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The Next Chapter

Well, I am about three years from retirement and we (Terri and myself) have decided it is time to prepare for when we get out and have decided that we (this part is mostly myself) will start up a homestead near her parents in the Crookston, Mn area.  Her parents have agreed to give us some land to put the homestead on.  The USDA has a lot of programs out there to help a Veteran Farmer get started with much more potential help then I ever imagined for what I planned on doing anyway.

My vision for the homestead is to create a homestead that will produce a majority of what we need for ourselves, close family and our livestock with enough left over to cover the basic expenses of the homestead.  All while doing it in a organic and environmental sustainable manner (rotational grazing, rotational crops, pasture feed livestock)

My initial plan (and this is initial, sure it will change) is to start with 4 pigs (three breeder and one feeder, more on this later), a hand full of cattle (again more on this soon), and about 50 baby chicks (more again later).  I foresee about 15 acres in crops, 5 acres in dent corn (feed), 5 in alfalfa(Cattle protein), 3 in beans (probably chick peas for chicken and pig protein) and 2 in mixed veggies.  In addition we will also have various nut and fruit trees that will serve multiple purposes such as wind/snow breaks, food for us and the excess going towards animal feed. Well this is the first blog! We will see where it goes from here!

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