Problems on the homestead?

I'm curious what issues people struggle with the most. So many things can go wrong, and so many things are hard. Yet when we talk about it we often find someone else has found a workaround or a better way.

That is a very broad question :)

One thing that comes to my mind is getting a long enough hose. If you are watering a garden or animals, get the water as close as possible, so you don't have to truck buckets back and forth.

To me the problems faced on a homestead are the same ones that face any homeowner times ten.

Being married to a guy who know a little about any problem or knows how to find the answer works for me.

The porch light burned out and is too high for us to reach so we bought a new one, set it on the porch and plugged it into the outdoor electric outlet.

During recent rains the metal roof sprung a leak.  If we could get up on the roof we could caulk that hole.

We only have a dog and a cat though if we goats, pigs cows, horse and chickens just how many possible problem would we have?

Matt mention a long hose that reminded me about when that springs a leak or the timer goes out.  We buy new ones.

Problems seem to come and go.  This summer, it has been fencing. Last year,it was my back. Two years ago it was my wife’s health. Work gloves and eye glasses always seem to vanish.  Today my lawn mover picked up two flat tires.

A common 'problem' is that I have fifteen million billion project ideas and only twenty four hours in a day.

Patience is a virtue that I lack often. It is however something I strive for each and every day.

My first, most pervasive problem is that if I try something and it doesn't work, my infernal brain tells me I'm too dumb/stupid to do whatever it is.

After I get past that? Too many things to do and not enough time.

I keep telling myself that money can be made, but time can't, so I need to be more willing to (reasonably) throw money at problems which can be solved that way, instead of trying to hold on for a more frugal/thrifty/eco answer.

(The reason we finally got a "kit" greenhouse, as we never could acquire enough old windows of the right size. Of course this spring? Someone put up a lot on an auction site we use that would have worked... but we'd already bought the kit.)

Timothy Norton wrote:A common 'problem' is that I have fifteen million billion project ideas and only twenty four hours in a day.

Yes indeed. My wife is due with #6 in a week. We are pulling up some slow producing early plants and favoring the recent plantings, and also planting for the last round. We have 8 chickens left in a tractor to butcher. Probably this Sat. My parents are coming to town to stay for a few weeks. We have 17 hens and 21 pullets. I got the first egg from the pullets yesterday and will sell some hens and some pullets and settle back down to our 17-20 hen population that works for us. We are testing out a different heritage breed of meat chicken and will receive those at the end of Aug. + a million other things.

I tell my wife and myself that my goal everyday is to do one thing that advances the homestead toward a new thing. I will already be doing the things that maintain it but I look for 1 thing I can do that is new, and supports some area of development.

We have found that this is a reasonable goal and helps keep us from being overwhelmed.