decide which ones are more important and can keep track when to do things. 👍👍
This year I plan to take the lessons I learned from the fails I had in the garden last year and turn them into successes. I planted way too much, way too close to each other. I didn't have a good understanding of the pests I'd deal with with the crops I chose and the region I live in. I didn't develop and feed and prep my garden space enough so I was fighting grass and weeds all year long. When I put the garden to sleep I covered half of it with a heavy duty tarp then covered the other half with the composted straw bales I grew peppers in this past year, composted wood chips from a church friend, and chopped up leaves from my trees. I'm going to only use half of the garden this year and start feeding the covered half in the fall/winter this year, to hopefully be able to use all 1200sqft next year. and slow my plans a bit.
I have tried for 4 years to get hubby into "3 sister" growing. They NEED each other. There are flowers and plants, herbs that need to be near in there as well. I put up a tunnel garden this month as fun, even though it is early January, we are already working the soil of the bigger garden. Hope that helps. Make sure the bees want to come by. They took a hard hit 2022... make it attractive. Prep now for being extremely busy next season, then prep that season for the next season. Try not to fall out working full time, too. Totally get it. It took me months to recover. Lol. Have fun!
Research hot boxes to extend your fresh salad green seasons. I am still harvesting arugula, lettuce, spinach and mustard greens from my hot boxes. I live in central New Hampshire and we have had a few nights in the negative numbers. The heat from decaying compost or manure keeps the boxes heated enough to grow greens most of the winter.
🌺 Mine is just starting to grow a garden. I have some materials for above ground planters and a couple of grooved doors for a vertical garden to install next to my shed. I have some seeds but need to prepare for other varieties.
We had a major storm come through that twisted our greenhouse to the point it needs to be replaced. The storm also ripped concrete out of the ground ripping our lean-to off the shed and put it out to the back barbed wire fence of our neighbor. Both structures were working so well and now need replacement. Lots of work coming up
My experience with cross contamination from making cheese and all milk ferments is that the applecider vinegar contaminated the Air in the kitchen so that after that no milk fermentation succeeded no matter what. Good reason for the old folks to have a separate milk room.
I'm with Josh on canned venison! That's my favorite way to eat it. We eat a lot of venison at our house. Our children prefer it to pretty much all other types of meat.
Y’all cracking me up with the baby and sleep patterns! I think I would feel that way too Josh! I don’t function well with no sleep. The coffee would be left in a hidden place somewhere, the laundry would be in the dishwasher, and many other sleep brain mishaps.😂
I am starting to plan my herbal medicine garden, what to plant, where to put it! Finally got my pressure canner and going to watch your videos again so I wont make any mistakes! We are wanting to build my husband a workshop so I can get him out of the garage so I can use it to put up all my canning!
Lol, hubby and I split a barn off the house. My side was originally a canning space. I'd like to re-vamp that. It has a sink toliet, dishwasher hookup, even a bathtub hookup. Pretty awesome old farm house. 31 windows, not including attic. 😳
Our goals are to expand our garden footprint & our garden season. We also are working to build a yearly menu (flexible) so we can better prepare to have enough food on hand.
Lol, I could never lose sleep ,either. I always put baby in a certain outfit for night, did NOT play or cuddle much during night feedings. Business only. And told them Mama needed to go back to bed. Then I would change a diaper but skip the feeding at about 3 weeks and one baby just started sleeping through the night at 3 weeks. The other one took until 5 weeks. And sleep was heaven!
For me, while everyone else goes big, I've downsized. So much that I'm container gardening this year. I'll stick with those I have a good amount of success. Tomatoes, peppers (hot and sweet), cucumbers, okra, strawberries, and pumpkins. I'll wait on the pumpkin to see if it's actually feasible. I have a pretty long growing season here in 7b so I'm not too worried about starting pumpkin early. My first project is to ferment cabbage. Thank you, Carolyn, for introducing me to the art of fermentation. My second project is to grow Lemon Balm and Lavender, successfully. I've never attempted Lemon Balm, so fingers crossed. My Lavender die every year, but one can't have success without a few failures. Much love from North Carolina.
