You’re so excited you’re finally moving to your homestead, but where do you start? You don’t want to bite off more than you can chew cuz then you’re in the same old rat race just in a new location. Today I’m going share with you 7 things that could get you off to a good start.
It’s nice to have delicious eggs when you’re working hard every day. It’s a lot of work to build a homestead and you definitely feel hungry and real food satisfies you better than junk. That’s the whole reason you’re building a homestead, is so you can raise your own healthy food. And not have to count on the lousy empty industrial food. Plus the chickens are very relaxing and entertaining to watch, they’re great pets.
Let’s start with the orchard part of your garden, it’s such a great thing if you can scrape up the money and get a few of the fruit trees planted right away. They’re going to be growing while you’re building and you’ll be thanking yourself. If I had to do it all over again I would have scraped up the money to get a few fruit trees planted. Next, planting tomatoes, peppers, onions, & cucumbers are super easy even when you’re busy. The ground doesn’t even have to be awesome garden dirt, you can use containers, buckets, whatever. Just to get those few things growing so you can have some fresh vegetables. Make a tomato and egg omelet!
A good farm dog is awesome to have right from the beginning for security and comfort. How I pick a good one is, the dog has to look at you, not a dog that’s like ho hum, doing it’s own thing, and doesn’t even know you exist. You want to pick a dog that looks at you and wants to please you. That’s a teachable dog that will mind you once trained. A puppy that just walks away sniffing or whatever is a lousy dog that could care less about you, it’s just not a good dog, pass on that one, I don’t care how fuzzy and cute it is. Because a good dog is awesome and a bad dog is nothing but a headache.
Tools, you got have ‘em! They make your life so much easier. It’s worth every effort to search flea markets, yard sales, & craigslist to buy really inexpensive tools. The basics you should look for are; a regular shovel, trench shovel, post hole digger, bow rake, and a leaf rake. Another good one is crow bar. If you can’t afford a chainsaw a nice sharp axe can get the job done, we’ve cut down many trees over the years with an axe.
For power tools, you gotta have a good drill and a skill saw. Get these and you’ll be well on your way, you can add more later.
If you can find land with Well, Power & Septic already on there that’s a plus. If not I would recommend a package deal by somebody local, that’s going to be the cheapest way. The local person will have all the connections in the county and the equipment to get it done quickly.
When I started my homestead a big mistake I made looking back is, I put my stuff in storage, when a better move would have been to just go buy a big shed with monthly payments. I wasted so much money on the storage company over 3 years the shed would have been bought and payed for. I make the mistakes so you don’t have to.
If you have the setup to accommodate a freezer a meat hog is a really good move. You’ll not have to worry about meat for quite some time. You’ll be eating fresh healthy meat that you raised yourself. The pen is not that hard to build or expensive and a hog is easy to care for.
I have lots of videos that go into more detail on all these things on my website.