Lately I have been reading alot about being self sustained. In almost every article I have read I take little bits from each of them. Right now we are in limbo with our life. What do I mean with limbo you may ask? Well we are selling our business and actually we may even have a buyer as I speak. When the business sells we have one year to get restarted at our new place of residence or we lose close to 200,000 dollars Canadian to the government. If we get our business up and running within that time frame we can slowly get it back over the next few years. I'm not too sure what exactly that means all I know it is in our best interest to get the business up running asap. So why does all this affect us being self sustainable? It means I only have one more year in this homestead. Knowing this I don't just want to wait till next year to do things so I have decided I am going to continue doing the little things that I can handle right now. Anything I do is short termed so I looked into what I can do and this is what my plans are:
Gardening- I planted my garden this week with things I plan on using over the winter. Lots of tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, peas, beans, zucchinis, and pumpkins. I also planted short term crops to use this summer like fresh lettuce. I added to my berries by planting 10 blue berry plants which I can dig up and take with me when I go. I also have strawberries, raspberries, and black berries. I'm hoping my grapevines will produce this year. I planted them three years ago and nothing yet. Knowing my luck it will be a huge crop just in time for us to move. Definitely got to look into how I can take them with me.
Laying chickens-I continue to grow my flock by allowing my broody chickens to have a few eggs to hatch. I'm only allowing my serious hens to have this privilege. I don't want to have a repeat of last time. The rest of eggs I sell or I incubate to sell chicks. With all the predators around people are always looking for new chicks.
Meat chickens-I am doing Freedom Rangers chickens. I refuse to have the ones that grow so fast they become deformed, and drop dead because their hearts can't keep up to the growth. I know I am going to be eating them but the twelve weeks I have with them will the best most humane happy weeks a chicken can know. I already told my daughter who is a bigger softie than me to not get attached. We have our laying hens to get attached to and play with.
Turkeys-I just lost one today but I still am raising four turkeys for thanksgiving and Christmas. I hope to keep a tom and a lady for my future breeding stock.
Cooking from scratch- I am the most horrible person to go and buy convenience foods when I'm tired or don't want to cook. My goal is to stop buying pre-packaged stuff including bread and I am going to make my own food, sauces, mixes by myself. I personally think this will be the hardest one for me considering I hate to meal plan because I suck with ideas. I don't mind cooking its just the planning.
Canning- I plan to can my garden produce and all my fruits from my fruit trees that I get. I also plan to buy the fruit that is in season that I can't grow and put it away for the winter months for when I'm craving something different.
Make my own bread- I know I said it before but this time I am serious. I am starting a sour dough recipe so I can really cook from scratch. I'll share the recipe once I know which one I am going to use.
Drying my foods- My kids were amazing this mothers day and bought me a Cabellas 10 tray dehydrator so I plan on making my own dried fruit snacks, fruit roll ups and of course beef jerky.
Conserving energy- I plan on only using my clothesline for drying. If it's raining I won't wash clothes. I also will try to get my family to use less energy by shutting off lights and only using the lights we need.
I think with doing what I had mentioned will be a good start to living self sustained. It will keep me busy and will ready me to take on bigger and better tasks in the future.
Where are all of the replies to this great post? I respect your need to hurry once you get your place sold and move to a new one. I hope you have some good help waiting in the wings because you have some pretty lofty goals. I have a hard time keeping up with just the chickens, but then singing and talking to them does hinder me from accomplishing other goals. Best wishes. 🐓🐓
Thank you so much for your support. I have four kids who definetely help even on the days they really don't want to. They have the same opinion as I do about being self sustainable for their own reasons. My husband is extremely supportive and helps in the more difficult areas. I also lose myself talking to my chickens and those are the days I don't get as much done. But I find hanging with the animals so peaceful and good for my soul. Take care and thanks again.
Awesome post! I think you have a very full plate for this year. They are pretty high goal posts so don't get discouraged if things don't work out quite the way you expect. I wish you every success on your journey.
Thanks for the warning and I will try not to be too hard on myself. When I wrote out my list I decided to go slow if you could see my wish list you would shake your head and say slow down girl. Thanks for reading and supporting me I will do the same for you.
Thank you, @jolly-homestead!
Gardening is awesome! My stress reliver!
It sure is. Have fun gardening. Thanks for reading
Great goals! I must say homesteading is not for the fainthearted. We have so many dreams and then the daily and unplanned always get in the way. Self sustainability is a great aspiration but it is easy to get overwhelmed. Baby steps. And I'm sure before you know it you'll be leaps and bounds from where you are.
thanks for the advice I always need to hear wise encouraging words. Thanks for reading my post.
We can encourage each other @jolly-homestead. Just reading about your one goal being the sourdough bread makes me think I need to get back to doing that again. I tagged you in my last Gratitude post by the way ;)
Thank you so much I plan on starting the sour dough tomorrow. And yes I will definetely encourage you. Thanks for tagging me in the gratitude post. I plan to partake