Our goals are to expand our passive income so we have more time for the homestead. We are looking at expanding the garden,that in turn will mean we are expanding the preserving side.
I preordered everything worth preserving a few months ago! It’s amazing and in depth, so excited to use it. I actually bought some sticky tabs today to tab my favorite recipes and charts.
Good chats this morning guys thanks for all the input stay warm even here in Florida we have had a bit of not so good weather lately but today it's sunny even tho it's a little chilly!! I'm starting some seeds later on this week stay smiling guys!
I would love to finish rebuilding our house this year. We would also like to get our property fenced, water to the barnyard, and a second vegetable garden area. Plus adding some more trees and herbs. Over the years I’ve narrowed down which vegetable varieties I like so I plan to save more of my seeds.
Thanks for sharing your wonderful knowledge! Great that you are feeling well, Carolyn; you look radiant! I’m in my 7th decade & will try to get more perennial plants into my front yard permaculture garden & build more soil. I want to get household fixes completed as well (walls washed & painted). Blessings to your family 🤗💜🇨🇦
I always love your videos and all the comments are so inspiring! I wish everyone the best in the coming year. I'm really thinking I would like to start a few meat chickens this year. We have dairy goats and laying hens and I got back to gardening in 2022 after having to work full time for a number of years before that. I have a learning center for home school kids at the farm now and I'm happy to chat with anyone interested in that as an additional stream of income or just something wonderful to do to help people! Thanks again and I'm so envious of your large family! We have 3 boys that are all grown. Have a blessed year. I'll be praying for a healthy baby and easy delivery 💙
Jason and I are super excited to meet you guys at the Homesteading Conference. We too are working on our talk. Most of our goals are growing our apiary business, Idaho, pasture, pigs, and Irish Dexter cows, as well as growing out a bunch of meat, chickens and heritage turkeys (little goals) 😂 Blessings to your family ❤
I decided to get a freeze dryer because of the high nutrient retention and the longevity, to store food as a hedge for when I am older. I hope to always be actively growing my food, but just in case I’ll be prepared with good healthy food.
My focus on our homestead this year is to improving our current systems. I tried to do too much last year with a new baby and so this year I’m going to back off on expanding the garden and focus on just a few things that have done well in the past. I am planning on doing one new thing, a small burn garden separate from our main crop garden. For our animals, I’m backing up a bit and slimming down our herd of rabbits and our flock of chickens in order to improve our systems. Looking forward to expanding my knowledge in the School of Traditional Skills also! Happy New Year Josh & Carolyn! I’m hoping to meet you at the homestead event and I’m hoping to make it to Joel’s walkthrough at your place!! Can’t wait!!
Oh, I would love to visit and join the course in person, but I live on the other side the big pond, in the EU. All the best to you and your family in 2023 Josh and Carolyn, and thank you for gear work you do!
My 2023 goals include implementing guilds around my existing fruit trees, planting culinary & medicinal herbs (they'll likely be part of the guilds), growing mushrooms (another guild item), doing a better (planned) job of succession planting (did that the first time in 2022, but just sowed seeds where things had been harvested, no real plan), doing a better job of preserving my harvest in a variety of ways, chipping the prunings from my fruit trees...I'm in town on about 1/8 acre, with about 2500 sq. ft. total growing area, so my only potential BIG project is that I'm looking at another parcel of about 1/8 acre with just one small building on it, to plant fruit trees, nut trees, berry bushes, perennial veg, herbs, & wildflowers.
You have a great channel...thank you! QUESTION: What do you do with your greenhouses during the winter months? Do you remove snow from them all winter long or do you remove the poly from the tops and let them fill in with snow during the winter so you don't have that chore? Our goals this year, on our Rocky Mtn Homestead, are to make all of our roofs gabled so as to shed snow more easily...build a walipini and also to widen our roads so drifting snow doesn't make the roads impassible....in the garden....add a lot more compost to the beds...
I am so jealous of you Caroline. Your so gorgeous, you have amazing kids, and a homestead. Thank you so much for sharing on RU-vid. All I’ve wanted my whole life is a homestead and a bunch of kids. I don’t have either. Im severely disabled and in a couple of months I am getting double below the knee amputations. Im hoping that I will be able to use prosthetics and I’ll be able to finally have my homestead and hopefully adopt children. Your RU-vid channel allows me to live vicariously through you and it means the world to me. So thank you so much for sharing your life. I hope one day I can be an amazing mother like you and have a beautiful homestead as well.
