I bought the house I grew up in. I have a dream of being able to go completely off the grid, if we wanted to, (not that we would need to). We have roughly have one acre, give or take. I’m pretty sure that we have enough room for what we need. My husband and I have never been farming/gardening people. Our parents aren’t/weren’t farmers, so were not raised this way. But we are really interested in the idea.
We have talked about installing solar panels on the roof of our house. I’ve also looked into installing them on the ground as well. In my mind, I would consider what I have in mind to be like a solar garden.
We also want to set up a couple of differently little area gardens in the side and back yards. We want pretty flowers in the front, but food and trees in the back. I want to plant the basics we would need for a family of four. For our family, we would probably need tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, avocados, potatoes, cilantro, jalapenos, corn, green beans, and asparagus, to start. I’m sure that we would figure out more things we would want to plant, but these are the vegetables that we have often discussed planting.
I also want animals, but mostly as pets, not as working animals. I have always loved the idea of a mini small animal farm at my house. My grandparents raised horses many, many moons ago. My grandfather passed away when I was 3 and that was the end of horses in our family for the most part. I have always wanted a mini horse. I also found out a few years ago that there are also mini cow. I once talked to a cattle farmer about cows, and she told me that you shouldn’t have just one single cow, they get lonely and depressed. Cows thrive best when they have a best friend. So obviously I would want two mini cows. My ideal pet would be a mini pig. I’m so obsessed with pigs. (And yes, I realize that anything under 300 pounds is considered a “mini” pig.) The last animals we’ve talked about getting are chickens. The chickens would be the only “working” animals; and that’s only because my husband (and son occasionally) eats eggs. We wouldn’t raise any of these animals to be food, outside of the eggs. We’ve even talked about cute silly names we would name our chickens. I want 4 specific colored ones. I want a red chicken named Reba, a brown one named Loretta, a white one named Dolly. And the fourth would be a rooster that I’m not particular what type he is, but we would name him Willie Nelson. We already have an Anatolian Shepard, a Chug (half chihuahua/half pug), and a new puppy that we don’t know what type of dog he is. (He looks to have lab and probably something like blue heeler or blue merle collie or some other breed with that gray/blue salt and pepper color.) We also have two cats: an Oriental and a stray orange cat. I always tell people I would love, love, love to have a “mini” farm. And not mini as in the size of the land, but as in the fact that all the animals would all be kind of the same size.
We also want to learn how to collect rain water that we can use in and around the house. We haven’t really looked into this yet. It seems like something that will be later on the road.
Are any of you homesteaders? Is it a fulfilling hobby? I really think that we would like it. It seems so rad. It looks like a lot of work but rewarding. Let me know your experiences. Would you like to keep up with our homesteading journey, when we finally get a plan together and start?
Comments