homestead... what do you need?

[610Alpha]

Cows eat a lot and from what I remember about Wisconsin is there is a long winter up there so you will need to put up a lot of hay or grain or both to get through the winter.

[rockriver]

small diesel tractor
fuel tanks diesel and gas
##both treated with pri d and pri g purchased from a company named JRH##
to help the fuel last longer

[pixel]

you should be planting perennial edibles NOW!! Why now because the sooner the better. It takes a long time for some trees and bushes to become mature enough to start producing fruits or nuts. Forest gardening or gorilla gardening is a good way to go. Find your land on Google Maps and draw out how you want to layout and design it where trees, fences, pond, creek, etc all go. Look at whats around you that you might not have been aware of.
Rainwater catchments are cheap water security. Even though you have a creek and maybe one day a pond one can never have too much water.
Do you have any cleared areas for farming? if not you need them. Good sunny location where you can pump water to reasonably. A solar well pump or small solar pump from the creek or lake will help irrigate your farm field.
Battery, solar, wind backup. Those security cameras you want will be useless without power. Make sure you have some sort of backup power in an emergency. redundancy is your best survival tool. have at least three different ways to do the same thing.
Fencing is nice as it keeps honest people honest. Sure its easy to circumvent but we arent keeping the bad guys out just people that may be wandering onto your property.
Animals. You need them for food and security. Nothing beats a good dog for security and letting you know whos here that shouldnt be. (except maybe guineas) Rabbits, fish in that pond, chickens, goats, and more. chickens are good at keeping the bugs down, provide eggs, and meat as well as manure for your fields. Goats can provide meat, milk, cheese, and keep areas cleaned out of bad brushy areas.
Storage storage storage. If you are going to have people possibly moving out there with you where will they stay, sleep, bathroom, shower, etc. Do you have backup systems of all of these? Small hunting campers work wonders and give people more privacy to sleep change clothes etc. Have communal dinners to save fuel when cooking. Composting toilets or humanure setup helps relieve the septic system.

Hope that gives you a few more ideas and let us know how it goes and what more you do. Sounds like fun doing much of the same thing here. :)

[WAB]

Not sure what part of the country this BOL is in, but I would add an off-grid method of for heating & cooking, probably wood, with propane backup.
Then I would get seperate but close by housing for each family. You may be tight with the 4 couples until you start living together in close quarters.A garden spot, and chickens.
So you have the basics, shelter, water, food, & heat. With security being a ongoing process.

Having assumed you have talked to these familkes of coming to your place, I would make sure that the other families had something to live in by themselves. Campers or those already built storage buildings. You can take the storage buildings, wire them for electricity, plumb them for water, wire them for telephone and maybe TV, make a small bath with commode and shower, make a kitchen area with sink and whatever else, run gas lines if needed or add a wood heater, insulate them. It would still look like a storage building from the outside. Have the families preposition supplies,etc.
As preparing for a hurricane, you need to do that BEFORE you need it than after!!


WAB