Tag: Starting a homestead

Enjoy Working on Your Homestead Again

Don’t you enjoy working on your Homestead anymore, because it is so overwhelming? Does it make you wonder whether other homesteaders have the same trouble and why on earth somebody would start a homestead?

In this blog I want to tell you something about a book I read and how exactly it changed my view on the work we have on our small farm. And how it made me enjoy our place and our work much more.

This is what I learned from Mary Mann Hamilton’s book “Trails of the Earth, The Treu Story of a Pioneer Woman”.

This blog contains affiliate links. By using these links to buy something you will support our farm.

The amount of work it just is, to run a Homestead

Somehow I did not get that it was not just us having so much work on our 9 acre farm. I know my neighbours complain a lot about the amount of work as well. But I kind of, did not generalise the fact that we have so much to do.

We are so used that thing can be fixed quickly. We see buildings rising in the towns with such an ease. Streets made in some weeks time.

We do not know any more what hard work it was to build up homesteads in a wild environment in the old days. With only just the human labour available, no Tarmac roads, no Walmart nearby, no hardware store within a km, no connection to the town’s drinking water pipe, no central heating.

Mary Mann was always working, together with her children, with her worker William, with some help from the neighbours. She was running a household and when her husband was out working somewhere else, she ran the farm. It was just the way it was. No choice.

For me reading Mary Mann’s life story was a reminder of what effort it took to make your own farm. And that is what I was doing. Not a quick fix. I am building up a farm in a wild environment, just like she did. And that needs time. Something that I had to learn to accept.

Once accepted that it takes time, I am going to take the time. No hurries no worries.

Unlike Mary Mann Hamilton, we go to the grocery store if we do not manage to put in our cabbages and broad beans. Lucky us. Does it matter? No. Do we want it different? Yes. But we do not need to do it now, right away to survive. We can take our time. Making it better all the time, in small steps.

Reading the book made me realise that my life is so much easier than hers, it made me so much more relaxed about this huge workload I thought I had.

The Homesteads of the past where not 100% self-sufficient

I learned from my Grandmother who used to have a Homestead in the tea plantations in Indonesia that there would be a delivery of some sort ones a week. A lorry would come driving up the winding roads in the mountains to deliver some ordered goods to my Grandmothers home. The same happens in Mary Mann’s story.

Flower, soap and many other household products were bought outside, in the closest town. A lorry would be organised to bring the goods home. Home would be a remote place like the loggers camp, a homestead or a tea planters compound (in my grandma’s case).

Being 100% self sufficient on just one homestead has never been the case. It never happened that way. There was always a human community around. No matter how far indigenous people live in the would they always traded goods. Things that they have for things that they do not have.

When your homestead concentrates on dairy, you might as well trade cheese for vegetables. That does not make you a bad homesteader. You can still grow some lettuce because you prefer to eat your lettuce freshly picked, but you do not need to grow everything.

In our individualistic society we are so used to doing everything ourselves. In the past things were different. People were very much depending on each other. Living like they did in our homestead needs a different approach.

People were not working on their own

Back in the past families were much bigger and neighbours were closer. Every family member had to contribute to the work in the household or on the land. Neighbours would help out in times of crisis. Together the family ran the farm.

Mary Mann’s children would all work on the land. Every child had it’s tasks adjusted to their age. The smaller ones doing lighter and simpler work, the older ones whatever they could handle at their age. They were tough to use tools and guns as they grew up and they handled the things well.

How are we supposed to run our 9 acre Homestead just with the two of us. No way! We need to bring down our expectations. Either we do not do all the work we want to do, or we will have to hire in somebody to do the work for us. That became very clear to me after reading “Trails of The Earth”.

Change of Motivation

Did you start your Homestead with a different motivation from the motivation you have right now to keep on going?

You do not need to stick to the impossible. You can make a change without losing the essential things you want with your life.

In “Trail of The Earth” Mary Mann describes very well how her motivation to run her own place changes.

