This past December our 12' x 32’ shed was delivered. This shed was made by Old Hickory buildings and it was custom ordered. As we have posted about what we are doing we’ve gotten a lot of questions about the process, the cost, the legality, etc. While I am not experts on this matter, I do have a good amount of insight into what you should consider before doing this yourself. 1. Is it legal to live in a shed where you live? Okay this one is more complicated because you will need to look at your states codes as well as the zoning specifically where you live. For most people living in a shed con ..read more

We recently moved onto 5 acres of raw land in the Upper Cumberland area of the Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee. We moved from the big city of Nashville to a tiny unincorporated town. We are converting a 12 X 32 shed into our home and building our homestead from scratch. We moved onto our land with zero utilities and now we thankfully have internet. We are staying in our friends' camper while we convert our shed into a home. We knew we were going to need a source of power before we have a chance to get our solar system set up, so I started researching portable generators. The information is ..read more

We are hoping to be able to have a garden this year but with all of the other massive off-grid projects we have going on, we aren’t sure how big of a garden we will have. However, last year on our urban homestead we started a massive garden and we grew 90% of it from seed. We came up with an inexpensive seed starting shelf system that worked really well for us. I came up with something that you could order online and have delivered straight to your door, and it's only two products that add up to under $100. For this project you will need: - Shelf - Lights - Scrap wood pieces - Yar ..read more

You’ve heard people saying going off grid is hard work and if you are seriously considering it like we were, you may think you’re ready for it. And you might be! Going off grid for us was a lot like hiking the John Muir Trail but hopefully with a better ending. We thought we were prepared. We researched and prepared for months. We planned everything out. We lasted a week on trail due to things we just couldn’t totally plan for- I have Type 1 diabetes and could not get my blood sugars under control. Savannah never really slept the entire time we were on trail. Being at a high altitude can caus ..read more

Today we are sharing our experience with getting a shed installed with Heartland Sheds. Full disclosure this shed was provided at no cost to us in return for our documenting the process on our blog and social media channels. As always all thoughts and opinions are our own. We have needed a shed for YEARS!!! A few years ago we had our old shed torn down with the intentions of having a new one built quickly afterwards. That clearly didn't happen but we finally got one and we are so excited!!  Let's talk about the process of having Heartland Sheds coming and build a shed for us. So when y ..read more

If you've gone to a garden center and spent $20 bazillion dollars on plant starts, you'll quickly understand the value of starting your own. If 2020 taught us anything, it's that nothing is certain anymore. I know that's a super depressing thought, but the reality is some of us couldn't even find toilet paper last year. Seed companies had their highest sales ever last year because all of these people became interested in growing their own food. You will save hundreds and maybe even thousands of dollars growing food from seed instead of buying plant starts. However, I know it can be overwhelmi ..read more

All of our seedlings are ready to be put in the ground. The only problem is that it's going to get down to 35 degrees and 37 degrees a few days this next week. Many of the flowers that we are growing need warm soil and 35 degrees ain't gonna cut it. So we made the decision to re-pot almost 200 plants. The only problem? We don't have that many pots! I've seen people make newspaper pots, and while that is interesting to me, we don't have any newspapers sitting around the house. We do have a stack of magazines and catalogs though. So I figured out how to make a BUNCH of pots out of our magazin ..read more

It's the middle of winter, and everything is dead. Well almost. If it's alive, the chickens have eaten it. We are still working on making the chicken coop and run the most entertaining place it can be for them, but we felt like they still need something more. Then we discovered fodder. Fodder is something used on farms and homesteads all around to feed livestock. It can be made at home from many different things- wheat, peas, barley, oats, etc. It grows fast and provides a very cheap treat for your farm animals. I first searched high and low for a huge bag of barley, but in the end our suppl ..read more

We recently had to add another feature to our chicken coop, as our chickens were not using both laying boxes. I've watched a couple chickens act like they can't get into one of the boxes, even though I have seen a few of the others jump up in there from the ground. Our other box has a roost near it for easy access. And that's the one where we kept finding all the eggs. So we decided to add a ladder that would provide not only easy access, but also a couple extra roosting spots. Have I ever seen a chicken on the ladder? No. Are they laying eggs in that box again? Yes. Slowly, but surely. For ..read more

In Mid November 2020 we took a 3 week long trip across the country and visited 13 different national parks for my (Casey's) 40th birthday. We traveled with our 2 dogs, Hazel (cockapoo) and Johnny Rose (yes named after Schitt's Creek, a cavalier/bichon mix rescue). We live in Nashville and drove to Texas to deliver stock tanks (this is our other business. Check it out at www.stocktankpoolauthority.com). We left from Austin and drove down to Terlingua, TX in our 1996 GMC 3500 Vandura van, named Birdie. We literally finished converting this van after we arrived in Austin while we were stayi ..read more