Hello from Tennessee!

We just purchased just shy of 10 acres. It has been my dream for years to live on some land and have gardens, orchards and animals such as chickens and goats. I am finally on my way. But....I have a question. Can I do this by myself? My husband has made it very clear that other than mowing, he wants nothing to do with the other gardening or animals. Whatever I want to do is up to me. IN other words, no help. Can I do it by myself? We run our own business, so I essentially work from home but I am 50. 50 years old. Can I do it?

Hi Nickie, welcome to Permies!

It all depends on what "it" is, I suppose. A healthy 50y.o. has a good deal of capability, no doubt, and you are certain to be able to do many healthy farmy things solo. Consider starting one thing at a time, follow the seasons, add low-maintenance items like trees with zeal, add high maintenance items like large stock more carefully.

Maybe my most heartfelt counsel would be: show your husband how much joy there is in this stuff, pull gently towards it, but don't push. It can sometimes play a lot like where one spouse gets religion and is all fired up and woe betide the unbeliver! Don't go that route! Keep it joyful! And if he will mow the lawn, great, but you can tease him that you're coming for his job with bunnies/sheep/whatever to do the work for him!

Enjoy your new plot of land, and enjoy Tennesse! What part are you in?

Happy homesteading,
Mark

Hi Nickie,
I just had a follow-up thought: see what high school age boys are available in the area for things like post pounding. Doing it yourself with the heavy work will likely mean hiring in, so look to see if there are nice strapping lads available in your area. And consider becoming familiar with your local equipment rental place, and there is no shame in delivery fees if they are the difference between getting a job done and not! Be creative, and don't ever think that managing a job well is somehow less honorable than doing the heavy labor yourself! Managing and planning take skill over strength, and you will build a network of people who can complement your skills and buttress your weaknesses - in that sense, nobody "does it themselves", we're all humans in communities, which are maybe the most powerful and challenging thing to grow!
Best,
Mark

Welcome to Permies!

I am about to give you the most famous Permie answer that I possibly can give you.

"It depends."

This isn't to say yes or no, but rather what you can 'handle' will scale with your planning and skills.

I'm 'newer' to the homesteading life and I only have a quarter of an acre. I dipped my toes in by making raised beds. Another couple years brought in my chickens which required me to build the coop/run first but I had to learn how to build a structure!

My best advice is to observe and move with purpose. Read, research, and talk to people to get an idea of a gameplan. Some of your best resources will be people local to you the know what grows best in the soil/climate you live in.

I am confident you can do it, but I advise you to plan out each move for the best chance of success!

I hope to hear more about your homesteading adventure in the future.

As others have said, it depends.  I am a 74 yr male with a wife with multiple serious health issues.  We have been on our 11 acres for multiple decades.  Am I getting everything done so I want to ….nope.  But I am slowly completing old projects and launching new projects.  Our lawn is not as well kept as I would like.  Our house is messier than I would like. But I get up every morning, a little slower than I would like, and look forward to the challenges of the day.  The main thing that helps me is keeping a routine.   As a supervisor once told me when I started a new job, “ Every morning make a list of 10 things you want to accomplish. If you accomplish 2 of them, the day has been a success.”

I'm 60 - and disabled by some bad alphabet soup (OA, EDS, lupus, fibro,a list of allergies&sensitivities, including to things often found on a farm, lol). My husband has had a (terrifying) number of heart attacks, and temperature extremes are potentially lethargic to him. We knew all that going into this. I don't always HAVE to do it all by myself, but I am the family 'handi-person/ construction worker/Mrs Build-it/ herbalist/ gardener/forager/critter-keeper/beekeeper, etc... We have goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, muscovy ducks (more closely related to geese - and these are much more hubby's babies than mine, though I love them, too), and a pair of silly dogs, one of whom we are each fully responsible. I make all of my dog's food (including treats for both dogs) from scratch, as well as 90% or more of our household cleaners, all my own soaps/ facial cleaners/scrubs, moisturizers, etc, nearly all our first aid and health care items (salves, ointmennts, teas, tinctures...), fleece processing, spinning, felting, and other various fiber working. Oh, and I'm the family baker. John is our primary chef (actually is a retired chef). We both do a fair bit of fermenting.

Sounds like a LOT, right? But, the reality is that very little of that has to be done on a daily basis, and using a permaculture mindset, there are many things that can be set up to take care of themselves, most of the time. For example, other than letting the chickens & ducks out of their runs in the morning to free-range, collecting eggs, and locking them in at night (a grand total of about 10 minutes, including the walking to & from and watching them to make sure everyone is good to go, healthwise), I've set up their food and water supplies so that watering is weekly and feeding is done monthly. I give the goats & sheep hay, daily, socializing and observing them at the same time, another 5 - 15 minutes. Unless Kola, my "Houdini" buck goat is being a brat, and needs to be moved. Even that is usually only a 10 minute deal. Though I do check everyone's water, at least daily, as I'm seeing to the other things, actual watering is rarely more than a weekly thing, and I've set all the water up so it's easy access for me, and for most, I can clamp the house into place, so I don't have to stand and hold it, while it fills, but can just see to the daily stuff, and the only actual time it adds, is to turn the house on & off. Then, I just drag the house with me, as I move from one enclosure to the next.

In the garden, I plant very few annuals (tomatoes, pickles, and a few herbs, this year), in preference of perennials that thrive on neglect, because that is something I can easily provide. The annuals are in big planters, on the deck, for easy access, for both cars and harvesting(it also protects them from the chickens). The foraging is done as often as it can be, around both seasons and my body's cooperation.  All those soaps, salves, etc? Those are almost all things I do one or twice a year, some only every other year. The food for my dog, I make every 6 - 8 weeks, and dehydrate it,  and the treats help me use up extra eggs, that can't fit into the cupboards & pantries, in lime. Much of what I preserve is dehydrated, because it's the cheapest, easiest way for me. I pick one to three things a year, to turn into jams - and make enough to last 2 or 3yrs, including gifts.

What I'm getting at here, is that whether you *can* do it may depend very heavily on how you choose to do it. Like John F. Dean, my house could be cleaner. My yard could be cleaner. More projects could get done. My gardens could be bigger. But, only if I had more help. I'm blessed in having a spouse who cooks, and does it happily and (incredibly) well, because that a lot of time I could, but don't have to spend in the kitchen. So, your own expectations - and his - combined with your imagination, are what will limit our increase your chances of making it happen.

of course you can do it. things grow very well at my little slice of East Tennessee. where in the state are you? out in west Tennessee cotton, soybeans and pecans will probably do very well. in the east you will be lucky to get pecans to grow well. the soils can vary quite a bit for instance I have some land with rich black dirt that is probably ancient river bottom that has had organic build up for eons but 300 feet away and maybe 70 feet higher in elevation is rich red sticky clay that might just produce very fine pots on a potters wheel and another 100 to 200 feet in elevation is chert, its kind of like rotting flaking ancient one time solid rock mountain.
if you cant do everything at once do a little at a time, plan your work and work your plan