The Homestead
Freesteading group focused on the discussion of Homesteading.
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Women Homesteaders
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Women Homesteaders
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The way you do it works for you, so it does not matter what other think or even say right.
Good for you, keep up the good work and stay blessed.
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Today I had some time between to sort out some red kidney bean seeds for next year. Cleaned up the greenhouse some more, every day till it is all done. Winter is coming fast, and we need to get some plants in and grow inside.
Old fashion meal was so good, potato, green beans, Frikadelle and cucumber mit zaziki dip. Son in bed and enjoying a cup off coffee.
We woman homesteaders just keep on going right.
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If we don’t who would? It is do or die sometimes.
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As long as my husband brings home food, I will cook. Do not have to tell him yet what I have been doing all those years, as long sticking his head in the sand and saying it is going to be alright not so bad right now all good. Complaining about the prices going up and not going down again, not everything being there and stuff missing.
Hopefully if all goes well, a used rabbit cage is coming. Start with 1 or 2 female and one 1 male, 3 of the 6 filled. 3 left for the young should be able to work right. Husband thinks I am crazy, but he know being meat is expensive if it is there and to choose from.
Turkey he is looking forward to, but I want to keep them separate from the chickens. And for now I am arranging for the rabbits.
Respect for all you ladies!
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This is an awesome thread!
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We all have a different roll to play and do our best to pitch in. I cannot do every job, so when I need help I just ask someone. š It happens naturally that us girls do a lot of the work around the property because the guys all have day jobs, however the guys get a lot done as well.
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šāāļøhubs has the fulltime job and i’ve got the farm. it’s just the two of us in our 50s. i’ve learned many things about priorities and playtime. it’s a ever changing balance depending on the season and the moment at hand. staying agile in my approach and lots of gratitude for the small things make a big difference when i lay my head down at night. things happen, do your best in the moment and learn from every curve ball that comes your way. some days are better than others. let what others say & do not become part of your story. verbally, seasoned with salt, ask for help and be patient if it is not done the way you would. over time, we learn how to let go of the small stuff that will eat us up inside. take many breaks thru the day with yourself to regroup–i do mine while drinking a nice herbal tea such as tulsi or lemon balm when things are overwhelming. keep your eye simple on the beauty of this lifestyle and the honor it is to be a steward of your home. š
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Homesteader by myself it can be challenging but rewarding. I have to do everything. I get tired but plan my plans for the next to accomplish and love the end rewards of comfort that I feel self sufficient as best as I can
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I have just moved and moving all the homestead stuff and household and remodeling a house by myself. The one thing I do is focus on one thing at a time and then look at the next task, I try to never look at the big picture of all I have to do and accomplish for the future. I have so many projects that would take 2 but I never stop on my dreams because of what I see but choose to keep going and dreaming and realize God creates this for me to be on this journey and say to myself ICAM DO THIS and I find myself doing it and feel good afterwards of the accomplishments. I build a 16×32 by myself mostly and now I am so glad I pushed and made it happen to feel more sel sufficient. I hope this makes since but I canāt see on my app what I am typing to make corrections and I donāt know how to fix thisā¦
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How do you eat an elephant ?
One bite at the time !
Thatās all we can do and never ever stop. š
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Check out the greenhouse I built on YouTube @ Never Alone Homstead
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What a great greenhouse .
Awesome work š
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Thank you so much. I just love it!!
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I was asked to post my story on this discussion. This was a very hard year for me in 2022 as it seemed everything was going wrong from a horrible gardening/harvest for spring/summer. Horrible heatwave that lasted for months along with severe drought. Coastal AL zone 8b with temps 90-100(F) and feels like temps pushing 115-120(F). Humidity 80-100%.
