We purchased a home 5 years ago. It's 1.5 acres slowly fenced and improved.  The homestead is on a slope, and we have setup pens and now have 2 mini horses and homestead hogs. As it comes to proving the success of permaculture. When we bought the land there were only a few bugs and not much else. Mono culture of blackberry and ivy. We had  a big area couldn't even grow weeds. 5years and the kids are catching frogs, snakes, and this year we found two kinds of salamander. Over 30 different bugs, we used to have tons of earwigs and potatoe bugs. Now we have tons of predators that eat them. What was grass and buttercup is now more than 15 plants.

That's wonderful! You give me hope that eventually my buttercup will cease to dominate my property!

Clover and wild flowers used the pigs wear we could. Used goat's on the ivy, pigs work really good on the blackberry. But the dept of makeing you sad has rained on us like a monsoon. We are just barely in city limits.😞😞😞

We can't have animals within 45 feet of a living structure. But that's why we bought 40 acres in Eastern Washington. Trying to get a bunch of trees planted now. But plans are to move in 5 years or so kind of splitting money between the two.

Where did you get your 40 in Eastern Wa? I got 40 in the Oroville area last year and an slowly working on building infrastructure, while living out of a trailer. There are some great permie minded folks in the area, and always nice to hear there are more in the process of moving over.

Here are a few pics.

Devin Lavign,
Our 40 is about 15-20 minutes from Oroville east off the chesaw highway. You can check out the other post I have about it at https://permies.com/t/59741/HR-homestead-future

3HR is the name of our farm, Hanford Half-size Happy Ranch.

Thank you
Brian

Just added a small pond, the dept of makeing you sad. Says if it doesn't have a liner it's wetlands. So I reused some plastic and we stacked logs and tree branches around using cardboard to reduce the buttercup. We were down, turning and trimming the liner. Found 9 snakes around the pond they love it and the logs.

We have had great success with compost. The horses provide manure and we pile it up use our millions of worms 6 months we have great compost. This plus the really deep straw and wood chips we use for potatoes helps any soil issues we have. Grow potatoes move and grow more. How we prep an area for gardening. We use landscape fabric cause of the buttercup on some beds.

brian hanford wrote:Devin Lavign,
Our 40 is about 15-20 minutes from Oroville east off the chesaw highway. You can check out the other post I have about it at https://permies.com/t/59741/HR-homestead-future

3HR is the name of our farm, Hanford Half-size Happy Ranch.

Thank you
Brian

Looks awesome, you're on the other side of valley from me. I am off Blue Lake Rd. You can check out the thread about my place here https://permies.com/t/56342/Moving-Okanogan-homestead-land-pics#533576

Well I started anew job with less hours, and finally recovered from the motorcycle accident. We are going full steam ahead. Just 4 years till we move but work here continues. Looking at subdividing the house off the back part of the property. We purchased a walk behind brush hog, this has been the best equipment purchase we have made. Takes down blackberries like nothing. We setup 4 trellis for raspberries and one grape, going to grow some beans with it. We divided the raspberry we have planting out 14 starts. Also started a brush wood fence to block the bad neighbor. Also started a new bed, and planted 5 more fruit trees. Just this morning we have new piglets, with 10 more coming. So we are rolling ahead, I know we are not like most people. We run two of our small businesses, CSA and rentals. My wife works full-time over night, I work full-time and we are also setting up a new homestead to move on to. Wife says I have to stop working when we move, looking at home schooling at that time. So we are going non stop but we live our life.

Piglets

Hey Brian, I picked up a DR field and brush mower last summer and like you it has been the best purchase I have made. I have been using it to clear out the heavy woody brush around my property. Maintaining the road and trails so they don't get over grown. As well as making new trails with it.

Glad to hear you have recovered from your accident.

More piglet pics

Here is some videos of the back garden.

Second video

And I was taking some pics. So most of the back part of the property was cottonwood and black berry. We had berry canes over 2 inches thick and 10+ foot tall. Hoping to tame some of it using pussy Willow, alder, Salmon berry, vine maple, and hazelnut. I have noticed that blackberries don't like tree cover much. We also have a bunch of sweet crab apple to plant farther up the bottom stays pretty wet. But as we move up hill towards the barn it drys out some. This is only half of the back acre. We are going to try to have the pigs rotate through under some tree canopy next to this area.

Please see our other discussions,

our 40 acre future homestead

https://permies.com/t/59741/HR-homestead-future

Tree varieties for eastern Washington

https://permies.com/t/88417/Tree-varieties-zone-eastern-Washington

Homestead hog project

https://permies.com/t/90096/Pig-share-project-AGH-cross

Thank you
Brian
3HR

Update
Well the garden has done great, looking to expand over winter. We harvested broccoli all summer. Building the high tunnel will be a priority for spring. Our csa has done well for the ups and downs we have had. Potatoes will be harvested next. As the kids move in to the school year I am going to have more time to work at home and expand our garden. 6 more beds coming and more work on berries and bean trellis. We will be using more of my free time to work on our eastern Washington land. Found a shed builder who will deliver up there. Hoping for one or two in the late spring. Kids want to go camping in the snow, should be interesting how long that lasts. Look forward to some new videos soon.

3HR