Hello from Oklahoma

This is just a quick Hello and me documenting our goals.  If you don't document it, there is no accountability, right?

We currently live on 5 acres in Oklahoma.  

We just built our first Chicken house and enclosed yard/run. We plan to free range the birds during the day, and put them up at night for their safety.  We are waiting for warmer weather to actually get the birds though.  We have a long list of plans/wants for the homestead, and we are just getting started.  We just added about 10 fruit trees last year, and plan to add more each year.  We plan to start with bees this year, and to enlarge our garden.  My wife is still trying to talk me into goats as well, but I honestly think she just wants the baby goats, when they are small and cute.

We also have another 40 acres a couple miles up the road, it is thickly grown up with Pecan trees, and is down in the Creek Bottom (and is boggy), so we are not real sure of our plans for that yet.  

My Father in Law wants to get a small saw mill and mill some of those trees for lumber to build himself a simple cabin on our 5 acres with us.  It will just be his "visiting place" as my in-laws (who are Great) live about 90 minutes away, but since we live in the country, my F-i-L likes to come up and visit, both the grandkids and nature.  They live in a Metro area, and he misses the country life.

We live in a renovated 110+ year old plantation style house that has been in our family for years.  It has lots of character, but anything this old, is a continual project in its own right too.

We are not off grid, and don't have any plans to drop the grid, but we would love to add resiliency, and reduce our dependence on the grid in any areas that we can.  

Jimmy, welcome to the Permies Forums!

I love reading about your place, your goals, and your plans. I agree that documenting is very important, especially photographs. Have you considered mapping out your dream homestead? Sort of a Master Plan? My husband and I found that visual tool to be a huge help as we planned and discussed possibilities.

I have to mention too, that my husband bought a small(ish) portable sawmill a couple of years ago and we have never regretted that purchase. He makes most of our lumber now, which has been a huge savings. Plus there's just something happy about building with your own lumber and timbers.

It will be interesting to follow along as you work toward your goals.

Hi Jimmy;Welcome to Permies!
Sounds like you have a good start on things there!  Talk the wife out of goats and raise 3 piggys for 6 months...
They sure do taste good and you sell the other two to pay for yours!
I have done this for years and never lack for buyers.
Goats are OK . They are hard to keep in. They can destroy almost anything.
They do have fine milk and cheese!

Father in law's idea of cabin building sounds great! The saw milling part might be more than you want the kids around .
But the building part, the grand kids can help and grandpa gets to spend quality time with them!
Win Win for all.

Welcome aboard, Jimmy, great to have you!  Would love to get a sawmill too...someday!  

Welcome!
It sounds like y'all have some good plans in the making. Planting the fruit trees in the early stages is always good, since they will provide you & your livestock with food for many years.
Like some of the others, I would also recommend a few pigs to raise for slaughter. My pigs are great "garbage disposals," and get meals of excess/damaged produce, extra/damaged eggs, acorns/pecans, and even the chickens/rabbits I cull & don't have time to dress out for the freezer. . Since it's just me on the farm, I have potbellies, which are easier to handle & should still provide me with plenty of meat (and lard!).
Another good source of protein, fertilizer, and pelts is rabbits (though it can be difficult to process if the kids get attached to them). Rabbit meat is extremely high protein and low fat. It is typically cooked like poultry, but I've also made great sausage, jerky, and bacon from it.
I'm looking forward to reading about your progress as you continue to build your homestead!

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Jimmy;Welcome to Permies!
Sounds like you have a good start on things there!  Talk the wife out of goats and raise 3 piggys for 6 months...
They sure do taste good and you sell the other two to pay for yours!
I have done this for years and never lack for buyers.
Goats are OK . They are hard to keep in. They can destroy almost anything.
They do have fine milk and cheese!

Father in law's idea of cabin building sounds great! The saw milling part might be more than you want the kids around .
But the building part, the grand kids can help and grandpa gets to spend quality time with them!
Win Win for all.

My Grandparents ran a sawmill when I was growing up, of course it wasn't the bandsaw style, but I am familiar.  They shut it down when I was in High School.  My kids range from 12 to 22, and we have talked about building tiny houses around the property for the Kids to have their "own place" after they graduate.  Our oldest is in College, but  thankfully still lives at home, even though we see her sparsely with her school, work and social schedule.  MY dream would be to have a small community around the place with the Kids having their tinies, and maybe a couple other friends/family joining us as well.  But I am not sure how firmly the kids agree with that overall.  I have studied aquaponics for a number of years, but never put it into practice thus far, and would love to setup a decent sized Greenhouse for aquaponics to grow part of our produce and fish.

Our Son (a Junior in HS) is working toward attending the Air Force Academy, and of course if he is successful in that, he would be away from the homestead for "a while" as he wants to do the Air Force as his Career, at least at this point (and for the last 10 years leading up to now).

My biggest challenge has been actually getting started.  I have given lots of THOUGHT to what I want to do, now I just need to get started.  The Chicken house is step one, now to build some momentum, and keep the moving forward.

Leigh Tate wrote:Jimmy, welcome to the Permies Forums!

I love reading about your place, your goals, and your plans. I agree that documenting is very important, especially photographs. Have you considered mapping out your dream homestead? Sort of a Master Plan? My husband and I found that visual tool to be a huge help as we planned and discussed possibilities.

