Homesteading: Part 2

The first winter.

Part I of this series explains how we bought 30 acres of raw land in Madison County, Virginia and managed to pull off homesteading the land despite financial set-backs, regulatory harassment by county inspectors and the stresses of doing it ourselves. This next chapter begins with Jill and I living in the office trailer, while continuing to build out infrastructure.

By winter, 2017 Jill and I were really focused making the land into a farm. But that didn’t mean just housing and horse fences.

We had four lovely Red-buff hens (chickens) that we brought with us from our old farm. Jill likes to keep a small number of laying hens for two reasons. The first is that three or four hens produce the right number of eggs for us and the dogs, as we either make dog food from scratch or if we buy bulk, we supplement that heavily with scraps and eggs. The second is that a small flock is easy to maintain, the coop doesn’t have to be cleaned as often and it keeps the mice and rats (and snakes that follow the rats) to a minimum. Furthermore, the birds don’t pick on each other, so long as the coop is big enough.

As a general rule, we don’t keep roosters. The big reason is that we can be lazy collecting eggs and don’t wish to crack open a “too fertilized” egg while making breakfast. But beyond that, roosters can worry a hen half to death in an enclosed coop. In a free range situation, it is different - but for coop life, hens only. In a free range situation, the roosters will act as protectors. A coop had to be built immediately for the hens because of the local foxes, raccoons and other four legged predators.

There was an old run-in shed on the property, partly burned from a long ago fire. Even though there was so much else to do, protecting the remaining chickens became paramount. When Jill’s not happy, I am not happy. By nature, I am very protective of the animals, children and my wife. It is just how I have always been wired. So, the top “tyranny of the urgent” became repurposing the old, falling down run in shed to become a chicken coop

And then there were the Guinea fowl. The summer before, the ticks had been really, really bad. By bad, I mean waking up in the night twice a week to a little tick crawling over my flesh. Or finding one embedded into my thigh. We treat the dogs with an oral tick control, which we use very sparingly. Usually we only need to give it to them twice a year. But still, finding dying ticks on the bed or sofa is just gross.

So, our “go-to” solution is free ranging guinea fowl. Jill found some young birds on craigslist and off we went on another wild poultry adventure. Because homesteading wasn’t enough, we “needed” to take on even more poultry. Yes, Jill can get passionate about things sometimes. But this was not our first rodeo with Guineas and certainly has not been the last.

Below: the coop is built and chickens and guineas are all doing fine. The coop has a concrete floor and hardwire cloth. Chicken wire allows for predators to grab wings and legs through the bars - it is not recommended.

We initially thought we could let the chickens free range for a bit during the day - but it was within a week when we lost a hen in broad daylight to a fox.

As usual, over the course of the year - the guineas slowly got picked off too. It is their lot in life on our farm. Over time, we have managed to get to the point where we can collect their eggs, incubate, hatch and keep their numbers fairly stable, but the truth is that over the years - sometimes we just have to buy more Guinea fowl chicks. Truth be told, everyone loves “chicken” dinner… including foxes, raccoons and weasels. Lucky for us, the dogs keep the coyotes at bay, but coyotes also love chicken for dinner.

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"The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen."

During the 2017 and 2018, I was doing expert witness work - which can be very lucrative, so we had the money to both reduce our consulting hours and work on the farm, and work we did!

We turned to building run-in sheds for the horses, trenching/laying water lines and rebuilding barns. As usual, we look for any great deals and found a set of high quality, black framed windows and a patio door for the old house. Score!

I also tackled the old barn roof, which had partially come off. My old rock climbing skills most definitely came in handy, although Jill got very worried and was not happy with me for not being more careful.

Unfortunately, as I was nailing into rotted wood, and didn’t take the time to replace the trusses, that roof has partially come off again. This job was scary enough, that I am not sure I want to tackle it again. Hence, I have put it off for over a year now. Not to mention I am too busy. But try getting the “hired” help to fix roofs? Nope - no go.

In the long run, we are still not sure this barn can be saved. However, I installed our electrical panel/breaker box and our water pressure tank for the well in it early on. So for now, we are stuck with it.

Here is the thing about homesteading and farming. I make mistakes, Jill makes mistakes - you will make mistakes. It is part of the process. Accept this, learn the lessons and move on.

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I find a little time to do some riding on Jade.

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Jill and I began to put in horse fencing that winter. As most of you know, we breed a relatively rare breed of horse called a Lusitano. One of the oldest breeds in the world, the Lusitano is from Portugal - where some of the best horsemen in the world reside. Our breeding farm produces some of the best Lusitanos in North America. Generally we have about 15-18 horses on the farm and we sell about five babies a year. We used to sell semen from our stallion, which we “collect” - using a mare phantom. Jill then works up the semen in our little laboratory and ships it out to clients. This is part of the business that we had to give up during the COVIDcrisis- it is very labor intensive and requires that the stallion (and us) be available for collection 24/7 for about six months out of the year.

Anyway, back to the fencing. The new year of 2018 had started, and it was all about the horse fencing!

This very cool post pounder (extreme driver) was invented by our neighbor and friend here in Madison VA. When we had to put in posts on older farms before, we used the tractor and auger - which is dangerous, back breaking work, requires cement and rocks to do a decent job, and generally does not produce a high-quality straight fence. This extreme driver is truly brilliant. Here is Jill demonstrating.

My neighbor lends a hand and one of the finished run-in sheds looks spectacular, if I don’t say so myself!

The Eyes Have It

As a foolish young adult, I did a lot of gas welding - both building fish tank stands and working on my father-in-laws farm. Yeh - years down the road, I developed early cataracts.

About this time, my cataracts become so bad, I could no longer work on the computer. My vision was sepia washed, with bright colors removed from the spectrum of what I was able to see. I had always worn “coke-bottle” thick glasses and never had experienced great vision, but now I could no longer drive, work or even read labels. It was time to get my lenses replaced.

As many of you are of a certain age, I will share my experiences. Jill insisted that I get the new lens types that are tri-focal. They were a hugely expensive luxury, about 10K after insurance. But her point was that these eyes should last me the rest of my life and that it would be worth the money. She was right. Cataract surgery changed my life.

I did have a little complication and the surgery (which did require that I reduce my physical activity) but I was back up running on all cylinders in no time!

For the first time in my life, I was actually able to see without glasses. It has changed my whole life.

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We made the little office trailer a home.

The key was to put almost everything we owned in storage and keep things clean and tidy. Keeping an upbeat positive attitude was important too.

A few pictures of the living space. Photo #1: Those old office trailers have an awesome heating and air conditioning unit that can’t be beat. I think the trailer costs about $30 each month in electricity. Photo #2: Our little bedroom was small, particularly when four dogs and a cat decide to join us for the morning sun. Photo #3: Jill laying down the flooring. Photo #4: Christmas that year with close family members and two more dogs occupying the space for a couple of weeks (this is part of our family that no longer speaks to us because of our radical views). Photo #5: the kitchen, living room and bedroom and photo #6: home grown garlic - the vegetable gardening tradition continues.

By mid-spring, 2018 - we had saved up enough to consider a house. We knew that the county would come down hard on a “stick-built” house and it would add at least a year to finish the build.

So, after much consideration and budgeting, we decided to go for a manufactured home.

I had intended to cover the house build and my father’s passing in this essay, but that will have to come soon.

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Next up! Spring is just around the corner and we get a new house!

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