Best homestead conveniences

So in our planning phase of our homestead, I realized quite a while ago that our world of convenience is slowly killing us. So I would like to do a lot of things old school but also know that some convenience is actually just better use of time and resources, ex. A cream seperator can do a much better job of getting all the cream then I can with my ladle, but then I saw how on living traditions homestead they used a drink canister with a spigot and then drained the milk from the bottom and saved the cream.

So give me any of your time saving ideas for what you couldn’t get along without and those traditional methods that help you best connect with the spirit you want on your homestead. Someone told me once that even though they owned a dairy, (they did cows and goats) they chose to milk a couple of each by hand each day just to keep that raport and connection to each animal.

So hopefully you can all understand my question. What conveniences were worth it because there’s so many options out there but I also want to connect with my farm, the individual plants and  animals but not overwhelm ourselves trying to do everything like the pioneers.

Maybe not what you mean but yeah, a tractor. A modern tractor and excavator. I couldn't live without them.

Big bin chicken feeder, and a grub hoe.

Dehydrator

Elle what kind of tractor are you thinking, I definitely want an excavator but what would I need a tractor for then? Sorry I’m new to farm machinery but not excavators or backhoes/ graders/ forklift etc.

Robert how is that hoe different then a regular hoe? I also love your chicken feeder did you make it? Is there plans or a website where I could buy one?

Anne absolutely I’ve got my eye on an Excalibur, but I’d also like to try a sun drying rack first (basically cause dehydrators are expensive)  

In the kitchen, an electric grinder. I have a mortar and pestle, and I want to get a hand-cranked mill for grinding grains. I appreciate how they remind me to slow down, to feel the texture of what I'm grinding, to smell the ever-increasing aroma as they're crushed finer and finer. But for bigger batches of seeds, spices, or grains or when I'm crunched for time, I really appreciate my electric appliances. Same goes for my food processor and blender vs using knives or hand mashing.

Thank you Nikki, I have an electric grinder but I never thought about a hand crank one though. Will definitely look into that, is there one you recommend

Kathleen Nelson wrote:Thank you Nikki, I have an electric grinder but I never thought about a hand crank one though. Will definitely look into that, is there one you recommend

It's on my "eventually acquire" list, so I haven't started researching, yet.

Kathleen,

Absolutely, positively count me in on the tractor.  I don’t know how much land you have and that will play a very large role in determining how big a tractor you need, but even a small, subcompact tractor can be incredibly useful and just sips fuel, as in using less than 1 gallon per hour.

Personally I found the best, most useful tractor attachment to be the loader which is just a great all-purpose attachment.  The excavator is a different story and it’s usefulness seems to depend very highly on the individual user.  And they are not cheap.  Even a small one purchased new will easily run $8000 plus the additional hydraulic attachments needed for the tractor.  They are a bit harder to take on and off than ordinary 3 point attachments, thus taking up space behind for other 3 point attachments.  And they really only do one thing—dig a hole.

I don’t want to be a downer here, if you need a backhoe then you need one, just consider that it is a very serious investment to buy.  Personally I made the decision long ago to rent a backhoe rather than buy, but that is a decision that I made for my circumstances and yours of course may differ.

But backhoe aside, there are just so many useful attachments that can be run from a tractor that even small tractors can be very useful pieces of equipment.

I would be curious to know your acreage, tractor needs, etc.  Hopefully this helps and if you want to bounce around ideas, please feel free to do so.

Good luck,

Eric

I also agree with having a good grub hoe.  A grub hoe is a heavy *forged*, not stamped, hoe that excels in chopping into the earth, even digging and excavating, without destroying your back.  If you need to start a new garden bed or break up sod, a grub hoe is a great option.

Eric

Eric Hanson wrote:I also agree with having a good grub hoe.  A grub hoe is a heavy *forged*, not stamped, hoe that excels in chopping into the earth, even digging and excavating, without destroying your back.  If you need to start a new garden bed or break up sod, a grub hoe is a great option.

Eric

Does this mean that the sucker is not going to bend or pull out of the handle all the time?  If so, that's what I need!!!  I hoe pretty hard, ruin about 1 hoe a summer.  Makes my wife frustrated.  