Please get a 2nd opinion on the amputation. I don't know your situation but if you can live with your limbs the way they are, you won't regret it. Hope all goes well
@@notbuyingit5698 I understand your concern. However. I have lived with my legs this way for 30 years. And my surgeon and I have been working for 6 years trying different short term solutions and external testing braces and such to see if other kinds of surgery would be successful. There is only one other option and it would mean 6 more operations, and in the future I’d have to get them amputated eventually anyway. Because of the abuse I suffered at the hands of medical staff I have severe ptsd of them. An operation is the most terrifying thing in the world to me. I would rather have one operation and cut off the worst part and be done with it. I will be in so much less pain and have more mobility after the amputations. Thank you for your concern and for taking the time to reply. I’m not the only person that has chosen this. One of the people that have helped me on my journey has been footless Jo here on RU-vid. She also chose a few years ago to have one of her legs amputated. I’m going to be sharing my journey here on RU-vid if you’d be interested in learning more. And meeting my adorable service dog cookie
Happy New Year!! Always love your pantry chats, a project actually is happening right now, hubs is building me a sprout house. (We are in SC so no snow load here) and quail cages being built on this year too.
As a born and bred southeast Georgian, the thought of negative degrees as a HIGH temperature sounds like torture. Wooweee no thank you. Our feel like temp got down to single digits during the artic blast and I was miserable. Miserable! 😆
Thank you for being such an inspiration to all of us. I cannot say enough good things about the School of Traditional Skills!! I'm attending my first Homestead Festival in June.... SUPER EXCITED!!!! I actually looked for yall in the lineup, but it's probably too close to Baby Day for safe travel. Reading the list, I saw names I only know because of yall Joel, Justin, Anne, Jess and more.
i built/building a root cellar in 2022. I made mine from concrete block and it has a concrete roof. I am very excited to get it finished and in use before fall! I have it all done except for burying it. I built mine directly behind my house for ease of access and am so excited to use it this fall. I love your garden videos and am trying to get my soil to go from red clay to looking like yours.
For the woman who asked about venison, the bearded butchers on RU-vid show how to make a lot of jerkies summer sausages all kinds of things with venison. On that same note you even might want to look into this two guys and a cooler they do all kinds of sausages hard sausages fermenting the sausage meat how to do it why to do it what to do it with and preserving your meats it really is good. They're both on RU-vid.
I would love to see a video on how you guys are doing mushrooms! I get confused between the mushroom kits versus buying mushroom spawn versus mushroom plugs for logs.
Not sure how to submit a question, but do you ever deal with isolation, anxiety/depression as homesteaders? How do you maintain your community and social needs? I love your videos and turn them on to calm me down at times when life is crazy. 😂 Thanks for sharing your lives with us!
Hi k r i s t y, isolation and loneliness and anxiety can come from a lot of different situations. I'm the 63 year old mom of an adult daughter with severe disabilities. Level of disabilities and other health issues often keeps us at home and away from people day in and day out. At times when I've been lonely and isolated, I often ask for the Lord Jesus just to send me one special friend that I can talk with and share my heart with. He's done that for me several times throughout the years, and it has really been a blessing to me. I'm sure that he can meet that need for you too. Praying for you!🤗
Personally, taking the social and crazy out is something we just did naturally after we got married. Sure, I enjoy commenting with strangers on these platforms a few times a week, and that is enough for me. My life is way too busy for any more than that. 😁 Actually, I never feel lonely anymore after breaking the social media addiction. Way too much to do, so many animals and great neighbors. Maybe just start cutting back, next thing you know, you won't need that. Pray, rest, deflect... use your own space. ❤
Thank you for this sweet, funny, and informative vid. Congratulations on the baby!! I am at the newborn baby stage of planning! It all seems totally out of control and overwhelming. Example: I have 4 badly overgrown pear trees., now 25 feet tall and breaking under the weight of their own fruit. I have no equipment to get up to the branches even if I could hand saw them. The monies that would be used to pay some one to come up here and prune them (I am figuring about 1000$ or so) would be best used another way. Also, these were here when I got here but I don't need 4 hard pear trees, I need to have a mixture of stone fruits and apples also. This is my situation. Any suggestions from anyone would be appreciated. Also, I need to plan!
