TheBar1 Homestead- From a sword to a plowshare

Well I have been reading my rear end off doing research for the homestead so today I am going to talk about a couple of the books I read or am in the process of reading if I may. The first is Storey’s Guide to Raising Rabbits by Bob Bennett.  To be honest it was kind of hard to get by the first chapter, while the information is good the author comes across as condescending stating a lot of opinions (which granted at backed up with over 50 years of experience) and presenting them as facts.  He comes off as a such a breed snob to the point I had to do research to see if he was a president of some breed association or something.  The book really should be call Storey’s Guide to Commercially Raising Rabbits.  Mr. Bennett, looks at everything through a commercial lens, and that is not really what I want to do, but he assumes that is the only reason to raise rabbits, to make money on them.  The book is not really all that useful for what I am looking at, he d...

  Perennial Wooded Garden What is a perennial wooded garden?   A perennial wooded garden is known by other names such as a survival garden or hidden food plot or permaculture.  A perennial wooded garden is not  as much a garden as we see it with its organized rows but more of an organized chaos.  The main focus of the perennial wooded garden is the one time planting of trees, shrubs, vegetables and herbs that continue to grow and produce year after year with little to no human input.  It is much as it would grow in the wild with the exception that we plant it where it will most compliment or benefit the other plans in your gardens yet it maintains it natural chaotic appearance rather than in neat orderly rows. Rick Austin is the person who I am basing most of this idea on.  I recently listened to a web seminar that he was a part of and just ordered his book “ Secret Garden of Survival: How to grow a camouflaged food- forest. ” Which is wh...

Pre serving Food Other than figuring out how I am going to harvest grain, preserving food is probably the thing that intimidates me most next.  In order to be as self-sufficient as possible in a northern environment I need to be able to preserve food for year round usage.  When you talk about butchering a whole pig or cow, let’s face it, that is a lot of meat.  Freezing it all is just not an option when you also want to put some veggies (like corn on the cob) in there as well as some poultry and a rabbit or two!  Not to mention you need to have a backup plan if electricity is lost for an extended amount of time.  This week I am signed up for a web seminar called “Beyond Off Grid Summit” that will have many classes including one on canning and one on traditional food preservation.  For those interested the web site is http://beyondoffgrid.com/summit (and it is free)There are three types of food preservation/storage I plan to practice (other than standa...

Well it has been a fairly busy week this week and plans are starting to solidify even more.  Until this week we had played with the idea of staying in the Military for one more tour, I had been nominated for a follow on tour with the Defense Attaché Service and I had been offered an opportunity to go to Ottawa Canada for my next tour.  This would have pushed my homestead plans back three years but would have been close enough for us to work on the property and get on a little stronger financial footing before making the leap. On the other hand, it would have put me at 50 before starting my homestead adventure.  This week the choice was taken out of our hands as my functional branch in the army (Finance) declined to let me stay with the attaché service, they wanted me back with Big Army.  Meaning after this tour in Jordan I would go where ever the army needed me.  Often in the Army we say we know when it is time to go, when to retire and hang up the uniform,...

Well, this post will be a little different as it is more about ideas rather then a concrete plan.  We currently have a small stock pond on the property, only about 1/10th of an acre in size, so when I say small I mean small.  The pond is spring feed (although I could not give any of the details on that, just know it stays about the same water level).   My hopes for this small pond however are much grander then it current size will support!  Let me list what we want this pond to be able to support and then what I am thinking, hopefully you some of you will have some experience in this and can give me some more input on feasibility. 1.  Need to be able to run water from the pond to livestock grazing areas, year round. 2.  Needs to be able to support farm geese and ducks with their needs to include reproduction 3.  Be able to support some wildlife without becoming fouled. (not thinking wild waterfowl) 4.  Would like the pond to be big enough to ...

This weeks research has been on what other trees I need to plant on the homestead, earlier I went into some of the fruit and nut trees I was thinking about but I would like to get a little more variety out there as well.  When I walked through the property a couple of months ago most of the woodland on the property was poplar.    While poplar can make a decent forage and it is fast growing it is not much good as a building material   and as fire wood it burns hot but very fast, you are constantly having to put more in!  There is three additional types of trees I am thinking of planting other the the fruit and nut trees mentioned earlier. Maple Trees I am thinking of planting a variety of Maple trees, a 6-7 sugar maples, 2-3 red maples and 2-3 silver maples.  I have to admit the idea of making our own maple syrup does intrigue me and gives me something to do in February!   Terri loves the color change of the leaves  and as they grow they will pr...

Well after thinking about it long and hard  if I really wanted to add another piece to this complex jigsaw puzzle of my homestead I have decided to add Rabbits to the homestead but not in the typical way you think of rabbits on a homestead, in elevated cages with chickens feeding below them but in a separate colony set up.   The potential of setting them up in the Colony is the only reason I decided to go this route, just like I do not like the idea of chickens spending their whole lives in a small cage I feel the same way about the rabbits.  A little more about the colony set up a little later in the post. I have spent  the last couple weeks spending alot of time on two Facebook groups, Backyard Meat Rabbits and Rabbits in Colonies.  These two sites have educated me, gave me confidence in taking this route, and at the same time intimidating the hell out of me!  These two sites have such a wealth of knowledge and so much experience in raising rabbits, ...