One of my favorite Youtube homesteaders, Justin Rhodes, often says that working on your farm each day, getting better just 1% at a time, eventually leads to big results.  After a tiny trial run last year with the garden, we’re excited to ramp up our efforts. But how intimidating! How overwhelming! We don’t know what we’re doing! But as another favorite, Joel Salatin, says: You can’t Google experience.  So we’re jumping in!

Because I love a challenge, we are committing to 100 days (with Sundays off) of intentionally working on our homestead.  We officially started on March 10, the day our first batch of broiler chicks arrived.  I want to document these days for accountability as well as a way to tangibly see the progress we make.  Here are a few of the highlights from the first 30 days (March 10 to April 13):

+ The chicks arrived a day early and we were not prepared!  We had set up the wire play pens in the garage, but I hadn’t finished securing them before excited children started dipping beaks in the water and letting the chicks free.  The scene was seriously out of an I Love Lucy episode: some of us were trying to tape cardboard boxes around the outside, kids were dipping beaks, chicks were easily pushing themselves through the wire and running free through the garage.  It was chaos, but we can laugh about it now.

+ We fixed the garden door and gave the whole fence a fresh coat of paint.

+ We learned so much about chick care: dealing with pasty butt (so gross), adding a little apple cider vinegar to their water once a week, and being in complete awe of how much little chicks can eat!  We learned that you should lift feeders and waterers up on blocks (thank you, Rosie!) and that they go crazy for salad scraps.

+ We transplanted broccoli, brussels sprouts and two types of cabbage from seedlings started under the grow light.  I also direct sowed a few types of lettuce, spinach, carrots, onion starts and peas.

+ We started a bunch of flower seeds indoors.

+ Mark and I went on a quick date to the garden center and came home with two more blueberry plants, a lavender and a rosemary.  I’m thankful we have tons of seeds because those plants are not cheap!

+ We tilled two in-ground beds and filled them with compost.  They looked so beautiful and pure!  We then promptly “ruined” one of them by trenching three rows and planting two types of potatoes.  We had horrible luck with potatoes last year, so we followed these directions this time.  Praying for better results!

+ The kids helped me set up the new squash tunnel.  It’s huge!

+ Mark and the older boys built moveable tractors to keep the broilers on pasture.  (I painted them so they’d be functional and a bit more pretty.)  We moved them out on April 6 and the chickens seemed so happy to be out in the fresh air.  We planned to electrify a line around the bottom of the tractors, but had to wait for a specific part….and six days later, disaster struck.  We woke up to two gnarly rips on the side of the tractors and chickens walking all over the yard!  After talking with a farmer friend, we think a racoon managed to rip the plastic sheeting off and got six chickens in the process.  We felt a little defeated that day, but quickly moved to fence off (and electrify!) until we can proceed with the original plan.  So far, so good.

+ We cut up some trees that fell around the property this winter and the boys chopped them into firewood.

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PRODUCTS I’M USING AND LOVING

+ Gurney’s Seed Starting Kit and Grow Light
+ The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner by Ann Larkin Hansen
+ All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
+ Behr Barn & Fence Paint in Barn White
+ Chick Stands from Premier1

Today seems like a big accomplishment: this is my 500th post written since we moved to the farmhouse!  It seems fitting, then, that this post is about us embarking on another new adventure.  After years of talking and planning, dipping our toes in here and there, we’re finally pressing the gas on our little homestead!  Creating something from nothing is exciting, but also completely overwhelming.  Where do you even begin?!  There are so many things we’d like to do, but here are seven goals we’re prioritizing in 2021:

1 // RAISE CHICKENS, BOTH FOR EGGS AND MEAT

Chickens are the gateway animal of farming, right?  We currently have 16 hens and 49 broilers (we sadly lost two during the first few days) in our garage and are feverishly working to prepare the moveable tractors and coop outside!

2 // EXPAND THE GARDEN TO INCLUDE IN-GROUND BEDS

Last year, we built our fenced-in garden with thirteen 4’x4′ raised beds inside.  Lots of room for a variety of fruits and vegetables, but I quickly realized that I needed even more space.  So we’re in the process of creating two in-ground beds that are approximately 8’x18′.  We have deer all over our property, so this will be an experiment – will they eat everything that grows outside the fence?

3 // PLANT ENOUGH FOOD TO BE ABLE TO CAN/PUT AWAY FOR WINTER

This goal fits in with #2 above.  I grew so much last summer, but it ended up only being enough to feed us daily without anything extra.  This year, I’m hoping to be more creative with my planning in order to get maximum yields.  One example: I invested in a squash tunnel to try to grow them vertically!  Where one plant would take up almost an entire 4’x4′ bed, the tunnel will allow me to plant four on each side.  That’s huge.

4 // START THE COTTAGE GARDEN

One of the more frivolous farm goals is to begin to fill up the beds surrounding the garden with flowers.  I’m going for a cottage look, lots of color, a little wild and collected over time.  I won’t have a lot of time to dedicate to this project, but am hoping to get at least a few perennials in.

5 // START THE ORCHARD GUILD

Another little side project is to plant some things around our apple trees to encourage growth, add helpful nutrients to the soil and attract insects to help with pollination.  This permaculture concept is so cool – I can’t wait to learn more and pick some beautiful plants.

6 // SHEEP?

We considered starting with pigs, but after some research and hearing personal stories, we think we’ll need something more structurally permanent before we add them to the farm.  Sheep, on the other hand, seem much easier and considerably cheaper!  We’re still very much in the research phase, but this may be where we’re headed next.

7 // START SAVING FOR BIGGER PURCHASES

We would love to eventually build some sort of barn structure and some permanent fencing, but both of those are $$$.  In the mean time, we plan to start a separate “Farm” savings account and add little bits as we can.