First her motivation was to work hard to make some savings for their families own Homestead. When they finally manage to buy a piece of land to run their Homestead, the family lose it again. That was a big shock at first, but after that having her own Homestead as not what motivated her. The well being of the children was much more important to her then the ownership of a piece of land.

After this change in motivation the family rented a good piece of land. They then had their Homestead anyway. Since you only need good land, it does not always matter whether you own it or not.

Things can change. Life makes you take different priorities. After having owned a Homestead it might not be as ideal as you have thought. It is just a matter of allowing yourself a change to make a change.

Wise lessons.

Mary Mann’s book “Trail of the Earth”, contains, I think, some wise lessons for us Homesteaders.

First of all, a Homestead is just a lot of work. In the past days people would share the work amongst the family members and they would not try to be entirely self-sufficient.

As you have your Homestead and you know better what it is to run one, the way you see Homesteading might change.

These I think are lessons I learned from Mary Mann’s book, looking into the history of Homesteading. It made my view on our own situation much more realistic. And that changed our approach to the work that needs to be done.

When you are where we were, It is definitely worth reading the book.

Click here to buy the book

21st November 2018
How Not to Struggle On a Homestead with Too Much Work

For four weeks on a row we were working our heads off. Trying to harvest all our fruit, make cheese, getting the fruit processed, cleaning the house, laundry, dishes it needs to be finished. There was too much work on our homestead. The work goes on and on, endless. I never imagined that running a homestead would be so exhausting.

Is this what is happening at your homestead? Or is this the biggest fear you have not to start your own homestead?

In this blog I am going to let you know how we learned to deal with an overwhelming workload on our Terra do milho homestead.

This blogpost contains affiliate links. By using them you support our homestead.

After 8 years of hard work our workload was still overwhelming

At the beginning we thought we would be able to finish our homestead in two years and then have it up and running. Making money with renting out a holiday tent and selling fruit and giving meditation lessons.

What we didn’t expect is the amount of time it takes to do everything yourself. Apart from building our homestead we wanted to be as self-sustainable as possible.

We do have electricity from the grid, but that is it. We had to provide our own drinking water and we use our own wood from the land for heating the house. We grow our own fruit and veggies, we have chickens for eggs and goats for milk, yoghurt and cheese. To keep the basics going is already a lot of work.

Working very hard we managed to get the basics going. However, after 8 years there are still a lot of unfinished projects.

When, in 2018 a violent wild fire destroyed half of our fruit trees we were almost ready to quit. We had to start planting all over again. It was so frustrating because we couldn’t handle the overwhelming amount of work no more.

Something needed to change. But how and what?

Over the years we tried a lot to handle our workload. Time management, dividing the work, schedules, working plans and much more. Some things helped, but the feeling that it was all too much remained.

One morning when I woke up I was thinking about my grandmother. She used to have a homestead in the mountains in Indonesia, on Java. My grandmother lived in the mountains with her family, my grandfather was a specialist in treating tea plants. They lived in the middle of nowhere, more or less like we do. How did she manage? And how did all those pioneers who lived like my grandmother managed homesteading?

I started looking for answers on the internet and came across a very special book, which changed my way of looking at the problem.

How reading a book changed my view on our overwhelming workload.

After reading Trails of the Earth: The True Story of a Pioneering Woman by Mary Mann Hamilton, I realised that it is just what it is. Homesteading is a lot of work, there is no way to avoid it. Reading this book helped me to accept a fact of life.

In her book she describes her life in way that made me realise that there is no reason to be frustrated about the amount of work we have. She is not frustrated about having an overwhelming workload all the time, she takes it as it is. Unlike we did.

I realised, since there is no way to change the never ending amount of work on a homestead, you might as well find a way to deal with it as it is. Mary Mann, my grandmother, they just lived with it.

What has changed on the farm since I read this book?

Since I have read the book our plans on the farm are much less ambitious. We stick to what we have and try to keep it as simple as possible. Enjoying what we have instead of missing what we do not have. This is a big switch of mindset.

Since it is just a fact of life that homesteading is hard work, it is not changeable. What is changeable is the way you experience it.