Eric thank you for all that info. I’d really like a piece of equipment that does the most for the money. If it’s going to be on a permaculture farm it’s going to have to fit in by doing multiple things, so Thank you for all that info. My husband has some experience with big machinery at different jobs but not much with the small multi purpose stuff so we’ll definitely take what you’ve said into account. Also thanks for the detailed explanation of a grub hoe. I’d never heard of one. I’ll add it to my list. We don’t currently have our land yet, I’ve been making plans on what all I want snd tentative layouts we’re currently on 5 acres but definitely want a larger piece with more pasture rotation options and will probably end up with raw land to build off grid. So far the plan is at least 35 acres.

Kathleen Nelson wrote:Elle what kind of tractor are you thinking, I definitely want an excavator but what would I need a tractor for then? Sorry I’m new to farm machinery but not excavators or backhoes/ graders/ forklift etc.

Robert how is that hoe different then a regular hoe? I also love your chicken feeder did you make it? Is there plans or a website where I could buy one?

Anne absolutely I’ve got my eye on an Excalibur, but I’d also like to try a sun drying rack first (basically cause dehydrators are expensive)  

We have a smallish Kubota front loader. It is necessary for us as our road is not maintained and I do work in town. HAVE to get out of the house somehow and the tractor is that way. I also dig holes with it. Lots. I also carry things around with it, like mulch and wood. We planted our sainfoin field with it, using the grader thingy. I just build a big ol' jungle gym for our daughter and I put the boxes for it in the bucket and moved them where they needed to be. We use it A LOT!

The excavator is just fun digging. I like to dig. I really like to dig.

Here's the Kubota. I used it to haul boxes and then I parked it to block the wind while I built it. Can't live without this thing.

Eric Hanson wrote:Kathleen,

Absolutely, positively count me in on the tractor.  I don’t know how much land you have and that will play a very large role in determining how big a tractor you need, but even a small, subcompact tractor can be incredibly useful and just sips fuel, as in using less than 1 gallon per hour.

Personally I found the best, most useful tractor attachment to be the loader which is just a great all-purpose attachment.  The excavator is a different story and it’s usefulness seems to depend very highly on the individual user.  And they are not cheap.  Even a small one purchased new will easily run $8000 plus the additional hydraulic attachments needed for the tractor.  They are a bit harder to take on and off than ordinary 3 point attachments, thus taking up space behind for other 3 point attachments.  And they really only do one thing—dig a hole.

I don’t want to be a downer here, if you need a backhoe then you need one, just consider that it is a very serious investment to buy.  Personally I made the decision long ago to rent a backhoe rather than buy, but that is a decision that I made for my circumstances and yours of course may differ.

But backhoe aside, there are just so many useful attachments that can be run from a tractor that even small tractors can be very useful pieces of equipment.

I would be curious to know your acreage, tractor needs, etc.  Hopefully this helps and if you want to bounce around ideas, please feel free to do so.

Good luck,

Eric

We bought a used excavator for $6500. Having no debt means we can pay cash for things. We trenched along our driveway and road with it which was a game changer for drainage. But yeah, I dig a lot of holes.

Elle,

I use the front loader much the same way.  It becomes sort of a power wheelbarrow among other things.  It is just so very, very useful, it is the most indispensable attachment by far.

Also, I agree that even a small tractor can be incredibly useful for maintaining a driveway.  Probably a good box blade is the best attachment here though there can be a very good argument made for a land plane.

Kathleen,

I am just spitballing here but I would suspect that for 30+ acres you would want a tractor in the 35hp at the very least and very likely more.  Tractors are a major investment and I know from first hand experience just how much money can be sucked up into acquiring one.  On the other hand, it is more expensive to buy one too small and have to buy a bigger one.  

When I first bought a tractor for my 9 acres (5-6 tall grass that needed brush hogging once per year) I bought a JD subcompact 2305.  This helped me maintain my 400’ driveway, clear snow (a major necessity), mow my acreage, and do odds and ends around the home.  It served me extremely well for 13 years but was really too small for the bush hogging tall grass—it took all day.  I eventually traded up to my current JD2038R which is great and the last tractor I will ever own.  Some times I need a smaller tractor and I would miss my old tractor but I don’t as I sold it to my neighbor.  It is a great relationship for both of us.

Long story short:  consider carefully the needs your tractor will have to fulfill and buy accordingly.

Eric

Eric Hanson wrote:Elle,

I use the front loader much the same way.  It becomes sort of a power wheelbarrow among other things.  It is just so very, very useful, it is the most indispensable attachment by far.

Also, I agree that even a small tractor can be incredibly useful for maintaining a driveway.  Probably a good box blade is the best attachment here though there can be a very good argument made for a land plane.