I know this sounds crazy but put a bowl of boiled white vinegar outside your house. Just leave it and replenish as needed. I boil it in my teakettle, cool and leave outside. It is a God send. Clears the gunk in the sky and brings back God's skies. Clear blue, headaches are greatly reduced. Humor an old lady, what will it cost a bowl of vinegar and a few minutes of your time. I always pray, that is never a bad a idea. God bless and congrats!
Hi Caroline, In my house, you are known as the little house on the prairie lady! I have a question/concern. I bought an All-American pressure canner and I pressure-canned chicken. The chicken was cut up and packaged from a big box store. So far 3 for 3 jars of pressure-canned chicken has an off taste. I might have used city water since this was my first-time pressure canning. I'm wondering what you think. The off taste is not desirable, to say the least. All of the beef I canned turned out wonderful. I was just wondering if you or any of your followers had this experience too. Thank you so much for your channel!
Canning the best quality meat that's affordable makes a better outcome. If the beef was fine, sounds like organic chicken, or home raised if you do that, would be better.
We are building our new homestead in the hills of northwestern Massachusetts, while working our tiny homestead in Central Massachusetts. Planning where to place my apiary on the new property, so that the bees won't interfere with construction but they will get sun and be in a good spot, even if it's temporary. Then, I will be search and seeking out another apiary near very good flowering plants. I'd like to learn more about mushrooms, will they grow in softwood pine chips? With planning, I set up a small "Back to Eden" garden this past fall. What should I plant there? Tackling the quack grass is always an issue I need to learn more about. I'd like to plant Sourwood on our new Homestead but will it grow in Northwestern Massachusetts, and how long will it take before we get flowers for the bees? Yes! Extending the season while transitioning to a new homestead is challenging. Should I set up a greenhouse here or there? These are the questions I'd like answered this coming year.
This year we are putting in my first garden. We are in Oregon. My father in law passed away he was thr gardener. We are moving the garden from where he had it. What might be some of the things we need to do to the ground
Not sure how else to submit questions, But I would love to know if you have opened any freeze-dried milk or cream that's at least a year old. I just opened a jar of half and half, and as a distinctly cardboard like flavor almost like stale but not quite... Trying to figure out if this is just a shelf life issue due to high fat content. Though it does not taste soured or rancid. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
We have a QUESTION: ??? Hi Josh and Carolyn I appreciate y'all sharing your expertise and experiences! This question is for Carolyn. I recently went thru my aunt's canning in her basement and I found 2 jars that have rust on the top of them. They were perfectly sealed tight and no rust was on the side rim of the lids and there was no leakage or residue around the outer neck of the jars. Should those jars be discarded or is it safe to keep them or eat them now? Thank you in advance.
It's great to see you two! Carolyn, you look healthy and happy! It's almost like you've done this once or twice... I'm praying for a healthy home birth! My husband will be doing chemo February through May so we are trying to get some of the big projects done or to a place our farm hands can help take over. I'm looking forward to the garden this year as that has always been a place of peace, prayer and contemplation for me and you get food! We didn't have a fall garden and I didn't get to plant my garlic at all due to traveling and being gone from the farm so much during the first round of treatment but it's ok. Just like you said, have joy. You'll still have the "stuff" but joy will help you go through it a little lighter. Looking forward to seeing what all you do this year and can't wait to meet baby! God Bless!
Do you know if baby is a boy? I missed that 😄 so excited for you to add another sweet arrow to your quiver! Thanks for the heads up on Melissa's book, sounds like something I need to look into! God bless and Happy New Year!
This year I'm hoping we can get a large garden going. We've had a smaller one but I'd like to move towards being less reliant on the grocery store for those things. I would also like to order our first meat chickens. My question is, we let our chickens free range which I'd like to continue to do. How in the world do you keep them out of a garden though?! I may have to come to terms with building a run for them.