Working from the perspective that you like what you have means also that you lose less time by trying to gain what you don’t have. It is so much more relaxed.

It also means that there is no point in hurry up things. There is going to be an endless amount of jobs and projects. When you finish one, there will be another one. You might as well take a nice break between the jobs. Enjoy a lazy Sunday or go party at the neighbours.

Mary Mann Hamilton made us see homesteading in a different way, just by being herself and telling us her story.

Thanks to Mary’s book Trail of the Earth, I am far less frustrated by an overwhelming workload. We now do one thing at the time. Instead of trying to finish homesteading, we actually are learning how to enjoy it. And believe me there is so much joy in it.

Read the book and find out yourself how much it can do for you.

Click here to get to: Trail of the Earth by Mary Mann Hamilton.

14th November 2018
Want to know how to stop wasting food?

I found two interesting cookbooks that each have an interesting but different approach to solve the problem of wasting food in your kitchen.

While Victoria Glass gives you lots of recipes, Dana Gunder leads you through methods of optimising the organisation of your shopping and kitchen.

Both books provide you with practical tips to tackle the problem of wasting food. Here I give you a quick impression of the books and how they can help to solve your problem wasting food (to find out about Dana Gunders book scroll down).

This blogpost contains affiliate links. By using them you support our homestead.

Too Good To Waste: How to Eat Everything – by Victoria Glass

Kindle version for 9.83＄
Hardcover version 15.82＄
(prices in Europe might be different)

The book is well organised, has nice pictures of some of the dishes. It includes good advice on storing and using food. There is a well organised index where you can find the right recipe for your ingredient

How does this book help you to waste less food?

Are you a somewhat experienced cook that is able to cook from a recipe book? And would you like to waste less from your bought vegetables and ingredients? Do you want to save money (who doesn’t)? Then this is the right book for you.

The book will, amongst other things, teach you how to use vegetables as a whole without throwing away any part of it.

Leftovers can be remade into nice dishes again, so they do not need to go into the bin.

And what about the leafy stuff, like watercress, that is left in your fridge and got shrivelled because you had no time to use it? No problem, instead of tossing them away you can make a nice wonton soup. And there are many more things that you can do with shrivelled leaves, it’s all in Victoria Glass’s book.

It will help you to cook more efficient in a stylish but simple way with an exotic touch.

There are some really cool recipes for: fish skin, chicken skin, sour milk, last night potato mash, broad bean skin fritters, pumpkin skins, stale bread, strawberry tops and much more.

What do I like about the book?

Victoria Glass’s cookbook is for the average cook. I think the book is an all (wo)man’s friend that will guide you to a new way of cooking creative and delicious meals.

The recipes are clear with ingredients that you most likely have in your kitchen. That makes it into a cookbook that is suitable to use on a daily basis. With non complicated yet innovative recipes.

And the main thing: it serves the purpose to waste less food.

About the author

Victoria Glass is a London based cook, recipe developer and food writer. Books she has also written are Boutique Wedding Cakes, Deliciously Vintage, Baking Mash-Up and Boozy Shakes . You can find her profile on: https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/contributors/victoria-glass

[button_round link=”https://amzn.to/2PQb0yU” target=”_blank” background_color=”#8224e3″ border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]Buy Too Good To Waste here[/button_round]

Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook: A Guide to Eating Well and Saving Money By Wasting Less Food – by Dana Gunders

Kindle version for 11.76＄
Library binding for 22.95＄
Paperback version for 16.86＄
(prices in Europe might be different)

The book gives a good accessible explanation of how to change your household into a less food wasting one.

How does this book help you to waste less food?

Are you looking for everyday strategies to waste less food? This handbook provides you with some practical strategies. With small adjustments of habit in shopping, portioning and the organisation of your refrigerator it provides you with useful tools.

Useful too is that the book shows you how to make the best of products that are on their way of getting wasted. Like making applesauce from bad apples and making muffins from frozen almost dead bananas. Simple things that will help you.

For those who are not already used to do so there is guiding for freezing, pickling and cellaring.

