starting the fun- my 1st few weeks of observations of living in a "new" rural area.

[huckridge]

Congratulations Protus, Sounds like you have many opportunities ahead. We made the move back in '94 when I leased 125 acres in the county where we live now. I quickly realized that was too much for me and the family. It was good to be able to raise some cattle, which we did and also hunt on, but still working full time and trying to do what was required was difficult. We bought 40 acres after that in '96 and have been here since. It was like homesteading, land had never been occuppied until we move on it.

Keep us updated with your progress, we all can learn from each other and enjoy reading about the adventures. I had 22 acres cut for pulpwood and then rented I backhoes and track loaders to de-stump it and turn it into pasture. Great thing about that is my wife learned to run a back hoe and enjoyed doing it so when I was able to buy one, I actually got encouragement. Now we have 2 tractors, horses, goats, chickens, cows and a big garden, but none of happened over night and there is still so much I plan to do I will never not be busy, but I wouldn't like it any other way.

Just remember, try to enjoy all that you do. Somethings will try your patience, but it's your's and you're doing it for you. I learned many years ago to never say never, but I don't ever think I could live in town again.

[rockriver]

protus,
i drool every time we go into lowe's...
i understand...

when my friend bought his little acreage the first thing he did was buy a 10 year old riding mower..
it lasted about 1 season, with lots of repair in that time frame. it sits now... broke..
--
he also obtained a 30 year old john deere compact tractor. price was just a little more than the john deere lawn tractors (the better grades)
that you get at the jd dealer.
there is no comparison... it runs forever on diesel. drags trees. pulls a 72" mower, operates a big tiller, and he runs it hard.
there are many other examples in the tractor thread.. for just a "few dollars more" you can get a whole lot more than just a lawnmower..
and implements can be had "used" that will work well. lots of farmers have small implements they used to farm with out behind the barn.

i'm proud for you...
tell us the stories as they occur. it will be a huge educational thing for me.

[rice paddy daddy]

The "country lifestyle" is not what most city folks imagine. We made our move to the country in 1996, rented for a couple of years to make sure it was what we wanted, then bought our place in 1999.
It was originally part of a tree farm with pines planted 12 X 6 - rows 12 feet apart, trees every 6 feet down the row, like corn.
The wife and i literally hewed our homestead out, mainly with hand tools. We left a little over an acre at the back that butts up to more woods for my "meditation area".
Even today, after clearing, running fence, building barns, stables, sheds, chicken coops, etc it is a full time job just to keep even. The wife stays home, I'm fortunate enough to still be gainfully employed (with a 72 mile round trip every day).
Our road is dirt, nearest hospital is in another state, nearest mall is an hour away, cops do not regularly come out this far, fire dept can be here in maybe 10 minutes (if they are not already busy).
All sorts of wild life right outside the back door (some of which are looking for the chicken buffet:p).
And you know what? We love it, wouldn't have it any other way. The wife and I both agree if the county ever paves our road that means civilization is getting waaaay to close and we need to move further out.
Protus, you will love it!

All the advertising for detergents, etc, that touts that "country fresh" smell obviously didn't take cows into consideration.:)

[610Alpha]

Love the thread and hearing from everyone's perspective and how everyone's situation is different even in the country.

I would like to offer some thoughts and experiences and some questions. My step-dad has a couple hundred acres of farm ground and 20-40 acres of pasture/woods. He mows only what he absolutely has to which is the yard of about 1 acre. The pasture area which hasn't had cattle in it for several years does not get mowed.

Question - Why are you mowing? No response needed but to think about what you are mowing and why? Is it necessary and/or could it be given to livestock to graze upon thereby giving you time back?

My step-dad does 0 to his forrest. He lets nature take care of it unless it falls on a fence or structure. He doesn't heat his home with wood. He used to heat it with coal that he got from the coal mine that he worked at on 3rd shift. He farmed 1st shift. Unless you are heating your home with wood or powering a wood gasifier or both it shouldn't take that much time to let nature take its course. Now if you are getting heat/power from wood then like 1Admin said the reason they have a log splitter is to save time.

Not saying what anyone is doing is right or wrong just want you to think about why you are doing what you are doing and is there a way that it can be done to save you time. Ask yourself why several times to get to the root. Make sure that it is worth your time to be doing, that is the most precious of commodities that we all have.

