Preparing for the Move, part 1

I’ve been silent around here for a while because our house finally sold and we are preparing for the big move.

I wish there was a rambling, broken-down house on the farm in which to move into but alas, there’s not.  In the time we’ve had the land, we’ve built a tool shed and brought in our small camper but that’s not enough space to house 4 people, 2 dogs, 1 cat, and a house-full of stuff for an indefinite amount of time.

To do that, we need something bigger, preferably with a bathroom.  And washing machine.

In mid-March, we began building a post-and-beam building that’s 16′x24′.  It has one big room and one smaller one–the bathroom/laundry/utility space.  We’ve only had weekends in which to work on this project and little money.  We needed to be able to do EVERYTHING our selves and keep the costs low.  All these considerations played into the style and size of the building we’ve tackled.

The top photo shows the cleared space, marked corners, and a stadia rod for taking a level.  That’s my  Mom.  Did I say the labor consisted of the husband, both sets of parents, and the occasional brother and children?  We are a motley crew but a few of us have building experience, which I quickly found out you need if you are going to get a building up in a short amount of time.

The next photo shows all the edge and corner posts in place.  We’ve leveled them with a sighting level on a tripod (against the stadia rod) but needed to top off a few because we were not consistent with the depth of our holes.  The chainsaw came in handy for this.

Know that with post-and-beam construction, level is going to be a relative term.  The first rain after we set these poles caused some settling.  We didn’t get too far out of level but even a quarter of an inch seems to multiply as you go up.  We’ve had to make some adjustments to keep things straight.  But more on that  in future posts.

I’ll show you the next step in putting up a building like this in part 2.

If you have questions, be sure to ask!  Click on the photos to enlarge them.

So you want to Homestead?

There are a lot of books out there to help you as you get started with a homestead, whether that be an urban one or one out on 5, 10, or 50 acres.  How to find a good advice book without having to read through them all?

That’s a good question, and I wish I had a simple answer to it.  Instead, I’ve looked through dozens of such books.  Some of which provided good information but most proved to just skim the surface on too many topics without giving any depth of information on anything.

If you read into the literature at all, you’ll encounter multiple references to Helen and Scott Nearing, the couple who really kicked off the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s.  The Nearings homesteaded in Vermont and Maine and took frugal living beyond being a virtue.  The couple aimed to only have to work for their “bread” six months of the year, taking the other six months off to pursue their interests and hobbies.  How did they achieve this?  It seems, from reading The Good Life, that they were able to live on so little cash by raising most of their own food, buying virtually nothing, and using sweat equity for everything else.  They practiced abstinence from meat, alcohol, tobacco, and most merry-making.  In fact, they described their life-outlook as being focused on the “earnestness” of life and considered frivolity a waste of time.

So is The Good Life something to read if you’re thinking about homesteading?  Well, no.  You’re not going to get a lot of good advice on the basics.  Of course, if you want to read about the merits of building your own house of stone, or creating a stone-wall around a garden, or how you should eat vegetarian-style in wooden bowls with chopsticks, this might be the book for you.

This is more of a manifesto for living an austere life, a life based around the precepts of arguing against capitalism with every daily choice.  And in that sense, the book is quite good.  But if you aren’t writing a thesis on the evolution of the protest against capitalism in America, you’re better off with a different guide.

But two of the Nearing’s disciples, George Nash and Jane Waterman, have written an excellent overview to homesteading.  This book covers all the basics but does so with enough depth that you could go out and actually DO some of the things they cover.  Homesteading in the 21st Century:  How One Family Created a More Sustainable, Self-Sufficient, and Satisfying Life.  There’s a lot more basic instruction in this book and less morality. I was able to read Nash and Waterman without feeling a tinge of guilt, which plagued me through the Nearing’s writings.

Plus, you gotta love folks who maintain a farm blog called:  suicide by homesteading!  

 

Urban Homesteading with Novella Carpenter

Ever wonder about how you’d feel killing and processing a pig or rabbit in the middle of the city?  Novella Carpenter will give you the lowdown–She runs Ghost Town Farm and has recently written a book about farming in the city.  It’s called “Farm City.”

Check her out in the video, on her blog, and her book.

First post in a while

Hello all–sorry to be so long in posting.  I’ve been keeping up the main blog this summer but have slacked off here for a couple of reasons.  Super busy with work, writing, traveling, etc., but also because we’ve had some changes happen on the homesteading front . . .

by that I mean that I think we’re going to make our dream of homesteading in the country (versus in suburbia) real sooner than I imagined.

J’s family has a farm in the middle of no-where (ok, it’s actually 40 miles east of Abilene and that puts it squat in the middle of the Texas plains) and we’re going to purchase about 10 acres of the 130.  We’ll own that small piece but then work the rest.  We’re stuck in the legal quagmire (not to mention financial) of making this a reality  but I hope to have more news soon. 

If this happens, I hope to use the blog to document the process and my lack of homesteading skills.  That, at least, should be worth a few laughs.  Will keep all posted!

Boggy Creek Farm, Austin, Texas

How would you like to homestead 5 acres in the middle of the Texas state capital?  That’s what the folks at Boggy Creek Farm have been doing for several years–and doing it profitably.  I finally had a chance to visit the farm this past weekend, and I’m smitten.  I love this idea that I could go to the market they hold and choose my produce as it is being hauled in directly from the fields out back.

Front fields at Boggy Creek Farm

The farm is located about 2 1/2 miles East of downtown at 3414 Lyons Road and operates a market on-site from 9 to 1 on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.  Get there early!  By the time I arrived at 10, most everything was already picked through.  All strawberries were gone–it was a bad year for berries because of the drought, and they aren’t harvesting many.  But the farm fresh eggs were gone already, too.  Teach me to not get up and around sooner.

the local hen population

I love this idea of urban homesteading to the Nth degree.  Why just stop with supporting yourself locally when you can also support others?  Maybe even expand into a local trade/swap.  If neighbors were to convert their yards to farms, too, then they could specialize in particular fruits and vegetables and market them at the larger farm–or trade with the larger farm for things they couldn’t easily grown themselves (because of space issues) — like corn or sorghum.  Why aren’t more communities demanding such urban farms?  Why aren’t we all contributing to the purchase and support of local farms?  I’d love one to go in here in Denton.  Heck, I’d even run the place but how to get five acres in town?  And this is Denton, for goodness sakes, not Austin.  The real estate should be cheaper here but the last couple of sizable chunks of land I priced in Denton were going for the $2 million plus range.  And NO farmer can afford that for a handful of acres.  It would take a real commitment from our community to create urban farms.

the farm house at Boggy Creek