A bonus is that you will find a list in the appendix that tells you the lifespan of each type of food. Not by date but by telling you how to know when it goes bad. It then learns what you can do to lengthen the products lifespan.

What do I like about the book?

I like that Dana’s book unravels the reasons why food gets wasted in the average kitchen. These reasons are not just made up, they are based on a solid investigation that Dana Grunder did as a Senior Scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). She produced an issue paper that is called: Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill. Based on the knowledge she gathered for making this scientific paper, her book gives the tools to solve the problems that lead to the wasting of food on an everyday basis.

Her handbook makes clear that wasting food is not just about using recipes, but it is also about habits in life and the organisation of the kitchen. I think that gives the book it’s additional value to just being a cookbook.

The recipes are supportive to make the book into a complete compass for you to become a mindful consumer.

About the author

Dana is a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and one of the first to bring to light just how much food is wasted across the country through her report, Wasted: How America is Losing Up to 40% of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill. Part of the conclusions of this report led to the content of Dana’s book.

[button_round link=”https://amzn.to/2PHcVWh” target=”_blank” background_color=”#8224e3″ border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]Buy Waste Free Kitchen Handbook here[/button_round]

20th October 2018
5 Phases in building a Homestead

As we were building a Homestead here, down south in Portugal, I discovered that this process runs in phases.

Since we are on a mountain ridge where many people are starting their own place for sustainable living, we could talk to a lot of people about building up their site. It seems that nearly everybody went through the same phases. These are phases after you have bought the land. You could say buying the land is a whole story on itself, which I am not going into here.

Now letting your dream come true is not always easy. I find the dreaming stage much easier than the reality part. Yet, I would not have wanted to miss that reality part for a minute.

We are still somewhere on the scale of phases ourselves, I think more or less between Phase 4 and 5.

I think it is good to know for us Homesteaders to realise that we more or less go through the same stages. Especially when you get stuck somewhere. Really there is a way out, someone has figured it out before you. Sit down and take some time to find out, what others have done in a similar situation.

Let’s get to the Phases first…

Building a Homestead: Phase one, Basics & a shelter

The first phase is the starting phase. First of all you have to make yourself a shelter. For some people this used to be a tipi, were they moved in with the whole family. For some people it was a partly built house with a view undefined rooms. Or a caravan, which was maybe a more luxury version compared to the other options, depending how many people you have to squeeze into the caravan…Depending on one’s carefully saved budget things can be more or less convenient. And some people do not mind to start very basic.

In our case it looked like this: we had two building on the land. One of the to buildings, the biggest. We turned into a living house. It was very basic. It had walls, doors and a fireplace in one of the rooms. There was a room that was on it’s way to become a kitchen. The kitchen even had cold running water, no potable water though it was clean enough to do the dishes. We had electricity from the grid. It was enough as a shelter. We build this shelter before I moved to our land, Terra do Milho.

Then there are the basic needs that need to be looked after: water for drinking, washing and cooking. Firewood to keep one warm and dry.

Challenges:

Wow, it all takes a lot more time than thought to run a household in the wild.

Tips:

Take some time to make yourself a good functioning base. It might take longer to make it right, but you will gain so much more time later on on the path to homesteading. Organising your home with enough storage room, a proper bathroom and kitchen is really worth investing time and money in.

Organize your energy resources like woodshed, wood, electricity well.

Take some time to see what you want to do off grid or on grid. Really, you do not need to go completely off grid when you have 6 children to care for. Carefully think what it will mean labour and money wise.

Building a Homestead: Phase two, lets become self-sustainable

A vegetable garden is started for the first basic food needs. Some fruit trees are planted. A small part of the land is cleared and cultivated to start growing things.

Slowly the rest of the land gets cleared and explored. Slowly discovering how the land works and what the potential is.

At Terra do Milho, I was on my own most of the time. Tom still had his work in Holland and we were financially depending on his income. Some terraces under our house were already cleared so I started a small vegetable garden with some basic needs. But hey, what a difference of what I was accustomed to! The soil and the climate were so different that my 30 years of gardening experience were useful, but did not help me to grow something simple as lettuce….