I am busy with my 40 acre homestead every waking hour and that means 12-16 hrs PLUS almost daily. If I’m not tending the chickens & rabbits (cleaning coops/hutches-making repairs as needed), tending a fairly large garden, I’m doing the usual chores of washing clothes, cleaning house, cooking, pressure & water bath canning (CONSTANTLY!), dehydrating (4 large 9 tray going almost 24/7), vacuum sealing what I dehydrate or dry goods bought at grocery, making repairs to the cabin/homestead, tending my 5 fur babies (3 inside that I cook meals for & 2 outside dogs-a 150 lb Great Pyrenees & 140 lb German Shepherd), tending the yard chores, mowing grass, gleening produce/fruit from people done with their harvests (people in my community know I do NOT like to see any food go to waste so they call me when they are done with their gardens or picking their fruit and I go pick then come home & process/preserve).This year was exceptional in that I had several events that left me wanting to call it quits. I will also note that my younger sister had lost her husband unexpectedly and her being disabled I spent at least 2 weeks every month with her (2 hrs north of me). They had bought their homestead 6 months prior to him passing away so she was left with animals she couldn’t tend, chores that she couldn’t manage & having to clean up & move from family property where they had a cabin & lots of STUFF prior to buying their homestead.. I had to move/clean up all of their belongings from their previous home for her. I built her a patio & dog run for her 5 little fur babies so they wouldn’t wander off on their 11 acres & get killed. She already had one that got into a scuffle with a neighbors dog & lost his life so it was imperative I build the run for her so her babies could have a place to go out & be safe. Another LONG story of added chores & stress going to her place when I had so much going on at my own homestead. But SHE NEEDED ME and had no one else to call on so OUT OF LOVE, I would go when she called or needed me.
At one point this summer I had so much going wrong at one time I was having to make an appointment with my bed to get some sleep. Days & Days I was working almost around the clock with just power naps. Leaking roof in my barn caused some of the roof rafters to rot that started collapsing. Had to jack up the roof & put in telephone pole cut offs to temp fix. Barn built in ā82 and an addition added to it a few yrs later. Valleys in the roof not constructed correctly so had water pooling in areas & running. The original construction of barn had telephone poles used for corner posts, buried, rocks added & cemented in ground. I was given a beautiful German Shepherd that grew to be 140+ lbs. Had him on an overhead trolly 150 ft long connected to a corner post on the barn & a corner post on another outbuilding. He is the protector of me & my property being in such a very rural remote area; I let him run loose when Iām outside but have to contain him at night & when Iām not here or not outside (until I can get him a LARGE kennel with a run built). Something spooked him one night and he literally pulled the corner post OUT OF THE GROUND of the barn & had it drug up the driveway. A telephone pole with a huge concrete slab (that secured the pole in the ground)!!.He is one strong POWERFUL dog and a great protector of me & HIS TERRITORY! Pulling out this corner post started the snowball effect of the barn roof collapsing. More jacking up, and bracing as this event caused my pump house built in the barn (with itās own room, on itās own slab) to start collapsing. NO ONE WANTS TO PHYSICALLY WORK these days so finding some HELP was impossible. Promises were made to come help, but a yr+ later, they still havenāt shown. I began tearing the pump house apart but had to take one board out at a time (like a Jinga Puzzle) trying to leave those boards supporting the roof intact so they were not stressed for it to totally collapse on me while working to tear it apart to rebuild.Then had some severe storms with lots of lightning roll thru in late August last year. Lightning ran the ground all over (I live on an IRON ROCK hill that is a lightning attractant). Started having power issues when they replaced all old meters with the NEW SMART METERS. No opting out. Being very rural, we have power poles the power company attaches their main lines to the meter box. My main transformer blew on the power company pole. Many times they had to come out to reset the transformer until they finally replaced it. More problems that left me with only 110 power to my house (My subpanel breaker box is in my house, not on the side of the house, which is common here). The last major thunderstorm we had caused a strobe light effect inside my house for about 15 seconds then power went completely out. Power company lineman came out to restore power. When he would, it would short the transformer. I was at wits end not knowing what to do. He was kind enough to do what they were NOT ALLOWED TO DO and started tracing my problem