Homesteading FAIL! Don't do this!

The Lazy Farmer...doesn't work, in more ways than one!

A question came around on a Facebook Page that was asking for advice on how to start Homesteading on their new property. I, of course, thought my answer was brilliant as I have been doing this for a few years now. 

     Year One...Season One...#1 Watch a ton of YouTube videos on homesteaders who have been doing this for years and years...also Pinterest...beautiful Farms and Gardens...Get Inspired by little actual information but inspiring end results. #2 Get 8 chicks even though you have never been around chickens and don't know what the heck you are doing...put them in a plastic crate in your house unaware at how fast they grow...what they smell like and Do Not...I repeat...Do NOT have a coop ready for them when you buy them.  When you realize that they must get out of the house...Scramble like mad and build a coop. Talk about hustling and NOW building when we had never built anything before and had no plans...I mean I figure it was a square box with a triangle roof...right? #3 Turn over 4000 Square feet for a garden...get tons of Wood Chips delivered from a tree company...Envision a glorious garden filled with Vegetables, melons, Weedless...flowers interspersed etc. Oh yeah...and while you are at it buy more blueberry bushes, fig trees and raspberries to add to the menagerie you have been putting in, (but not taking care of) since you moved in. Now...Let most of that hard work lie fallow because you couldn't get to it...don't cover it though to prevent weeds...let all the weeds and wire grass grow through it all. Don't spread most of the wood chips so that the red ants can invade the piles so much that even the chickens won't go near them. #4 Over Plant EVERYTHING,,,but mostly tomatoes...90 plants...and then never take the time to stake them so they are laying in the dirt and get Early Blight...Lose 90 plants!! Free Range Chickens Find Corn and eat every last cob...which obviously you didn't know because you hadn't been in that planted field for a month. They also found your cantaloupe and watermelon and pecked through the rind and ate the insides.  #5 And then...in the Early spring while planting is going on and you are rejoicing because of your first egg...Buy 2 Bee hives...and the first winter let one hive die because you didn't treat it for Mites...or maybe it was because it got too cold to go out and make sure that they have sugar water to eat...and the other hive somehow miraculously survived.  #6 OVERBUY seeds in the winter when all those pretty Seed Catalogs you signed up for come in and THEN miss the time frame you were supposed to start them to be ready for transplanting and have to buy transplants anyway. Oh...and make sure that you put the seeds that you did start in front of a window that has that whole UVA/UVB protection so that they sprout but die from lack of sunlight. #7 Decide that although you have failed at so much you should try to grow citrus in NW Georgia...so you buy 4 trees...then the frost warning comes and you are scrambling to put up some sort of Hoop House which again...lots of $$$ spent without really having a solid plan. So 3 trees are severely damaged by the cold and one dies....You put a house heater that burns out a plug outside running all winter and almost starts a fire and spend $$ on Electricity trying to heat something that is basically like heating a room with all the windows open and a fan in the windows blowing cold air in. 

I wish I could say that this is exaggeration. I wish I could say that I was smarter than this, not as lazy as I was. But...Farming takes constant work. There is always something to fix...something to build...someone to feed...cleaning up and out...planting, harvesting, canning and preserving.  I could easily work an 8 hour day outside and sometimes actually do just that. But then there is the housework, and cooking dinners, and laundry etc. to do. So, My advice...do one thing at a time. or very small at a time. Build a coop and run, or buy...but have a plan...have a small garden of easy vegetables. Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers. Be committed to water what you plant and to weed!! Get 2 chickens...If you want to raise them from chicks, fine...read something about how to go about doing that. The Library is full of books so that is one thing you don't have to spend money on. You will eventually get where you want to be...or decide that you don't want to be that vested in it. At least you will not have spent all your money and need to keep going just to get a Return on Your Investment (ROI) 