I did enjoy the land clearing a lot. There were so many mystery places on the land I had never been to. It was an exciting experience to explore our own land.

Challenges:

Climate and soil can be very different from what you are used to.

Brambles grow like mad.

Fruit trees grow soooo slow.

You will have to keep your household going. We did not have drinking water in the house, so I had to get it from a spring miles away.

Getting compost for the garden to make it grow well, I found quite a challenge.

Tips:

Getting carried away with land exploring is definitely a danger. Be aware that everything will grow back soon. If you open to much land, you might not be able to maintain it all.

Make sure your garden is not too big. It needs to be big enough to feed you though, but keep in mind that you do not need acres of land for feeding two people, or even 4. Check our blogs about gardening to find out more….

Building a Homestead: Phase three, integrating systems.

A Permaculture Design or some other type of organizational design is getting implemented. Systems are getting integrated. You might be considering taking some farm animals in. Chickens for eggs and maintaining the fruit trees. Goats for manure and keeping the brambles down.

Challenges:

What I found challenging her was to translate my theoretical Permaculture knowledge into specific on ground action. I had to redefine Permaculture a lot of time. I read books and blogs and watched tons of videos to be able to put it into practice. Permaculture does not work like a recipe book. You really need to dig in quite deep to get the basic idea.

In our situation we got chickens and goats. I have no problem of eating our own chicken, but totally met myself with trying to eat our own goats. I could not kill, or let them kill for that reason. They have to much of a personality and it feels like eating my own friends. That was an emotion I did not expect. It complicated things quite a bit.

What I also read in blogs and facebook posts, and what I have explained myself too is how concerned you can get about sick animals or animals in labour. I sometimes couldn’t sleep from it.

Tips:

Don’t take to many animals in at once. Consider that they need a lot of care. They will need a house, a fence and food.

Think carefully about what you want to do with the young animals that you are not going to need.

Animals can also do damage to your garden and to the terrain, be prepared for that.

Consider this mechanism: when you give your kitchen scraps to the chicken there will be none left for the piglet.

Building a Homestead: Phase four, the end of the budget

You might have had a carefully thought through plan including a financial plan. We did have one. But unfortunate the moment we started our homestead the credit crisis landed hard in Holland. We had only 30% from our income left.

We had a good plan, but it was in pieces when we wanted to build up our homestead. This lead from one financial struggle to the other. Preventing us from finishing the building of our house. It is still unfinished. Because later on when the work on the farm accumulates you lack the time. That is why it is important in the beginning.

But anyway, we had to go to plan B. We made tourist accommodations. After some years that approved to be a good thing to do. Although it is seasonal and does not provide an income for the whole year, it is more than welcome.

Money matters

Even when you have carefully put money aside to stick it out a few years, sooner or later you will need a source of income. Because there is so much to do at the beginning, much more than you can think of, the number of years that you can stick out with your savings are over before you know it. You might find out that you did not take time to upgrade your house, as we did. So you will need some income to invest.

Every project that you finish on your homestead seems to generate work. Make a chicken coop and you and up taking care of chickens. The same for goats. Clear a forest so you get axess to wood and you end up clearing it forever and cutting piles of firewood. When you finish something three things are born that need labour.

Getting in machines to make it all doable with a small number of people becomes a wish and a necessity. Although worth the investment these machines are often not cheap. Borrowing things from neighbours might be an option if you need something only ones or twice, but when things are used very often it is not practical. It proves to be better to buy more expensive tools of a better quality, that will last longer. Good tools are also good time savers, and time is what you need.

In this stage things that were installed temporarily often need to be replaced with permanent things so you do not need to do as much maintenance.

Challenges:

The challenge here I found out is: How can the money making get more priority? What to make money with? What is the best choice? There is not much room to experiment.

Tips:

When you have taken up to many projects on in the previous stages, it is time to let some projects go. It can be very hard to make a choice of what is best. But maybe there is no best. If you want to make something into a success it needs dedication and time, no matter what you do.

Building a Homestead: Phase five, it settles down.