using these high-tech meters. After several hours of troubleshooting, he found I had either a broken wire in my MAIN POWER LINE from the meter box 160 ft to my subpanel breaker box in my house or said it could be fused from lightning that was causing me to only have one leg of 110 power instead of 2 for the 220 power to my house. He said I either had to dig up the old line (buried 3 ft+ deep & 160 ft long) to find & splice the break/fused wires or replace the whole power line. He left & I had power to house but only 110-no 220 power so NO WATER as I’m on a well. HEAT WAVE going on so couldnāt run my 220 one ton window unit. Rained heavy again the next evening & lost power at 7pm, called in outage. Thunderstorms were pounding my area. At 9:30pm a lineman & his supervisor came, and supervisor said they were pulling my meter until I could get power issue resolved. No ifās ands or buts. In the middle of this massive storm I am without power, canāt see my hand in front of my face & they pull my meter. Iām 66 yrs old, have a very sick little dog that must be kept cool or it aggravates his collapsing trachea & autoimmune disease. Where do I go what do I do at 9:30pm at night?? I canāt see to get my gas generator out of storage shed in the pouring down rain, had NO HELP. So we (me & 2 inside dogs) slept in my full size van. Next morning I began trying to find the correct power line I needed to replace. NONE TO BE FOUND (supply chain problems). Warehouses for companies that supply this line were out of stock. So I began digging up the old power line. I couldnāt even get a big pick axe to break the ground as it was red clay/rock & PACKED tighter than concrete. We were in that massive heat wave at this time so many times I almost passed out from heat exhaustion but I HAD to get something done to get my power restored. I went to a small locally owned building supply company in tears explaining my problem. I had been hunting this wire at the BIG BOX stores & chain Electrical Supply stores in a 200 mile area of me. DO YOU BELIEVE THIS SMALL MOM & POP STORE HAD MY WIRE???? They had 162 ft (I needed 160 ft). The girl at the counter helping me called her father that was an electrician. He told me exactly what I needed to do. Either bury the new line 2 ft deep (& in my area of iron rock) I had to go deeper to allow for sand below & on top of the new line OR bury 18 inches deep in conduit. This conduit was $100 for a 10ft section which he said was in short supply & the cost would be $1600 JUST FOR THE CONDUIT, not including the $1200 for the wire. He recommended burying it deep without the conduit to save costs. THEN I needed an electrician to disconnect the old line and reconnect the new line $$$$. I had $600 to my name, no way to get a loan (on fixed income), no family that had that kind of money to loan meā¦I was screwed. My sister agreed to loan me $600 to add to what I had so I could at LEAST get the wire. Then I begin digging the 2ft+ deep trench from the power pole by hand using a small pick axe, small sledge hammer & a BIG heavy duty chisel of sorts (used what I could find) to pound into the ground to break up that almost concrete dirt. (BUT that was after I had to call 811-CALL BEFORE YOU DIG to have phone line (I still have a landline as cell service is HORRIBLE here in the deep back woods) that was buried located or be fined big bucks if I cut that line digging). 3 day wait for them to mark the ticket online NO LINE IN AREA-FREE TO DIG! WHAT? I knew I had a phone line buried that would cross the power line trench. So had to call BACK & another 2 days for them to get there to locate phone line, which would have been right where I would have been digging! I got the trench dug across the driveway which the power company said HAD TO BE BURIED as it would be a hazard/danger before they could restore the powerā¦only 42 ft. might as well have been 400 ft to me at that point! I worked around the clock literally, at night I had work lights hooked to my generator so I could see what I was doing. Worked in that brutal heat wave we were having, temps over 100(F) with feels like temps pushing 120(F). Two weeks after they pulled my meter I had the trench dug & wire in place and luckily I found a retired electrician that offered to do the disconnect & reconnect for just gas money to come to my house! WHAT A BLESSING!! Power company came, inspected the connections, did testing with their meters, replaced my meter & I HAD POWER!
Did my initial problem begin with the new smart meter they had installed? I know the grapevine by the power pole with smart meter died, I have since had problems with the ECM (computer) with my car that had to be replaced (that was parked in front of that power pole, too). Try to prove any of this to the power company. Also when power was restored my spare fridge wouldnāt work, my A/C was shot (only 2 yrs old but power surges burned up the control panel) and the control panel on my gas stove/oven is shot. I can only use the stove burners to cook & a toaster oven to bake.