Kathleen,

I am just spitballing here but I would suspect that for 30+ acres you would want a tractor in the 35hp at the very least and very likely more.  Tractors are a major investment and I know from first hand experience just how much money can be sucked up into acquiring one.  On the other hand, it is more expensive to buy one too small and have to buy a bigger one.  

When I first bought a tractor for my 9 acres (5-6 tall grass that needed brush hogging once per year) I bought a JD subcompact 2305.  This helped me maintain my 400’ driveway, clear snow (a major necessity), mow my acreage, and do odds and ends around the home.  It served me extremely well for 13 years but was really too small for the bush hogging tall grass—it took all day.  I eventually traded up to my current JD2038R which is great and the last tractor I will ever own.  Some times I need a smaller tractor and I would miss my old tractor but I don’t as I sold it to my neighbor.  It is a great relationship for both of us.

Long story short:  consider carefully the needs your tractor will have to fulfill and buy accordingly.

Eric

AND consider your snow loads. We get a lot of wet snow here and our tractor is not capable of plowing it once it gets over a few inches. Then our neighbor, who has a construction tractor as tall as his house, has to plow it. If the snow is dry, we can snow blow it with that attachment on our tractor but wet snow, different story.


Also, yes box blade. That's what we use to plant all our seeds.

Elle,

Actually my little 2305 could clear 10” of wet snow with a 3pt grader blade.  It took a couple of passes but it worked very well.

Now I use a 7’ blade with an offset to clear our driveway and adjoining road down to where the county plows.  It works amazingly well.

Eric

These are all amazing things to consider especially because we will be in Wyoming so snow plowing down to county roads will definitely be a thing. This makes me realize a tractor will probably be something we will need at the beginning of our homestead building die to it’s help in building the essential infrastructure. Ok, I gotta go research tractors. Better look into going to a few tractor dealerships too. Quite a few people I know own Kubota and love them. Sounds like I need to take a survey.

Kathleen Nelson wrote:These are all amazing things to consider especially because we will be in Wyoming so snow plowing down to county roads will definitely be a thing. This makes me realize a tractor will probably be something we will need at the beginning of our homestead building die to it’s help in building the essential infrastructure. Ok, I gotta go research tractors. Better look into going to a few tractor dealerships too. Quite a few people I know own Kubota and love them. Sounds like I need to take a survey.

I'm in Wyoming, so yes, get a tractor. Everyone who moves to our road and doesn't have a tractor ends up buying one. It's required.

It sounds silly but my immersion blender. During canning season it saves a huge amount of time. I used to carefully peel tomatoes for the various ways I can them. Today, I freeze them from the garden pausing only to rinse and remove any bad places and save canning until winter. With the immersion blender I just obliterate the peels into whatever I’m cooking and the flavor and color is greatly improved. I also use it to stir things when my hands are too achy to do a lot of stirring. For outside, cattle panels. I drag them around the garden as I rotate crops and they save a huge amount of aggravation with staking up climbing things.

I have a tractor, an 80's vintage Deere that's really "too big" for my small acreage, but I appreciate it anyway, and here's why:

The age means it's cheaper up-front, and easier to maintain. There are unknowns of course - you don't know how well previous owner(s) maintained it, or how hard they ran it, both of which will impact how fast things start wearing out and needing to be replaced. However, when they do, there aren't mountains of proprietary electronics to dig through, that will likely require a well-paid mechanic to service, as is often the case on the newer tractors. Being a Deere, parts aren't particularly hard to come by, which can be a problem on some of the more obscure older brands. In short - consider what you're getting, dollar for HP, and what the maintenance costs will look like down the road. Do you want to be able to do your own maintenance, beyond changing the oil?

The big size means I'm not pulling it out for every little thing (and there are smaller things I simply can't do that I could do with a subcompact). This is honestly a bit of me rationalizing the size of the tractor, but it's not a bad reason, and something folks here would probably appreciate.

The big size also means I'm not really beating on it, which will make it last longer. As my mechanic brother says - overkill is underrated. Everyone I know with the little subcompacts loves them, but they're also regularly pushing the limits of what those little souped up lawn mowers can do, which is going to wear them out prematurely.

The one thing I wish I had from the new tractors - glow plugs. The block heater works, but if it's really cold it may be hours before I can start the engine...

Regarding the manual grain grinders, Lehman's catalog has a few different ones available.  The best one is close to a thousand dollars, but boy is it pretty!  Looks very sturdy as well.  You just need a good heavy duty work table to mount it to.

