Dang! You are in full knowledge absorption mode! You are going to be writing your own homesteading books before long, I will be first in line to buy the orchard one lol!
WSU is Washington State University (we are really close to Washington up here in the Idaho panhandle), and the university ag extension offices up here run master gardeners and beekeeping certification programs. If I remember right, my journeyman beekeeper class was like 9 weeks. I learned a ton, and the teacher worked out a smoking deal with a bee supplier so we were able to purchase nuc boxes at below market rate for our first hives. (This was quite a few years ago, but I am sure the programs are still around, I see the extension bee keeping folks at the state fair every year with their educational exhibit).
I love bees! My neighbor has hives so I don't have to keep any right now, with the kids being in high school I am running around a bit more than I like, so I will hive some girls once the chaos dies down a bit. And your future grown up orchard is going to love them!
Ahh, Cornish X. They are something aren't they? I ran a pastured poultry operation for a few years here on the farm, and while it was a huge and semi-profitable learning experience, I'm glad I don't do that anymore, lol! One time my grandpa fed 25 Cornish X's 110 pounds of feed in 48 hours when I was gone. He said they always, looked hungry...sigh...
Rabbits are just solid gold! The manure alone is worth keeping them, but production value alone makes them awesome. I am a bit on the lazy side though, and really enjoy pigs as far as an input/yield ratio goes. It's probably because I have a pig barn with automatic waterers/ feeders, and pasture for them to nibble on.
Seriously can't wait to see more posts on all that you are working on!
PIGGUMS 💚
My favorite critters so far. God, I love pork. Hey, check this out.
Home cured mangalitsa bacon. ETA: two weeksish.
I'm about to be hosting my friend's pigs while we build him a place to house them at his new property.
Writing a book would be cool, but writing a blog is a lot more convenient and allows me more time to do things. Is there a way to do affiliate links on Hive? That'd be really cool, but IDK much about marketing and such. Weeding, seeding, feeding, and breeding is the easy part, but somehow you gotta convince someone to pay you for all of it... Pointers appreciated 🤣
Aaah! Look at that lovely, gloriously marbled hunk of yummy!
You know what's hilarious? I have made far more money by letting people stay on the farm than from what I produce off of it. These days I am full into subsistence farming, just producing for my family and friends glorious food as sustainably as I possibly can. At the same time, we have a bit of a housing/rv spot availability crisis here because everyone and their cousins are moving to Idaho, so having paying visitors come and enjoy the farm has helped out a lot.
Part of my problem when I commercially produced things off the farm was that most consumers aren't prepared to pay what you have to charge for anything just to break even. Things have gotten better on that front for sure, because you are right, compared to marketing, finding your niche, etc, the production aspect really is the easy part lol.
I have no doubt you are going to crush it though, I mean, look at that mangalista chunk!!!