All of this does not include the headaches trying to keep my animals alive during the massive heat wave, trying to salvage my garden that burned up & hauling water because my water well is 220 & had no water with no power.
MAJOR LESSONS LEARNED on what areas I was lacking in my preps for a grid-down scenario. I am so far behind with the barn & pump house collapsing repairs (or tear down), getting my 2nd larger greenhouse built WHICH WAS A PRIORITY to me this year and then we get hit with the Christmas Freeze. Pipes froze but didnāt burst, I DID REDNECK FIX my pumphouse that prevented it from freezing but lost all my fall/winter crops. HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR SANITY when the world seems to be crashing down on you every which way you turn?
I honestly believe the GOOD LORD allowed these events to happen to SHOW ME my PRIORITIES in preps to be able to survive grid down. Priorities change daily on a homestead when disasters occur so now Iām playing catch up and STILL working around the clock. But I take ONE DAY AT A TIME, Do what HAS to be done and work as I can on less important projects. Maybe it was a good thing I lost my summer garden/harvests so I didnāt have to worry about trying to preserve them. But losing my sweet potato crop to all the rain we had prior to harvest devastated me. I depend on the sweet potatoes I plant to get me thru the next year for a nutritious food source. I am thankful for all the work Iāve done in the past few years to have had a well-stocked pantry to take up the slack of what I didnāt get to grow/harvest this year. Things happen that set you back but I take it as a learning experience and a reason why these things happen & keep on doing the best I can..alone.
Apologies in advance for this very lengthy reply. Just want folks to know how hard it is trying to micromanage so many different things BY YOURSELF but survive even what you seem is impossible at the time. It all boils down to PERSEVERANCE, DETERMINATION & THE MINDSET TO SURVIVE no matter what is thrown at you. YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU āWANTā TO DO or throw your hands up and give up. NOT ME, IāM A SURVIVOR!
Pic’s of power line trench being dug across the drive way & pic’s of the collapsing pumphouse & after I started tearing it apart to rebuild. Last pic’s are the end of the year when I was at my sisters just as the freeze ended here & things were thawing out. She had a busted waterline & a pond in her yard when pipes thawed. I had to dig to find the leak, repair & recover the trench. The bad thing about her leak was she had no clue where the water lines were that went out to the sheds (where the leak was) as her husband knew all that but had passed away & they hadn’t been there but 6 months. So I had to figure out all the water line configuration before I could even know where to start digging. I HOPE I DON’T EVER HAVE TO DIG ANY MORE TRENCHES as I had my fill of them in 2022.
Now, back to vacuum sealing…work never ends on a homestead! š-
The last trench I dug for 2022 at my sisters after the Arctic Blast. She had a pipe to burst that I had to dig to find & repair.
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Truly impressive!
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Other pic’s of projects I did for my sister in 2022 along with ALL MY HOMESTEAD CHORES, PROJECTS & CALAMITIES.
I built & closed in a small patio area (that now has a fire pit in front of the chairs). This adjoins the dog run and is all enclosed with the black frames (some with gates to go in/out when needed), including the small deck (not shown) for her fur babies safety. This was an area their GATOR 4-wheeler was parked and was nothing but a muddy mess all the time. I dug & hauled in many wheelbarrow loads of dirt to fill in holes & build up to not hold & collect water like it did when the Gator was parked there. She bought 9 bags of white stones I had to unload from her truck & spread. Bags of rocks are EXTREMELY HEAVY!! When I have time I am going to remove the concrete pads used for the steps in the pic and install stair stringers with wood steps.
The black metal frames I used were from a very large dog kennel they had for their German Shepherds. I took it all apart, moved each heavy panel, and reinstalled for the new dog run.
I also built 2 dog ramps for her fur babies to be able to get on THEIR COUCH (small ramp) and onto her bed (larger ramp), I covered with carpet so they would have some traction to go up/down the ramps. They are all small dogs, a Parti Yorkie, chihuahuas & Shitzu and she was constantly having to get up to put them on/off the couch & her bed. I put a safety rail at the top of the ramps so they wouldn’t fall off when they got to the top.