I love my dehydrator as well, but I think I could get used to a solar food dryer if I had to.  What I really wouldn't want to give up now is our freeze dryer!  They are more pricey than dehydrators, but to have 20+ year freeze dried and vacuum sealed food is an amazing relief.  I've preserved our eggs, and so much fruit and veggies as well as some meats and dairy using the freeze dryer.  I much prefer that over canning.  But it does need to be plugged in to an outlet for 12 to 48 hours without interruptions depending on the water content of the foods being processed.  Amazingly though it only uses a few dollars' worth of electricity to run a full batch.  Still way less expensive than buying freeze dried foods.

Also I would not want to give up my DeWalt battery powered tools!!  I've done some hand work and using the battery tools really saves both time and wear and tear on the old joints.  My new chicken coop would not be nearly as far along if I had to do it all by hand.

When I graduated and moved away from home, my parents got a conveyor for loading hay onto truck and  off into barn. They got a tractor and a couple other things. I thought to myself, "thanks, now that I'm gone"!
But now that we're in our late 60s and bought 35 hilly acres, I understand, and we appreciate our "toys".
We got a great buy on a used Kubota that came with a bucket and backhoe. Great for muscle to move firewood, lumber, hay, feed, rock and gravel. Better than trying it with the wheelbarrow. We wouldn't be without it.
But my MOST favorite is the wood splitter. It makes short order of splitting firewood. Drag it to where the cut up tree is, split it and throw into back of truck as you go (in semi decent order) and take to storage area. Or stack it right there. Done! We heat with wood. And there's no way we could get a ginormous tree all hand split and stacked in a day. It's the one thing we bought new because used ones were almost the same price.
These productivity multipliers made us able to start a new homestead at our age.

As much at I hate to admit it- the Internet!
I’ve had to teach myself so many skills and about animals, gardening, almost everything! So glad that info is out there...

we’re about to figure out how to process our pigs here soon... I learned how to do chickens this way so hopefully pigs will be as successful.

Lexie Smith wrote:It sounds silly but my immersion blender. During canning season it saves a huge amount of time. I used to carefully peel tomatoes for the various ways I can them. Today, I freeze them from the garden pausing only to rinse and remove any bad places and save canning until winter. With the immersion blender I just obliterate the peels into whatever I’m cooking and the flavor and color is greatly improved. I also use it to stir things when my hands are too achy to do a lot of stirring.

My first thought EXACTLY when I read the permies email. I love my immersion blender. Which I only got to make soap.  I use it to make tomato sauce, pear butter, apple butter etc.
No.
More.
Boiling baths to peal skins.
Or ice.
Or over heated kitchen in August zone 8.
AND  no nutrition loss.

But I have tractor love too.

We LOVE our 1976 Massy tractor and Wallenstein backhoe attachment for outside work. You can do just about anything with those 2 things. Inside, my canner (All Amercican and small Presto) are necessary. I have both an electric and hand crank Wondermill. I was selling them throygh my business a few years back because I LOVED them so both are worth the money to me.

The one technology I can not live without is the internet and my laptop computer! I need to see those youtube videos to learn more on gardening and many other skills. And of course I need Permies ...

So I am big on the tractor, even if it is only a small tractor as it will do an enormous amount of work.  But let me also recommend some hand tools I find very useful.

Grub Hoe—a solid, forged, razor sharp hoe used for digging and turning earth.

Grape Hoe—similar to above, it is angled so as to chop parallel to the ground and is amazing for cutting out sod.

Fork Hoe—basically a forged fork at the end of a handle used for digging and loosening earth.

For these, try easydigging.com. They come with solid wooden handles that won’t come loose.  These are nothing like tools you will find in big box stores.

Diamond hoe, swan hoe or collinear hoe—they all have a thin, razor sharp blade (that must be kept sharp) that are great for sweeping over the surface and cutting small weeds from their roots, killing them before they get established.

For these and many, many more try either rougehoe.com or prohoe.com. If memory serves these are made by up cycling old agricultural discs and forming them into all sorts of different hoes.

As a rule, when I get a long-handled tool, I get a fiberglass handle if I can.  These just don’t break (in my experience).  Big box store wooden handles can easily break.  The solid wooden handles from any of the manufacturers I mentioned are very high quality and I would be shocked if they broke.

I am a fan of forged 1-piece steel hammers and axes, especially by Estwing.  One of my favorite tools is my 16” all steel hand axe.  I have abused that tool a lot, it stays sharp and it does not let me down.

