If you've ever wondered if homesteading is for you, than read on! Over the past couple months I have had so much fun getting to know Abbie more! I love it when God brings together like-minded sisters in Christ to encourage one another, and Abbie is one of those women who I am blessed to have had an instant connection with. I am so excited to share this post she previously shared on her own website "The Gal Down the Road." (It is, of course, shared with permission)
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Homesteaders? This isn’t the life we pictured for ourselves having. But we wouldn’t change any of it. It happened little by little and now it feels like we’ve been doing the homesteading thing our whole lives. This is us.
How are ya doing? I pray this finds you doing well.
And if you are still here after reading the title I’m pretty sure we could be friends. Or already are! Homesteaders are a unique, a little less rare, breed nowa days. There’s a whole blog in that sentence alone, but for the most part people are making this shift because of the way our world feels. Everything feels unsteady, uneasy, unprepared, unreliable. Am I right? I think the shift is happening for some people because they need to feel the safety of knowing, the safety of feeling prepared. And to that I would give ya a fist bump if we were sitting down having a cup of…ok I would totally be drinking a soda, but I would totally make you whatever you’d like.
Homestead Vs Farmstead
To sum it up simple and from what I’ve gathered for myself, farmstead is for income, homestead is centered around becoming self sufficient. Homesteaders concentrate on raising, eating, cultivating everything for self sufficiency. So as of right now we fall into the homestead category. For several different reasons.
One
For one, truth be told, I’m not the best gardener. Another confession, I suffer from gardener envy. For real. I’m sure there will be an acronym for it soon enough in some medical journal. I want a big garden. I plant a big garden. And I can grow some Jack and the Bean stock size weeds. Yup that’s my talent. When it comes to gardening. I grow amazing weeds.
To that I raise my fist at Adam & Eve in frustration. Seriously!!!! (Genesis 3)
And weeds are my archenemy. I mean swollen, itchy eyes. Faucet running nose and sore throat. I’m talking Quasimodo here! So when those weeds get away from me I literally need a hazmat suit to work in if I don’t want to be in an allergy coma for the next few days.
So with that said what we harvest from our weed infested garden comes straight into the farm house and we consume it ourselves. I wish we could share it with the world but for real…I have some serious work to do.
And I would love to say we try to save said infested garden, but I’ll be real with you. Sometimes ya just got to let it go. And by go I mean, give up. There’s no shame in that.
Give up until next year of course. We salvage what we can and out source what we can’t. I have a father-in-law and uncle who always seems to plant enough for the entire county and are more than happy to unload some of their produce on us. Much obliged!
That’s just proof you can been a homesteader no matter where you live. My gal Jess over at Write at Home is one of my favorite town homesteaders. She’s an amazing writer too. Head on over and check out what tips and tricks she and her hubby’s got. Getting their chickens ok’d in town is quite the story.
Two
We’ve made this shift about five years ago to make an effort to pay attention to what we eat and what we cook with. And by we I mean me. It’s the main reason why we became homesteaders. My dad is the lynch pin when it comes to our livestock. This is an area on the farm where there are a lot different things happening. And thank the Lord we are better at this part of our homestead than any other.
Our livestock is really the gem of the Quaint Little Farm. We raise our own beef and chicken. We get our Holstein’s when they are just a day old and feed them really well. I mean these guys are pampered like no other. They turn into 1200 lb pets more than anything.
Huge Difference
We’ve learned that there is a huge difference between store bought meat and meat you raise yourselves. There is a huge difference in how the cows are treated, nourished, loved on, and fed. All of this contributes to how the meat will taste. A happy cow is a good steak. If that’s too harsh…I don’t know what to tell ya. I’m convinced that if you truly knew anything about the meat you buy in the grocery store you wouldn’t be buying it.
We’ve also noticed that we don’t have the allergies we used to. This is a life changer for me. Thank the Lord! There is something to be said about raising your own livestock, close to where you live. God just works things out that way. Isn’t that amazing?!?!
Bess Not to Name the Livestock
We don’t usually name our Holsteins but there always seems to be a dominant one that gets named. Can you tell which one is Superman? Our last bunch had a Bill. It stuck because my niece named him when she was visiting the farm one day. She was three. She looked at our big, black steer and said “He looks like Bill.” So there ya go.
