Our First Year On This Homestead: His Thoughts
The first attempt at any great endeavor is a learning lesson.
This is the mental framing I tried to keep during the first year of our homestead experience. Admittedly, what complicated everything was the fact that this year was 2020… enough said, right?
We began our initial planning in the winter and had grand ideas for this year. We sat and had a lot of conversations about what we wanted to do and how we would go about doing it. Some of this was conducted in our “special awesome planning room” on our blackboard… with real chalk!
I won’t belabor all of our plans but let’s just say they changed. Not a ton, but they changed as the world around us did.
We planned for and broke ground in anticipation for establishing a CSA. We were super excited… then the world went to hell in a handbasket.
Our priorities shifted to making sure that we would be able to weather the storm of uncertainty but also make sure that we were able to learn a few things about homesteading.
In my mind, our main priorities were the following:
Emergency food storage
Garden prep
Chickens
Rabbits
Everything else, to me, would be a bonus.
In hindsight, we were able to successfully accomplish what we needed to ensure that we would survive a prolonged domestic emergency and are now well postured for the winter and what it may bring.
As soon as we started thinking of the implications of global and domestic destabilization, we emphasized making sure that we would not be standing in line for beans, bread, and water. No… we did not rush out and try to buy all the toilet paper we could find, we focused on shelf-stable foods that would ensure we would be able to consume a sustainable calorie intake should things go bad. Done.
In very early spring, we rented a BCS from Home Depot and tilled our garden beds. Two of them, each 100 feet x 30 feet and covered them with silage tarps. While we waited for the last frost, we started our seedlings and planned when we would transplant them with our Clyde’s Garden Planner (which we love and highly recommend you obtain). [CampFIRE Homesteading is not affiliated with Clyde’s in any way and makes no revenue by promoting their product.]
In any other year, we are sure this planner would have been spot on… but not in 2020.
We actually only ended up using one of our garden beds after we shifted or focus from CSA to self-reliance. I can honestly say that I am glad that we dialed back a bit because even one 100 x 30 foot garden is a lot of work!
The potatoes looked great… but the harvest left a lot to be desired…
We planted all the things and boasted a modest harvest. The important thing is that we learned a lot about how to negate weed and pest pressure for next year.
Our Zucchini harvest was pretty impressive and we love it!
In late winter, we purchased chicks! They are so cute and I really enjoyed raising them. In all honesty, they were easier to raise than we thought they would be. We learned about pasty butt and bumblefoot, both of which were pretty simple to deal with. As they grew older, we discussed how we should approach our chicken coop and we settled on just purchasing one that was available at a local farm supply store. However, we absolutely plan on building our next one now that we know what we need and how to best tend to chickens.
Chicks have to be the cutest little things in the world!
In early spring, we also acquired our rabbits and built a starter set up for our first year raising and breeding. Our first attempt at building rabbit pens was great! We learned a ton. Shortly after, we ended building a version 2 and the only reason it turned out so well is because we gained the experience of making some mistakes on our initial iteration.
After building version 2, we successfully bred our rabbits and are now raising two sets of kits that are well on their way to achieving harvest age and weight.
One of the other lessons we learned this year was that where you decide to homestead matters a lot!
I think most Americans would assume that Uncle Sam would be supportive of homesteading, right? Who would want to get in the way of people being more self-reliant? Well… let me tell you, not all States are created equal and based on what we learned about State and local laws/ordinances, we are looking to relocate to a State that is more supportive of homesteading.
All in all, 2020 was a success. We are in the arena, we are more battle-hardened, and we have learned a lot. The most important thing is that we have gained so much confidence for next year. We now know how to make homesteading life easier for ourselves and have identified where we have knowledge gaps that will need to be filled over the next several years.
Bring on 2021!!!…unless its a copy and paste of 2020.
