Our Journey Back to Basics

We left the rat race, sold our house and left town in search of a simpler life.  We purchsed 40 acers of land with in a small town 2 hrs from the closest "city" and built a house. We have been doing everything we can by ourselves to save money and are currently building a garage/shop. Prepping/Homesteading has become our life and we are going to start documenting it with photos, videos and here in this thread if that's ok. It will really help to keep this thread as a "journal" of sorts.  I look forward to your criticisms and critiques as we have so much to learn.  We are drawn the the permaculture way of gardening, livestock care and general lifestyle.

Year 1 and 2 we built our house.. wish i had started this thread back then as I would have 2 years of it already written down but here goes nothing.

You can also follow our journey to the simple life on our:

YouTube Channel "Our Journey Back to Basics
Instagram: www.instagram.com/journeybacktobasics
Facebook "Our Journey Back to Basics"

Phil, welcome to Permies!

One of the best decisions I made when we bought our small acreage and started homesteading was to journal it with lots of photos and details that I wanted to remember. I can't tell you how many times my  husband and I have referred to it. Sometimes it's to remember how or when we did something. Sometimes it's because we're overwhelmed or discouraged. Looking back over what we've accomplished is the best boost.

I use a blog for my homestead journal, which is great, although readers' interests and opinions tend to be extremely diverse. Here, you'll have a wealth of like minds with similar goals.

This forum is great! Cant believe how much info and knowledge is concentrated here!  I almost get anxiety trying to decide which thread I'm going to start reading as there are so many interesting ones I can't process them!

We got quotes to build our garage/shop and soon realized there was no way we could afford to hire a builder.  We still need a shop as there is nowhere to work on things or store tools.  The only option is to build it ourselves.  I am not a builder and have no real building experience.  I have built sheds, renovated houses and watched alot of great channels on youtube.  I hired a company to dig the hole, then I built the forms for the footing and wall.  I decided to hire a contractor to pour the slab as it was quite large (26×50) and there's no way I could get a good finish.
Next step was raising walls and putting the posts and beams around it.  We have a 4' overhang around 2 sides.  I made some videos of us installing the posts and beams which I'll add below.  Next step will be landing trusses which I'll have some friends give me a hand with.

Video 1


Video 2


Video 3

Phil, great videos. You're making good progress. Brought back memories of when my husband built our barn!

Phil, welcome to Permies! I look forward to following your progress!
I totally understand what you mean about being overwhelmed with information. I have spent the last few months going in a forum topic and reading through the whole forum, starting with the oldest posts and working to the newest. I have learned a lot doing that.

It's awesome that you are journaling your progress through YouTube and Permies. I created a blog a little over a year ago, just for a place to write out my thoughts and keep track of progress. Unfortunately, I've been an utter failure when it comes to actually going in and updating it, but will try to do better. Maybe I should try to actually "schedule" time each week to write a post...

But, again, welcome, and please keep us updated on your progress!

Finally got the trusses up! Huge milestone! It also means I have a whole lot of work as there is alot of bracing, blocking, and sheeting to do! Thanks to my extended family it went very smoothly!

Below is some of the footage I managed to take of the day!

   

Any chicken whisperers here?  We have always had a few hens that refused to lay in the nesting boxes but randmly out of  the blue there are 20-30 hens laying around the coop in the bedding??!!  Super annoying!  Looking for tips on how to get them to move back to the nest boxes!!