So You Want to Be a Successful Homesteader? Marry Well.

I have mentioned my beautiful, smart, kind, amazing wife from time to time in this blog. What I haven't put into words what she means to me and the success of our little homestead.

Folks, if you're serious about self reliance, getting out of debt, raising children who turn into kind adults, it all starts with who you marry. I got so lucky. She is 100% in to what we're doing.

How did we get here? To marital bliss involving long family talks about the best way to manage intestinal parasites in a cattle herd? Communication. (And a sense of humor about how much I talk about intestinal parasites.) When she gets repeatedly shocked by an electric fence and still speaks to you the next day, you know you've found a keeper.

From the day we started dating, I had fixed in my mind what I wanted. A small homestead, with permaculture intertwined into the Joel Salatin method of raising Beef, Chicken, and Pork. I asked her her thoughts, bought books that I read and then offered up to her. I'm not perfect, while she's very close, but after buying the little farm I've worked hard to DO what I say and not make any of the homestead a burden on her.

When I'm out of town she picks up the slack on feeding and watering the animals. When I'm in town, I'm out feeding before I head to work, and feed again as soon as I get home. It works for us. I have never been so happy as I am right now.

We've seen the first of our animals graduate to the freezer. That 137 pounds of meat may not seem like a lot to most folks, but in it's own small way, it's proof of concept that yes we can feed ourselves in a financially viable way. With a half a hog going into the freezer soon, it should add to that feeling. By this time next year we should have another half a hog in the freezer another 20+/- chickens, a half of beef, and another couple of our own born and bred cattle halfway to maturity as well.

Who knows what the future holds, but there's no one I'd rather be sharing it with.

Everybody Roots for the Underdog

I think every farmer has a runt they secretly root for. I've been around farming long enough to know that most runts won't make it. Nature is cruel and honest at the same time. Survival of the fittest usually involves being bigger, stronger, and faster than the others in their group.

I write this because one of the little 236 hens is about half the size of the rest of her brood, but man is she fearless and plucky. (She's in the top left of the picture.) She fearlessly scoots in and around the hogs picking up loose hog pellets and table scraps. She negotiates the older Rhode Island Red hens with ease and is smart enough to give the rooster a wide berth.

Who knows if she'll make it to laying, but I'm rooting for her, and I'd be lying if I didn't own up to throwing her extra scratch grains from time to time.

A Texas Welcome to the Wife

Towards the end of May I was finally able to move my wife down to Texas. I wanted so much to impress her with a thriving, squared away homestead. Complete with a clutter free home and a swept out barn. Alas, reality once again kicked me in the twig and berries.

That said, after two hard days driving across the Rockies dragging a trailer and an elderly pug dog (not in Christmas Vacation style, mind you) it was really, really good to be home. The house still looked like a gypsy safe house, and the barn was worse. We settled in for the night happy to finally be in the same place together.

Around dawn the next morning Katniss started barking. Katniss only had two reasons she ever barked, the postman was dropping off something from Amazon at the door, or there were other dogs on the property. Eliminating FedEx making a pre-dawn drop off, I grabbed a rifle and headed out the door. The sound of squawking hens and barking dogs filled my ears, and I was sprinting out to the barn.

The four feral dogs, a bigger problem than you’d think, came tearing out of the barn. I missed both shots I took, made the rifle safe and went back to sprinting after the dogs. In the heat of the chase, and low light of the morning I forgot about the electric fence I’d started the week prior. So there I am, clad in boxer shorts, muck boots, and a rifle slung over me running full speed when I went ass over elbows in to knee high, chigger infested grass.

Two chickens had been more or less eaten and already dead. While another two were chewed up, both of whom would later succumb to their injuries. It was a tough day on the homestead. The two surviving Production Reds have thrived since, and started laying shortly afterwards, blessing us with around a dozen eggs a week since.

For those of you who wonder why the chickens aren't penned it comes back to two reasons one, the economics of how much less feed free range chickens require from me, and two how much healthier free range is for the chickens, minus of course the occasional feral dog attacks. :-)

Average Size

While I was moving Andrea down to Texas, our house sitter, who’s a country girl from Oklahoma called and said, “Snow, there’s a snake eating your eggs, and it’s huge. I tried to kill it but it got away.”

I was expecting to find a 3 footer, maybe 4 foot on the outside snake when he came back next. On arriving home I went out to the stall in the barn serving as a coop and saw a big snake head peering out of the old hay bales. I ran back into the house for a shotgun, seeing as how that seemed to be the best tool at hand. I emptied the 00 Buckshot out and threw in some 8 shot and headed back to the barn as quick as I could.

The egg thief was still periscope up when I came around the corner. I put a round of shot through his face into the ground and ended his reign of egg terror. I dug him out with a shovel from underneath the hay. It was then I realized how big he was, measuring in right at six feet long. It was only the beginning of our attempts to outsmart the snakes.

*For the record, yes I understand how many rats, mice, etc that a rat snake can eat, and when I come across them in the pasture, I’m happy to see them. Once they start eating eggs I’m really left with no alternative other than to dispatch them.