Take time to plan out your feeding and watering of your livestock so that you can get more done with your time. Maybe do some Farmer Engineering to make it less time consuming :)

I setup my raised bed garden with pvc sprinkler system so I wouldn't have to stand there with a hose. I do have to turn it on but next year I am getting a timer for it. All I'll have to do is make sure that the batteries are working and obviously turn on the water :).

Talk to some old people that grew up on farms to hear what they did to save time. Granted my step-dad hasn't had chickens and such on his farm since he was a young man but through his adult life he worked 3rd shift at the coal mine and farmed/raised cattle during the day. He still had time to drink coffee with his neighbors, go mushrooming, and eat blackberry pie :).

My FIL has about 10 acres and wishes he had done this or that differently...so take the time to plan out your homestead to avoid re-work...go visit some farms to get ideas and ask them what they wish they had done differently. Take some time on the front end to do some research. Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

Protus - I appreciate you sharing your experience and growing pains...good luck with da bear. Maybe if the GFC get enough complaints they will move said bear to a better location or not.

[rice paddy daddy]

The beauty of having horses is they mow and fertilize at the same time.

[610Alpha]

The beauty of having horses is they mow and fertilize at the same time.

Exactly the point I was making...I am working with my FIL to partition his pasture so that the horses will eat the pasture more evenly instead of just eating the spots they like the best. I am still trying to get a feeder calf thrown in with the horses. We buy 1/2 steer every spring and this year we paid basically $1.89/lb for hamburger, we bought it from a local family farmer. We then have it butchered at a family owned meat locker.

[rice paddy daddy]

We have the property fenced and cross fenced and gates all over to allow the horses to be moved about to different areas, even up to and around the house. This cuts mowing down considerably, there are some areas that still have to be done - the chicken run for example.
Even then, weed control along the fence lines is essential, some weeds (especially vineing type) will grow tall enough to short out the electric strand along the top. Then you've got 1400 pounds of horse leaning on your fence to get at the grass on the other side. It's a real heart breaker to be running hundreds of feet of fence (by hand) in 105 degree weather only to have a horse mess up what you just finished.

[Bama]

I do not have any livestock to help with the mowing, yet. The reason I cut so much grass is to discourage snakes abd other critters around the house. It has worked well so far. I love my place , and I am trying to preplan further improvements. 610alpha is correct in stating that working smarter saves time and sanity to some degree. There are alot of things we can learn from our past, if we will look to it.

[protus]

610- why i mow.
my yard is small, and we are semi rural. Trust me i wanted to be in the boonies but we couldnt swing it.We have a few neighbors on our sides, few small tracts and a few larger ones, most being in the 1/4 to 5 acre in size. Our "yard" is roughly like i said just under 1/2 acre with the rest being woods before it hits the neighbors land.
Its not a ton of land under 2 acres.
But price and location was right. Our payments are what most pay for a car ( heck the whole place cost as much as some 4x4 crew cabs these days ..its a 2x2 with sunroom, ultility room and iirc is just under 2400 sq ft)and we pay extra each month. If my math is right i'll have it paid for just after 20 yrs with what little extra we dump into it. just wanted to clear up that i dont have a ton of land LOL... just live on a good sized lot in a very small town. LOL

The city we are in is small, 2-3 mins to drive through it from end to end( census shows 1800-2k in population). then nothing major for 30+ miles in most directions.

one thing.

we started storing seeds back around 07ish. We started our garden in planters till we could de grass/clear the area. Almsot 50% of what we planted never took . It could be the weather at the time etc but nothing took. Keep that in mind with older seeds. We stored them indoors, in their paper bags in a closet.


people who let their dogs run wild...another sore spot for me right now LOL

[Matt In Oklahoma]

we started storing seeds back around 07ish. We started our garden in planters till we could de grass/clear the area. Almsot 50% of what we planted never took . It could be the weather at the time etc but nothing took. Keep that in mind with older seeds. We stored them indoors, in their paper bags in a closet.

but but but the guy at the gunshow said if I bought this pvc pipe vault full of heirloom superfood groups i would make it when skynet joined forces with .gov and monsanto to form the nwo and it would stay hidden when they, them, the man, the MIB, came door to door to take my seeds away because they had my name from the cannery they got while they were training in LA for the revolution front food riots soon to be caused by the planetary alignments dated by the mayans whos secrets are protected by the secret culture of the illuminati which is really run by the kid that works at the tacobell, man i hate that kid always jukes me outta my mild sauce cause he knows, yes he knows :(
Glad to hear a real report of the truth for a change