I have to mention too, that my husband bought a small(ish) portable sawmill a couple of years ago and we have never regretted that purchase. He makes most of our lumber now, which has been a huge savings. Plus there's just something happy about building with your own lumber and timbers.

It will be interesting to follow along as you work toward your goals.

I have sketched up several plans for the property use, and I need to post them, to keep in line with the Accountability part.  

I think my next major step, at this point, is going to be getting a shop built, at least something large enough to pull a vehicle inside and work on it out of the weather.  I have a DREAM to build a nice size shot, with an attached Greenhouse along the entire south side, but that is a big (read expensive) goal, so likely will be a down the road project.

Jimmy Burt wrote:

My Grandparents ran a sawmill when I was growing up, of course it wasn't the bandsaw style, but I am familiar.  They shut it down when I was in High School.  My kids range from 12 to 22, and we have talked about building tiny houses around the property for the Kids to have their "own place" after they graduate.  Our oldest is in College, but  thankfully still lives at home, even though we see her sparsely with her school, work and social schedule.  MY dream would be to have a small community around the place with the Kids having their tinies, and maybe a couple other friends/family joining us as well.  But I am not sure how firmly the kids agree with that overall.  I have studied aquaponics for a number of years, but never put it into practice thus far, and would love to setup a decent sized Greenhouse for aquaponics to grow part of our produce and fish.

Our Son (a Junior in HS) is working toward attending the Air Force Academy, and of course if he is successful in that, he would be away from the homestead for "a while" as he wants to do the Air Force as his Career, at least at this point (and for the last 10 years leading up to now).

My biggest challenge has been actually getting started.  I have given lots of THOUGHT to what I want to do, now I just need to get started.  The Chicken house is step one, now to build some momentum, and keep the moving forward.

I too have dreams of using my property to bring in family and friends for a small, close community. I've made it clear to everyone is welcome and wanted. And that this big move is for them if it gets crazy and the trucks stop running to the grocery stores. The bigger the clan, the stronger we can be.

Jimmy Burt wrote:This is just a quick Hello and me documenting our goals.  If you don't document it, there is no accountability, right?

We currently live on 5 acres in Oklahoma.  

We just built our first Chicken house and enclosed yard/run. We plan to free range the birds during the day, and put them up at night for their safety.  We are waiting for warmer weather to actually get the birds though.  We have a long list of plans/wants for the homestead, and we are just getting started.  We just added about 10 fruit trees last year, and plan to add more each year.  We plan to start with bees this year, and to enlarge our garden.  My wife is still trying to talk me into goats as well, but I honestly think she just wants the baby goats, when they are small and cute.

We also have another 40 acres a couple miles up the road, it is thickly grown up with Pecan trees, and is down in the Creek Bottom (and is boggy), so we are not real sure of our plans for that yet.  

My Father in Law wants to get a small saw mill and mill some of those trees for lumber to build himself a simple cabin on our 5 acres with us.  It will just be his "visiting place" as my in-laws (who are Great) live about 90 minutes away, but since we live in the country, my F-i-L likes to come up and visit, both the grandkids and nature.  They live in a Metro area, and he misses the country life.

We live in a renovated 110+ year old plantation style house that has been in our family for years.  It has lots of character, but anything this old, is a continual project in its own right too.

We are not off grid, and don't have any plans to drop the grid, but we would love to add resiliency, and reduce our dependence on the grid in any areas that we can.  

I don't know if you have acquired a sawmill yet or not, but  I have a friend who has a sawmill and is wanting to work it.  I'm new here as you can see, but if you are interested in getting with him and working out whatever it would be you guys could work out, I'd be happy to send you his contact information.  Of course I don't know where you're located.  I'm/we're in Latimer County in Southeastern, OK.  

Forest, Thanks for reaching out.

We have not yet purchased a "real mill" although my Father-in-law has purchased an "Alaskan mill", one of those frames/guides that mount to your chainsaw and lot you cut slabs.  He wants to try that out for a while before we put in the kind of $ it would take to get a band-saw mill.

With "the rona" and all that has gone on over the last year, we have done nothing with any of the mill stuff.  His Alaskan mill has not even been taken out of the box he ordered it in.  We have only seen him in person 1 time since March of 2020, even though they only live about an hour and half away.  They live in the Oklahoma City area and we are just outside of Tulsa.

With all of the crazy, we have just been focusing on getting our garden stuff ready, and getting ready to get chickens this spring.  We have ordered chicks from a hatchery that several local friends highly recommended. I'm not sure which hatchery though, my wife is leading that effort :-)  I am gathering materials to setup a small greenhouse to do our early season starts and some season extension, but I haven't began assembly yet.  

Thanks for reaching out, but we likely won't be making many trips to the Southeast, although I do wish the best to your friends there.

The latest discussions that I've had with my F-i-l is that we may shift plans and try to get a shipping container first to serve as both a storage unit, and possibly his "rough cabin" when we are able to forget about the rona and get back on with life.  Our family (me, my wife and kids) are treating everything essentially normal now, but with the In laws being a little older, they are understandably being a little (lot) more cautious, and we respect that.  I do believe that my F-i-l is getting quite stir-crazy though to get back out and work on projects.  He didn't even get to go hunting this year, which is one of his favorite activities.