I thought I'd start keeping journal of sorts here on some of the things I'm doing around my homestead. Hopefully you all may have some ideas and or get some ideas. Your comments and suggestions are welcome.
First I
should tell you a little about myself and my background. I'm never lived on or really been around a farm more than a week here and there at my great aunts as a small child. Now I had three great aunts who lived in the same area of the mountains in southwest Virginia and it was at their homes I decided at about the age of 6 that this was the life for me. They all lived on acreage with two of them having farms and the other having a homestead. We lived in the rural suburbs of Chesterfield on ten acres.
I was also a boy scout and took their motto BE PREPARED to the next level.
Growing up my father was a home builder and I got to work with nearly all the subs at one point or another and learned all aspects of building except HVAC by the age of 15. After that I really got in to fast cars and started drag racing while I was also in tech for diesel mechanics classes. I was somewhat of a mechanical whiz kid when it came to fixing things after my father, uncles and grandfather gave up from real young on. Far as being a diesel mechanic I only lasted about a year before general to absurd stupidity made me leave even though I was making tons of money (23 per hour in 88) and paid book time. I usually got paid for about 11 hours for every 8 hour shift I worked. It just wasn't worth it! I kept on racing from 15 until I was hit with MS. Next I built back
yard swimming pools. Shortly after learning how it was done I went in business installing them at nearly the ripe old age of 20. I did that until Multiple Sclerosis got me in 05. That's when MY personal SHTF. Here I was with a 5 year old and another on the way and a wife who was on her way off the tracks. She needed more care than the 5 yo. Suddenly one morning when I got up I fell out and couldn't get up after coming to. I thought someone had broken in and hit me in the head with a baseball bat. Sadly that wasn't the case. A couple years later after somewhat learning to walk with crutches and talk again. I got fed up with rehab and since I had always wanted to homestead or farm I bought this place. This has been my rehab since. That was in 2007 I bought 35 almost 36 acres I've been living and working here off grid since 2008. It was nothing but scrub timberland with a small dry creek on the south property line and a very wide yet shallow creek on the south west corner where the dry creek joins it. It was so tight with mixed
trees you couldn't hardly get through on foot. With my then 7-8 year old carrying the saw while I hobbled on crutches we started clearing and my wife at the time was dragging and piling brush when / if she helped. The toddler was doing what all toddlers do.
We built a temporary home by adding a roof over and a room on the side of and above an old camper. While we waited for our house in town to
sell so we could build the house I wanted to build. That never happened 08-09 happened and I just couldn't keep making all the payments by 2010. Which is also when I conceded and agreed to take disability. By then though I had lost what I paid in since I hadn't really worked / made money since 04-05. They only go back 3 years. Living on SSDI sucks ! ! ! But my health is better than I have any right to expect even considering I'm only good for maybe 3-4 hours some days and none others. When I need to I can push through whatever has to be done but then I will crash for days, weeks or even months and once for over a year where bare minimums were all I managed.
In 2011 my wife decided being a mother just wasn't for her and left. From then it was just the girls and I. I kept trying to work too even started another business but I just couldn't maintain and had to give in again.
Since then I've slowly been trying to make this place in to what I want and something worthwhile to leave for my girls when I pass. At this point I have close to 6 acres cleared and about 4 fenced in. But I'm working slowly to
fence in a total of about 15. I have the usual homestead animals and want to start practicing rotational farming once I get
enough ground cleared and enough fencing up to do so.
The idea is to setup 8 to 12 areas on about 8 acres of the soon to be fenced area sub divided with electric fencing that I can rotate the animals through. Keeping 4 to 6 acres for crops or what have you...
I also separated 5 acres off for a friend recently for him to build him and his family a place on. He's been giving me hand here when ever he can for the last ten or so years.
So for this year I've managed to get my hands on 2 more 330ft rolls of field fencing and that
fence line starts getting cleared and put up soon to extend the perimeter fencing. Hopefully I can get some more before the year is out but time will tell. For now I've got to get this up and get the critters moved. That way they can help me clear it like they have all the rest, well not all but most. lol I have had the electric fencing for quite awhile because we tried to use it everywhere but found it doesn't work well for perimeter fencing as it gets shorted out to easily. Limbs drop, trees fall, the ground gets to dry or wet etc.
Ah yes the critters consist of 5 Dexter's, 6 AGH pigs and 4 Nubian goats. Coyotes got my
chickens last fall. I'll get a couple laying hens later this year. Up until now I've been buying
hay and grain but hopefully this year that stops. I will say that buying hay and grain are not that bad when you consider you get two uses out of it. It first feeds the animals then the soil. It's way better than chemicals in my mind.
This is where I am after 16 years at this life living off grid in south central Va. The only thing missing is someone who wants this lifestyle to enjoy it with.
Next chapter once I get some fence up.
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