What I feel that is happening to our homestead project now is that is slowly settling down. We have our income from out tourism which helps us through 6 month. Some other income comes from my husbands work that he does in Holland still every now and then. There is still lots to do, but we have agreed that we do not want to extent the project any more. We will just do all the unfinished jobs one by one in a humanly pace.

I started this blog that will hopefully help a lot of people, but also bring some more income to get other people in to do jobs on the homestead. And if I am right some income from the homestead should develop.

Working yourself through all the things that are not sustainable and changing them into a sustainable situation. Not taking any new projects on, but finishing everything that is unfinished. Finally some project starts taking off money wise, so it can be slowly done. By this time you have probably lost the: everything has to be done now mentality that is so connected to today’s regular life.

Challenges:

I think the main challenge her is to stay patient and be content with what you have.

Tips:

Start meditating again, if you ever did and stopped doing it because of your workload.

See the homestead as something that will never be finished. One of my friends put it this way: ‘’At first, when we started, I thought I was going to work really hard, like mad, for five years and then have a quiet life with no stress. After many more years of working hard I realised this quiet life will not happen if I keep on working like mad. I have to slow down now to have a more relaxed life. It makes no sense to keep on working like mad, because the work will never finish no matter how hard you work.’

29th August 2018
X ways to make money off your homestead… How much can you really do?

Yes, I do agree that there are many ways to make money off your homestead. From selling eggs to beautiful handicraft. It all depends on your skills and dreams. But to be very honest, it is not so simple.

I mean, yes, when you have a nice part time homestead on the outskirts of a city it is a completely different story. I envy you. Don’t get me wrong, this is not about the ‘real thing’.

This blog is about trying to make a living in one of those places that have been given up by industrial agriculture. Where people used to have their homestead land practically given by the government. Those places where nobody wanted to go. Where some of us see a challenge to build up something.

Time….

There is only 24 hour in a day. From that 24 hours you need to sleep between 6-8 hours. You will need some time to cook and eat. There are also birthdays and events to celebrate and maybe even a holiday.

The time that you can spend on your homestead is limited. Most homesteads want to be self sufficient at least food wise. This also takes a fair amount of time.

And Money.

And then on top of this you need to make money. Earn an income to be able to pay bills or to invest in your homestead, probably both. How are you going to do this?

That is a question that keeps us, and also our neighbours, busy. We are living in the south of Portugal surrounded by like minded people who all want to live from their land. We want to eat our own grown food and be able to make money as well. It is not easy at all. As far as I can see it is the hardest part of it all. Aren’t we homesteader not all struggling with it? More or less?

At the beginning there was the dream

The list when we started our project in Portugal was long. I was going to set up meditation classes and my husband was going to keep his job in Holland until we were sorted. In the meantime we were going to grow fruit trees and make jams. And somehow, we didn’t really think how, sell the jam.

Then we were going to have our vegetable garden so we did not need to buy food. Make our own baskets to carry the vegetables around. Then we got goats and were going to make cheese. Soon the chickens followed and we were selling eggs. It did not bring in enough so we started a tourist facility. Then we are tired. Can you imagine? It is totally insane.

At first we thought to follow the ‘a bit of this and a bit of that’ strategy. Doing so we thought we could just make a living. Well yes, maybe just, very just. Sometimes hardly or maybe not. We struggled with it. There is simply not enough time to divide your attention and investments in so many things. And time management does not help here. Believe me time management is a solution for a different situation.

The reality

Calculating we were looking what would be the best options. Chickens were not. To make a living from chickens means that you need a lot of chickens. Too many for the land we have. Or go very specialised in breeds. It would take all our attention and a serious plan. That it needs serious calculating and planning is what counts for all the things we were doing if we want to make a living from it.

Making a living from producing organic jam meant we had to sell at least 10.000 jars of jam a year. Not in a million year we were going to produce so much fruit. And guess what, there were no organic fruit producers in the whole area. So buying organic fruit to make this production, was not an option either.