I would also want to have some good mechanics tools, including a really good socket set.  Craftsman (through Lowes, not Sears) is probably a decent bang-for-buck set but there certainly are other brands.

I would also want a cordless tool set, 5 piece at a minimum (drill, driver, circular saw, reciprocating saw, light) 18-20v.  Many, many brands to consider (DeWalt, Ridgid, Ryobi, Craftsman again, Milwaukee—expensive—and more).

I could go on and on but these would make up some of my basic requirements.

Eric

I could go on but these give you some idea

I agree with a tractor as a requirement if you have 10+ acres.   Bought Kubota but wish I'd have bought JD.  The one implement I bought that I could do without is the tiller, but only because I have so little topsoil to till (mostly clay and rock below top couple of inches).  So, I've gone raised bed for gardening and am buying or building my own soil as I expand.  But the loader is my go to tool for hauling, scraping, turning compost piles, knocking down small trees.  The bush hog gets a lot of work in tall grass, weeds, and brush.  The backhoe has been useful for trenching for water lines, burying electrical conduit, digging swales, and installing culverts under roads.  Eventually I want to dig a small pond.  The box grader has been busy maintaining roads and ripping through clay and stone mounds and filling dips in the terrain.

I don't have haying equipment yet, so I cut my hay with the brush hog, rake it by hand over a couple of dry days, and use the bucket loader to haul many loads of loose hay to the barn for animal feed and bedding and to the garden area for mulch.  Any that gets rained on before I can rake it up is turned into the compost piles.  I'd like a hay rake, square baler, wagon, 3-point post hole digger, subsoiler, and articulating grader blade, but they are not in the budget yet.

Inside, my 40-year-old Black & Decker toaster oven got used every day of the week until a couple weeks ago.  It finally burned out and I replaced it with an Oster, but I'm not as happy with it.  Blender and hand mixer get a lot of use also.  Microwave is indispensable for heating and reheating my tea, bagels, and leftovers.  Being single, I tend to cook once a week and eat the same meal over and over the rest of the week.

My favorite hand tool is my Worx Switch-Driver, an 18-V combo drill and driver that lets me switch back and forth with the flick of a trigger between drilling pilot holes and driving screws with only the one tool.  I have two of them, one at the house, and one at the barn.  They've been used on almost every project I've built on the farm.

I have a bunch of physical limitations so I am all about the right tool to make the job easier so I can keep doing all the things.  

We have a short growing season and a long cold winter so harvest  and preservation season is a 2.5 month marathon.
14 cup Cuisinart food processor  Saves time, my hands, and the parts go in the dishwasher

Immersion blender canning tomato sauce.  Paired with a very large heirloom oxheart tomato that has very few seeds and soft tender skins makes canning 50 to 112 quarts of tomato based products easier.

2 dehydrators

The dishwasher.  I can hand wash everything but during the fall harvest season I spend 45  minutes or more a day just hand washing everything.

An adjustable height table that I can stand or sit at to do food prep.  

5 to 6 gallon stock pots, 13 quart mixing bowls, and a giant colander to with them.
 
Fermenting lids and glass weights for wide mouth canning jars.  They are the easiest way I have found to ferment foods and 1/2 gallon canning jars are a convent size for our house hold for fermented foods.

I love my washing machine.  It sucks to hand wash your clothes when you have lots of damage to the joints in your hands.

Roomba.  It is a luxury that I only got because because it saves me energy so I can do more valuable things with my limited functionality.

Automatic chicken coop door. This makes having laying hens so simple.

A network of garden hoses with splitters and high quality shut off values  all over the 1/4 acre garden so I never have to drag a hoes more than 25' during the growing season.  We just added a hand dug well high up on the property to make watering even easier.

Meadow Creature broadfork  is great for the garden beds, removing good sized rocks and unwanted shrub root balls.

Small folding stool that I use to garden on when working in my raised beds with wide woodchipped mulched pathways.  I have a fainting problem so I can work far longer sitting down than I can standing up.  





 

I have not even considered a tractor because I don't think I would use it very often. I find maintenance on these things to be a nuisance. I have a utility ATV and it's almost more trouble than it's worth. It's out of commission more often than not. My new neighbor has some equipment that I might borrow at some time but usually I hire out that kind of work. I do have 80 acres but it's mostly all forested.

I have a push behind mower, small chainsaw and weed whacker that all use a 40v rechargeable battery that I like.

Love my immersion blender as well. Great for mayonnaise. I also love my salad shooter, perfect for grating large amount of vegetables for ferments.

