Our time has come for a reset on our homestead and to start making the improvements we desperately need, system by system. Seven years after we moved onto our wooded lot, we are still putting basic things together. This is frustrating and I feel like we have not accomplished much. Realistically, a lot has been done and we have accomplished a massive amount of work. However, I feel like everything is scattered and hectic, and too much time is spent putting out “fires.” We need to get the basic systems of the homestead built well and working efficiently. The Early Days The Plan The items I am co ..read more

I always need another garden bed, but my goal this year is to work really hard on getting enough production from the garden that I can put away a decent amount of food. In the past, I have done some pickling, canning, and fermenting, but no large amount of food from my garden has ever really been put away to eat over the winter. The squash I grow usually store for a while in cool storage, but the kids will only eat so much squash. I need more options of food that I store, which means I need to grow more, and have better garden beds. I also get to help two kids build their very own garden beds ..read more

My goal this year is to work really hard on getting enough production from the garden that I can put away a decent amount of food. In the past, I have done some pickling, canning, and fermenting, but no large amount of food from my garden has ever really been put away to eat over the winter. The squash I grow usually store for a while in cool storage, but the kids will only eat so much squash. I need more options of food that I store, which means I need to grow more. I also get to help two kids build their very own garden beds in between this new garden trench. I’m thrilled the kids asked for ..read more

While drinking my coffee one morning, I realized that my tiny house was overrun by seedlings that weren’t getting enough sun. I had no choice, really, but I didn’t have the funding for a greenhouse. I did some scrounging and found and old roll of plastic sheeting and I had some 2x4s laying around for a project I hadn’t gotten to yet. I even have a platform for an addition on the house that we won’t get to for a while. So let’s throw a greenhouse together. First I screwed a couple short pieces of 2×4 together to make a right angle to use as a jig along with some clamps. The top and the bottom ..read more

The homestead is growing and changing, so the blog will be too. With the kids getting older and more interested in everything going on, I don’t have time to write worthwhile posts much these days. However, Homestead Houligan will continue on. It isn’t that I will never blog again, but for now, the blog will be all by video. I am greatly enjoying learning to film everything going on around here in order to share what is going on around here, and I hope you will too. The first video channel is the homestead channel. Right now there are landscaping and wild critter videos on t ..read more

The first step for the addition is to flatten the area, as I have mentioned before. However, the steps are overlapping here for us a lot. There are a few steps that are close to done as well, but the flattening is all done. There were stumps and Rocks all along the way. Everything dug by hand. Only some help from the chainsaw on the stumps. The final stump was the worst. We had to chunk it up with a chainsaw and leave pieces. This may cause problems in a few years when it rots. Either way, it’s flat. Now to move more rocks to finish the foundation. Flat on both sides! Share This ..read more

The first area that I will be adding will be the water room. The rain barrels will be set up here, and so the sink will be nearby, and the next room over will be the bathroom. They need to be close for water access and for grey water drainage. There will eventually be a green house area that the grey water will run through and keep watered. This stump is in the middle of the first area to be cleared. We got a few more rocks to add to the walls while getting this stump out. The kids collected the well composted “stump dirt” and added it to their gardens. I placed a few rocks nearby to show h ..read more

The ground is just thawed and dry enough to get in some digging on the sunnier days. I have a lot of digging ahead of me, and I have to take all the time I can get. An addition will be put on the house, including an up grade to the outdoor kitchen, and a bigger rainwater system. This is the area behind the house where the South side of the addition will be. The rain barrels will be set up closer to the outdoor kitchen, and uphill as far as possible to use gravity feed for the water system. I started digging out the part of the foundation at the lowest point of the hill. I need to dig down en ..read more

Filtering water is obviously very important. We started out with a Berkey water filter as it was the best one we could find. Six years later, we still use it, but want to make the routine a little smoother. The water that goes into this filter has to be clear or the filters clog faster. A t-shirt stretched over a bucket as a pre filter only works so well. The water for dishes and showers also has to be filtered so it’s not full of leaves, this water doesn’t go through the drinking water filter. We decided to build a sand filter. This type of filter can be used for drinking water if you use ch ..read more

Part of the idea of us living on this homestead is that we be able to feed ourselves without much money. We aren’t yet to the point where we produce alot of our own food, so we need to learn to eat basics on a budget. Flour has proven to be a cheap ingredient that we can make a wide variety of healthy meals with. Most of these meals are bread based, with numerous add-ins from vegetables to chocolate. You just have to know what you have and what it can do for your bread. Download recipe cards for Basic and Cheeseburger Bread Blobs: Free Download I just want to be sure that I add in th ..read more