Okay, you do not need to earn a living only on making jam. Let’s say just for a third. That is still 3000 jars of jam. And about 1000 kg of fruit.

And if the jam making would just be a third of the pei it means the other two third have to come from something else. Meaning that you have to invest in two or three projects. Not easy either. Where are you going to get the investment money from? It is already hard enough to get the investments for one project together.

What was best for us.

In the end we figured out that keeping goats and making cheese and tourism were the best options. Not without any success. Our tourist place is doing well during the high tourist season. And it provides us enough money to live from for about halve a year. The cheese I sell to friends and members of an association I am a member from. I can still not sell it openly to everybody. Hopefully I will manage to make my own cheese kitchen.

It was good to narrow down our economic activities to these two…so far. And to narrow down our activities on the whole as well. We are still extremely busy though. But I guess that is how we are.

We still have a few chickens for our own eggs and produce our own veggies. And there is still the land that needs maintenance.

We’re still not there. Where? 🙂

But, but, but. Both areas, cheese making and tourism, are heavily regulated in Portugal. Even worse every so many years the regulations change making is also into a risk to just invest on these two areas. Sometimes the rules are so complicated that they are not entirely applied, but those areas where rules are applied or not are shifting all the time. It kind of drives me crazy. Although I must say that some people in our local government have their heart at the right spot, they try to support us where they can.

We used to build everything ourselves. At a certain moment we were so occupied by running our daily jobs that it was not possible to continue doing everything ourselves. For many years we had volunteers that helped us out. But even that became quite a big time investment. We had people living here, that in the end couldn’t or wouldn’t work that hard.

There we are. Building up a business that is under constant state attack on one side and with too little hands to make a leap to the next level. And the main problem, no investment money.

Getting investment money and gaining time is going to be our next challenge. The next step for me is to try to make money through the internet. It is the very reason I started blogging on our website. The idea is to make enough money to hire in services so things can get done and build.

It is a step that many homesteaders make, as I have found out. And some are really successful. I hope I will be too.

A homestead is a business.

In the end I think running a homestead is pretty much like running any business. Lot’s of business and organisational principles and practicalities are applicable on a homestead. It sounds all a lot less romantic than selling small handy crafts and eggs, but I think it is the reality.

I worked for years as a project manager in an NGO. Also together with my father I ran an import business in organic goods in Holland. Lot’s what I have learned in those years comes in very handy now while we try to build up our homestead.

I guess the idea that you can escape from all the things that you have been involved in is not true. It just sticks to you.

And sure selling beautiful homestead handicraft or selling eggs could be an excellent business for a homestead.

Do you want to know what we are doing on the farm? Follow our facebook.

5th June 2018
Preparing for your homestead.

Looking at all these beautiful blogs about homesteading you might think is the most beautiful way to spend your life. We do enjoy our live here on our homestead, but it is not what it seems to be. There is hardships and sad stories to tell as well.

If you really want to start a homestead yourself, please check these other stories as well. It will give you a far better picture of what it is about. This way you will be much better prepared when you start.

There are a view brave homesteaders that wrote confessions about their homesteading. I enjoyed reading them very much. It is all very recognisable. These stories give a glimpse of what homesteading and having a homestead truly means. So you really know what it is about and you can make the right choices for yourself.

Nice confessions.

Here are some I really liked that you can look into later.

10 Confessions from a modern Homesteader
Confessions of an Ordinary Everyday Mom…Who Happens to be a Prepper
Solemn Confession of a Rookie Off-Grid Homesteader

In this blog Alyssa describes very well how they thought it was much different than they thought. Don’t worry they are still building up their homestead as you can see on their blog.

http:///purelivingforlife.com

You don’t need to go radical

There are many ways you can improve your lifestyle and live more sustainable. One is not necessarily better than the other. The shift to sustainable living does not need to be super radical. You can sometimes even do more than you think where you are. Or by just moving to another neighbourhood in the same area or town. Going out in the wild does not always mean that you can live more sustainable.