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Dang girl. I know itās not helpful but you being a southern girl too, will understand when I say, āBless your heartā. Iāve read some of your other posts and you are awesome. I hope you are taking some āmuch neededā rest.
May all your hard work in 2022 be blessings in 2023.
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Thank you for your kind words of encouragement. I wish I had “TIME” to rest but there is still so much I’m trying to get done before this next gardening season gets into full swing. Even with my LISTS of things to do for the day, it never fails to have something unexpected come up to throw me off track.
Yesterday I went out to plant more garlic & get some of my potatoes planted (that have sprouted heavily already-I save some of last year’s crop to start EARLY since I try to plant in succession). I went into my greenhouse to get some fish emulsion fertilizer as I was repotting some plants I had rooted. I found my beloved 1st pineapple I’ve grown breaking off the stem of the mother plant. It wasn’t quite ripe but the sheer weight of it had it hanging upside down so I had to go ahead and harvest it to save it. It grew the pineapple late in the season and I’ve babied it all thru the extreme cold we’ve had to keep it growing. I even put heaters in the greenhouse to keep it warm enough. It is small & growth was stunted I feel from the cooler than normal temps we’ve had since the heat wave this summer. But hey, I FINALLY grew my very own pineapple and I’m very proud regardless.
These plants are HUGE (I have 2 old enough to fruit and 3 smaller ones). My greenhouse is PACKED to the brim from having to move everything in there that couldn’t withstand that Arctic Blast we had at Christmas. And WHERE ARE THE PINEAPPLE PLANTS??? WAY in the very back of the greenhouse. I had to move so much out just to get to them. I harvested the pineapple and had to take the 2nd pineapple plant out to repot it as the weight of the plant had turned over the pot/plant and it was starting to slightly yellow. HOW DO YOU MOVE a 4 ft tall & wide plant out of a small greenhouse jam packed with fruit trees (that are actually now blooming)…VERY CAREFULLY! Then I couldn’t figure out how to even get it out of the door without damaging the long leaves/stems! Seemed like every thing I did created more work…move plants out, get the pineapple plant out that I could hardly move so I could repot. Then I couldn’t get the plant out of the pot. It was horribly root bound. The pot had a water resevoir on the bottom that I had to remove. The roots were so tightly wound in that resevoir I finally had to break & cut it off the plant. Yes, I should have repotted it a couple of years ago but it never got done…always had it on my list to do BUT, it never made it to PRIORITY. I know I spent over an hour working on getting those roots loosened up so it could reestablish itself in a bigger pot. By the time I got all that done & got all the plants/trees BACK in the greenhouse (we are still having cool temps & a possible freeze coming this weekend & next weekend) so they HAD to be moved back inside. Most can’t withstand temps below 40(F).
Needless to say I found my coffee bean tree FULL of red coffee beans, the most it has EVER had but no time to pick them since I want to research what to do with them once picked and hope to plant some of the beans for more trees. So ANOTHER project to add to my list that wasn’t expected.
By now it is starting to get dark so I had to stop & put all my tools/supplies away…no potatoes or garlic got planted. This seems to be how my life goes daily. I have great & mighty plans to get so much done and something always comes up to just put me another day behind. I just can’t seem to get caught up. Yes, I’m frustrated because I just don’t have enough hours in the day to get it all done. I get to the point I can’t do anything but try to reprioritize things but that puts me off doing other things that need to be done also…like the coffee beans.
I’m heading out now to try to get the potatoes/garlic planted before the rain starts. Maybe I should research how to CLONE myself. At my age, I am slowing down and that also frustrates me. I’m not ready to get old…there is still so much I want to do especially knowing I’ve got more years BEHIND ME than I do in front of me.
Sorry, don’t mean to sound like I’m down in the dumps but I guess we all have our days when it finally reaches that point. I will do what I can, when I can and KEEP ON as best I can. Some things will just have to wait.
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Hello,
It sounds like you gave a lot going on. I just wanted to say, You’re Awesome! I’m 53 and we’re just getting started.
My husband works 2 jobs and helps when he can.
I help out a little with odd jobs and help take care of elderly relatives but we’re getting there.