In our newest bunch we have a frisky one that has inherited the name White Knight. He made himself known with my husband quite aggressively. So that’s how he got his name and for the fact he’s almost all white.
Homesteading with Holsteins and Jersey Cattle
Not all of our cows are beef cows. Meet Lucy and Bella, our Jerseys.
Lucy has been with us the longest. She has taught us soooooo much. And these two girls are nothing alike.
Lucy is ornery and curious. She will literally take your phone out of your back pocket or off your belt if you don’t watch her. This girl loves to be brushed, scratched, called from the backdoor. She’s an attention hog if you get my drift. She’s bossy too, she’ll move the Holsteins or Bella out of the way if she thinks they’ve gotten enough attention so she can soak up a little more.
Bella on the other hand is shy. Protective of Lucy’s calves, which we’re praying means she will be a good momma too, and snobby. She doesn’t come when you call her. The stinker won’t even look at ya unless you’re holding some cubes (snacks) in your hand. She does get a little brave when you put said cubes in your hoodie pocket.
At the moment they are both expecting. We’re pretty excited about that. In the mean time that gives us a dead line to get our barn built. Once their calves are weened we will begin milking these two girls. I can not wait to start making our own butter, yogurt, cheese and what not.
This is much more exciting to me than a garden, if ya can’t tell.
Chickens
Now that I think about it, chickens were probably the very first source of livestock we had out here on the farm. And by far the easiest to care for. We have free range, cage free, natural forging birds. Which means, they go where they would like, they eat what they would like, and they put themselves to bed when they would like.
Keeping Homesteading Simple
Our coop isn’t fancy. Just a regular old coop we moved from a farm down the road. They weren’t interested in using it for anything. So we loaded it on a trailer and moved it a mile.
When I see all the pretty painted coops, with the chandelier feeders it makes me tired. Cause birds are messy, they poop everywhere. Their water never stays in the container you cleaned out for them… don’t shy away from keeping them though. Keeping chickens is one of the easiest meat sources you can add to your homestead. I’m sure this is where a lot of homesteaders start.
We just make it a point to make our chores and buildings as easily cleaned and maintained as possible. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just keep to the basics. All the responsibilities on a homesteaders life is already enough.
We don’t name our chickens either, our roosters get named but not the girls. To us they are just the girls. Every year we order more layers and broilers to replace the hens that are slowing down on their laying and broilers to butcher to restock our freezer for the coming year. When we order broilers we order one for every week of the year and a few more just incase nature takes it’s course.
Raising Chickens on your Homestead
If you’re interested in learning more about farm fresh eggs I’ve written a few little tidbits HERE & HERE
Ducks
We also have ducks. For no other reason than to eat stickers and entertain us. Our first go around with ducks our daughter named all of them Sarah. They were all white and looked identical so she just named them all Sarah to make it easy.
At the moment we have a batch of four. Only one has a name. His name is Kenya. There is a story about how these four came to reside out here at the Quaint Little Farm. It involves my best friend and a trip to the farm store. STAY TUNED FOR THAT STORY.
The homesteaders life is far from easy. There are a lot of early mornings. Two day bottle feedings. Breaking ice in tanks. Pitching hay and grain into feeders. And a lot of poop. No sugar coating that. It makes for some amazing fertilizer in that garden I was telling ya about earlier. Your livestocks needs come before your own and there are no rainy days or snow days off.
But we wouldn’t change it. Not one bit of it. It’s not for the faint of heart. But it softens your heart to the slower, sturdier, basic ways of doing life. You appreciate your meals more. There’s joy in simply brushing your Jerseys to make their milk sweeter and keep their demeanor sweet as well. Having a 900 lbs steer eat out of your hand is something we celebrate and smile at. This is us.
We thank God for our Quaint Little Farm everyday and strive to be good stewards of what He has given us.
Until Next Time,
the Gal,
Abbie
Abbie, AKA the Gal, lives with her husband and two out of four kids (two have flown the coop) on a homestead in Nebraska. They work the farm together with their extended family making it three generations doing life together. Abbie is a jewellery crafter in her spare time, not to mention she is a homeschool/ farmschool mom, and scheduling genius as she works to keep order between school, farm, and home life. You can read more from Abbie on her website The Gal Down the Road.