Guinea Fowl Needs Friends...so I gave him a mirror

I am trying to speak softly in the video...and hiding behind a chair...You can tell the attention leaves the mirror when he hears my voice. Anyway, I was keeping my chickens in the coop and run after they had used my freshly planted Garden as a dust bath...undoing the entire thing. I had 4 Guinea at one time that were raised with chicks...so they acted like chickens...they went in the coop to roost, stayed with the flock etc. The problem was that He is the Alpha bird...not the Rooster...Because he is mean!! He Loves using that kidney bean comb to ram the chickens and in the Rooster in the back side when they aren't paying attention...he also loves grabbing tail feathers and pulling them out. He COULD NOT stay in the run with these guys...there were feathers everywhere...he ate most of the food...he chased them constantly and rammed with his comb at every opportunity. So, we caught him and let him free range. I originally got these to eat bugs in the yard anyway so he was needing to fulfill his purpose. He is the only one left of 4...and they Guineas usually are in a flock. So sadly...he is lonely. He still sits next to the coop most of the day. When my daughter's cars in the driveway he sits with what ever car is there...and pecks at it. I realized it was because he saw his reflection and thought these were guinea friends. I found a broken mirror in the barn...taped up any dangerous parts with Duct tape and flip the mirror so the broken side would be up and stuck in near the coop. Just as I thought about his reflection he hung out near the mirror most of the day. He even tried to chase it head on to show the guy in the mirror who was boss...but he gave up that idea when the Mirror guinea was trying to ram him at the same time. Stupid Bird!! Anyway...I know I will be getting Keets (baby Guineas) so that they can grow up for him to bully but he will also have others of his kind. These are the ugliest, silliest looking birds and watching them run just has to make you laugh. Louder than any other bird on the planet also...but it doesn't bother me. He sounds the alarm and everyone pays attention...a lot of times it is absolutely nothing but he has the whole hen house going with him...squawking, crowing and basically a vocal Mayhem.

Autumn Homestead...Farm...Our Place...update Part 1

      Here is my Autumn Update from around the ...hmmm...what do I call it? Homestead? Small Farm? How about "Our Place" that is morphing into much more than a place we live?
      So, I watched my video from September 2016 and I have to say that things look much better than just a year ago. We finished the addition to the chicken coop and put a shingled roof on that side...except we did not have a solid enough foundation for the weight of that type of a roof so We need to figure something out. We have house jacks under it now but that isn't really a solid and permanent solution. I am thinking Cinder blocks and make a real foundation for it. It needs something. My Grandsons painted it for me. I just bought whatever paint was on clearance for mis-colored...so it is pink. I am thinking of getting my granddaughters to paint flowers on it...they are both 6 and I think that they would love to do some art work on it...definitely this Spring. Let's see...I sold what was left of the original hens as they were 2 years old in September. There were only 4 of them left. 7-8 months ago I bought 8 Buff Orpington Chicks and now they are laying like crazy! I think these are my favorites. 2 of my 3 Comets went broody...didn't hatch a thing...they don't stay on the nest if they hear everyone else eating outside. But, they wouldn't stop going back and sitting on those spoiled eggs and I couldn't get them over their broodiness. One got over it when one of the eggs exploded under her...LOLOL. She abandoned the whole idea and deserted the nest and I got to clean up that. The other one I decided was going to go the same way so I went to the local Farmers Supply and bought whatever they had in chicks so she is now mothering 4 Rhode Island Reds. I guess I am back to the same number of chickens. Oh well...20 sounds good. As I said in the video, we grounded the chickens because they destroyed a newly planted garden...but we kicked out the Guinea to free range as he was plucking everyone bald. Such a mean old bird...but I think he is lonely. When my daughters are home he hangs out at their nice new cars and looks at his reflection...pecks at it and basically doesn't move far from the cars. I know that if I see Keets for sale I will be a sucker and buy a few so he will have company.
    Bees are ready for winter. They have been treated for Varroa mites. We refilled the Hive Beetle traps with oil. They have a super of honey...sugar water...pollen patties and there are a ton of them. It has been summer weather so we don't have to worry about their numbers quite yet. We got a total of  85 lbs of honey. We gave some of it back to them for the winter. But although we weren't really on top of them all season I still think that is pretty good. I am happy with it.
  That's it for now...Part 2 coming