For building, I love my mitre saw. So much easier to do alone.

Thomas Dean wrote: Does this mean that the sucker is not going to bend or pull out of the handle all the time?  If so, that's what I need!!!  I hoe pretty hard, ruin about 1 hoe a summer.  Makes my wife frustrated.  

Oh my gosh...I thought my kiddo was the only one that could break rakes, hoes and shovels in a season!  Have you found any that actually stands up to heavy/hard use?

Not complaining as I love having a hard working kids that help but...buying tools each season is expensive.

~Honey

Honey Rowland wrote:

Thomas Dean wrote: Does this mean that the sucker is not going to bend or pull out of the handle all the time?  If so, that's what I need!!!  I hoe pretty hard, ruin about 1 hoe a summer.  Makes my wife frustrated.  

Oh my gosh...I thought my kiddo was the only one that could break rakes, hoes and shovels in a season!  Have you found any that actually stands up to heavy/hard use?

Not complaining as I love having a hard working kids that help but...buying tools each season is expensive.

~Honey

If either of you can break/wear out/bend any of the grub hoes or other tools at easydigging.com without completely abusing them I would be shocked.  I have the grub hoe, the fork hoe, and the pointed hoe from them and they are all top notch and very heavy duty.  You can break anything if you completely misuse it, but you would have to really try to break their tools.  I highly recommend them.

I completely agree with Trace.  I am not even sure what type of abuse we would be talking about.  I suppose you could feed the handle to a wood chipper or put it in a fire and that would ruin it.  As for the hoe head, you might have to get out welding torches.  They really are very, very sturdy.

Eric Hanson wrote:I completely agree with Trace.  I am not even sure what type of abuse we would be talking about.  I suppose you could feed the handle to a wood chipper or put it in a fire and that would ruin it.  As for the hoe head, you might have to get out welding torches.  They really are very, very sturdy.

They are really quality tools. My partner bent the head of my grub hoe from them trying to pry out a 2 inch diameter honeysuckle root. To us, it didn't seem like it an unreasonable thing to expect of it. But I think our idea of what a grub hoe is capable of had been influenced by seeing our friend use one similarly without issue. So I asked him where he got his. It is a Rogue hoe. I got one of their grub hoes and have destroyed many more honeysuckle with ease. I think it might be indestructable. The curved shape of the head makes it pretty difficult to bend, if not impossible. Would highly recommend.

Where I live there's a community tractor, you just get on the roster and it's yours for the day--you fill the tank at the end of the day. Maintainance is done with community funds.

The things I couldn't live without are;
a washing machine,
a very powerful blender/food processor. I have an Oster, it's great, I mostly use the blender and the micro blender parts, I do also have a stick blender and it is very handy for soups and sauces.
a freezer---allows me to cook in bulk and not use all of something--like a pumpkin, I only need two cups but the whole pumpkin gives like 12 cups! freeze 10. I guess freezing is the lazy person's food preservation system.
AND INTERNET--the internet is king. Sorry, but it is, in fact, we are all using it right now.

Lots of things that I appreciate having but I think if I could only keep one modern convenience, it would be our well pump (and the power to run it, along with our whole house water filter to make it palatable and clean). Luckily we've never lost power for longer than 4 hours (the power lines are mostly underground) but we store emergency supplies of water and I'd really like to get a hand pump installed for just in case. But if I had to travel to get water, wow, that would be very difficult in the summer because it doesn't rain here for two months The majority of the year, we could use rain water but summertime would be very tough, especially since most of the local streams and ponds completely dry up.

Along that line, I really like my drip irrigation for my garden. It makes it possible for me to grow so much more food without spending 3+ hours hand watering each plant. I grow things like corn and potatoes and squash without much additional water but it's pretty essential for greens and peas and green beans and tomatoes, etc

If either of you can break/wear out/bend any of the grub hoes or other tools at easydigging.com without completely abusing them I would be shocked.  I have the grub hoe, the fork hoe, and the pointed hoe from them and they are all top notch and very heavy duty.  You can break anything if you completely misuse it, but you would have to really try to break their tools.  I highly recommend them.

My oldest has sensory issues and is highly functioning autistic.  He carries 100lb bags of feed like it's 5lbs, has stepped on and dragged a 16ft reclaimed board through a field that had 2 nails in the end through his foot and didn't notice. ..at 9/10yo  With our current clay soil and his hulk unawareness...things get broke.  We remind him often kids like him from yesteryear are where super hero stories came from.  

~Honey