Bless you and your Family and Stay Strong
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Thank you, Kim! It’s tough and just words of encouragement seem to help a bunch.
I blame a lot of the issues I’m having in getting so far behind on our crazy weather. Here we are normally much warmer than we have been this fall/winter and I get the big, laborious projects done when it isn’t so brutally hot/humid. It is either raining or too cool to freezing and my old arthritic bones don’t work well with the cold.
There is just so much going on in the country that I NEVER IN MY LIFE imagined would happen. I felt these days would eventually come but not in my lifetime. It is just a lot to think about HOW TO SURVIVE and get things done in order to do so in the much harder times coming. In our OLD NORMAL DAYS, things went fairly smoothly, and on schedule, and I could keep up, and even had time for new projects. Days lately I feel like I’m drowning just trying to keep up with daily chores knowing there is so much more that needs doing.
I’m praying once the weather gets better and springtime comes that I can get a little more pep in my steps and get more done. We are all faced with a lot and I know I’m not the only one going thru tough times but we’ve GOT TO KEEP GOING AND NOT EVER GIVE UP.
Blessings to you & your family. Life isn’t all bad and we can HOPE & PRAY it will get better! š-
Missed a lot o my, you could also write a book!
Hold on crazy chicken lady just kidding, you are not alone and we pray and send you love.
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I have been thinking of you a lot here lately, and I send my prayers. I wanted to share and not sure I have but sometimes we just get tired. I know from experience when I look at the whole picture in what I have to do and unfinished projectsā¦.. It can be overwhelming at times and then I tell myself. I must be tired and usually am and so I just get focus on one thin at a time and tell myself I am only one person and I am doing a great job for one. At times I back off of one project and do thing new or has to be done to kinda mix it up so itās not so routine and take sometime time to set down at times and watch a movie so my brain can rest. Lol well just food for thought, but I been thinking of you and I get it, but baby girl you got this!!! I canāt see my texting and canāt read it until itās posted so I hope this makes dice. I canāt figure out on my app to get it so I can see before sending
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Iām the cement that holds this place together too. I do all the inside stuff and a good part of the outside stuff. Iām a teacherās assistant. I get up at 0430 to be out the door by 0600. When I get home, I gather eggs and feed and water. Iām starting seeds and still getting the last of my Christmas decorations down (donāt judge š³) I try to run the canner a couple days a week on things that I harvested and put into the freezer over the harvest season. Iām planning to move more to the homestead giving us and income and less from me being off farm. My husband is disabled and our daughter, the last child at home, is getting school done. Itās vary hard work. Itās also very rewarding. Keep going you can do this!! ā¤ļø
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Iām make a list of things that need to get done. Iām sure many of you do the same. The weather was nice yesterday so I prepared my outbuildings for installing rain catchment systems. My parents live with me and had stuff barricading the walls and nailed āprettiesā everywhere. I tightened some of the boards as the nails had worked out. (Use screws for everything). It was not strenuous thank goodness but it felt good to draw a line through this to do.
I also repaired my deck floor.
Iām feeling accomplished one strike-through at a time.š
Itās hard sometimes being alone and living this life so give yourselves credit in your accomplishments.
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I do. I live by myself with my 4 dogs, and am building my place on what was raw land. It’s a good life, if you like being by yourself and working with your hands. I love it, but it wouldn’t be for everyone. I have plenty of friends, and these are 10 acre lots, so neighbors aren’t very far away. I would have liked to have gotten more land, but this is what I could afford, and really it’s plenty. There’s room for goats, chickens, a garden, etc. I’m still building, so I haven’t gotten set up well enough to have the chickens or goats yet. I did make a very small garden last summer — lots of squash, parsley, sunflowers and onions, and medicinal plants. Since I don’t have family close by or anyone living with me here, it’s pretty stress free! I’m 67.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by coyotech.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by
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Hang in there lady. Sounds like your doing very well.
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Count me in. My husband is a truck driver, working his tail off to finance my homestead dream. He helps when he can, but heās just not home often. This is my dream, so I am the one to execute it. I just take it slow and be kind to myself if it seems to take forever to finish a project.
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