[610Alpha]

610- why i mow.
my yard is small, and we are semi rural. Trust me i wanted to be in the boonies but we couldnt swing it.We have a few neighbors on our sides, few small tracts and a few larger ones, most being in the 1/4 to 5 acre in size. Our "yard" is roughly like i said just under 1/2 acre with the rest being woods before it hits the neighbors land.
Its not a ton of land under 2 acres.
But price and location was right. Our payments are what most pay for a car ( heck the whole place cost as much as some 4x4 crew cabs these days ..its a 2x2 with sunroom, ultility room and iirc is just under 2400 sq ft)and we pay extra each month. If my math is right i'll have it paid for just after 20 yrs with what little extra we dump into it. just wanted to clear up that i dont have a ton of land LOL... just live on a good sized lot in a very small town. LOL

The city we are in is small, 2-3 mins to drive through it from end to end( census shows 1800-2k in population). then nothing major for 30+ miles in most directions.

I didn't think you had tons of acres. I do understand how even those small towns like people to keep their yards mowed no matter how big they are :) I spent my high school years in a town about that size, needless to say I preferred the country my town wasn't that great of a place. I have seen people move out into the country with 10+ acres and they think they have to mow it all and then they say they don't have time for anything and that was what I was trying to address.

A couple of acres is a great place to start...

My FIL made a new door in his hay barn so that he can back in a wagon of hay and unload/stack it easier than the way we used to for the small square bales that is. For the large square bales he does that with his JD hobby farm tractor, that thing is nice. About 2 years ago we built a hay chute for the large square bales, 1 would last 4-6 adult horses about a week, saved them from having to take hay to them every day.

I was thinking about a time saver for watering animals using a float pump but you would have to watch out for it running forever....hmmm I will have to think about that one some more.

Hopefully your small town is cool with some small livestock those small towns sometimes have old laws on the books so watch out for that.

You're Living the Dream!!! Let us know how that irrigation line works out.

[protus]

on livestock, i know most folks have chickens. i can hear thier roosters.the one neighbor had a few but they got "attacked" somehow. either by a dog or maybe that bear. We have a large 16x16+ pole barn/ fenced/ pen area that could house either chickens, pigs and small goats if i wanted to close it in more. Chickens will be the 1st things we get and mostly for the eggs,then meat later on.
i get what you were saying i just wanted to be clear so no one got the idea i had 600 acres or something LMAO.

small town thrift stores are cool places.
i picked up a broadcast spreader for only 10$..and 2 therma rest seats and 2 candle lantern refill packs for 8$...

[610Alpha]

on livestock, i know most folks have chickens. i can hear thier roosters.the one neighbor had a few but they got "attacked" somehow. either by a dog or maybe that bear. We have a large 16x16+ pole barn/ fenced/ pen area that could house either chickens, pigs and small goats if i wanted to close it in more. Chickens will be the 1st things we get and mostly for the eggs,then meat later on.
i get what you were saying i just wanted to be clear so no one got the idea i had 600 acres or something LMAO.

small town thrift stores are cool places.
i picked up a broadcast spreader for only 10$..and 2 therma rest seats and 2 candle lantern refill packs for 8$...

Now I am envious...thats a decent sized pole barn that you can do a lot with. Sounds like your neighbors could be some good resources of info with them having livestock as well. Nice score on the place I would say from the sounds of it.

[rice paddy daddy]

Protus, please excersize due care with your chickens. They are dependant on you for protection from 4 legged (and winged) predators.
To those who want chickens but don't have any experience, there are two forums I highly recommend:
http://www.backyardchickens.com/ and http://www.chickenforum.com/forum.php
Backyard chickens is more than just a forum, there's lots and lots of info there. I highly recommend it.

I once was a city boy, but now I'm a certified chicken wrangler!:)
"Head 'em up, move 'em out, Rawhide!"

[Rmplstlskn]

Welcome to the semi-rural lifestyle... Lots of work but not as much emptiness as one would like. I too have found rural neighbors can often NOT be the neighbors you want in a SHTF event. Fake friendly in good times, but you can see all over them and their words that when things get bad they will be out for #1, even if it means taking from or harming you to get it... And they know how to shoot that deer rifle they have in ambush from years of hunting, even if it is now you in the crosshair... There are thugs everywhere it seems...

Sounds like you will need a homesteading blog now... LOL!