It is not as black and white as it seems. Here on the homestead we use things that you would use in a town too. Like plastic bags(although I do not like them), a diesel car, electricity, T-shirts…We don’t have the money to always buy organic products or to buy solar panels. Being out here in nature does not mean you can do everything perfect.

Yes, you can do what we did and move to another country, with another climate. Out into the ‘wild’. To start your own small or big farm. However It is far better to be prepared for the real thing than to follow a romantic idea.

Here are some things to consider.

Romantic Mother Nature and her whims

Mother Nature is often depicted as a Gaia that provides everything that you need. Living in a city like we were, not really confronted with her whims, you might be deceived by this picture of Gaia as we were.

Turns out that Mother nature is not the big protecting mama that is going to feed you whenever you open your mouth to tell her that you are hungry. No, in real she is going to smack your bum really hard when you are lazy. She is going to teach you the hard way that you have to work hard to get your food. You have to follow her principles, she will make you miserable if you don’t.

Mother nature will dictate your agenda. Yes, pretty much like a dictator. Here down south in Portugal the climate is very friendly to us humans. You can grow things the whole year around. When you work hard, the work will be rewarded. There will be plenty. But more up north it can be quite different. When you miss a crop, you have missed it and it can not be replaced with another. You will miss the food.

Mother nature has more whims. There are storms that blow your greenhouse away that you had so carefully made out of plastic bottles. The wildfires that she brings (maybe supported by human action) destroy your food forest. It took you years to build up the small ecosystem or guilt. You feel you need to protect yourself against these energies, which puts even more pressure on your agenda and budget.

There are a lot of romantic stories about Mother Nature. She is beautiful indeed, but not easy going. As most permaculture people will know, there is a lot to learn from her to our advantage. But cruelty and destruction are also part of the play. Be prepared.

(psssst: using a proper Permaculture design can save a lot of sorrow.)

Grow your own food: Gardening skills and deceiving pictures.

You can gain by making sure your garden skills are okay before you start your homestead. Get yourself an allotment and practice, or make a corner in your garden. Start easy by buying plants and some organic manure of some sort. Take it from there and slowly use more advanced methods. It is not as easy as it looks.

Pretty much like learning how to swim. You see those people swimming in the pool and think: Wow, that looks easy. You jump in, like I did as a kid, and guess what, I sank…I am a good swimmer now though.

Don’t forget that most of the pictures you see with the fancy ways and walls to grow plants in and on, are set up. For the picture big lettuces are put into the bottles to make it look nice. You can see this when you look carefully, they all have exactly the same size. Now, that is suspicious. Don’t be deceived. You can grow plants that way, but you do need to know what comes with it. Also we bloggers have the tendency to clear our garden before taking a picture. Or, like I do, we will take the picture so you do not see the messy parts.

Principles: Selling surplus?

Using permaculture principles on the farm we produce for our own consumption first. This reduces our ecological footprint a lot, since the food does not need fuel to be transported to us. It is already there. We also know what we are eating. So to us that makes sense. After we have filled our stomages and our canning jars, we can sell our surplus. Can we?

Since we are living in a rural area where everybody grows pretty much the same stuff it’s not so easy. So selling surplus at the local market sometimes does not work. When you have fava beans everybody has them. People will not buy our fava beans because the neighbours share them for free. That is a good principle too. But it does not bring in an income for us.

We are happy that we can sell our organic fruit to a colleague who sells it in the nearest big town. When this town would not be there we would not be able to sell our fruit. So selling surplus sounds fair in theory but is not as easy as the principle suggests.

What I want to say here is that some principles sound really easy when read from a piece of paper. Put into practice is quite a different story.

How much money does it really cost?

The budget is another think to carefully think about. Building a new house costs money. You can use what you have on your land to a certain extent. But what about the tools you need? The nails, the screws, the light switches, the solar panels, the filling materials? In the end you will save some money on the wood you did not have to buy. But when the wood you can buy is cheap than you might not save at all. Because you will need extra material to turn your logs into proper planks. You will need material to make a space where your planks can dry etc. So building a house however way you do it, costs money.

Unless you want to go very radical and live in a log hut. But that is rough. You need to be able to shoot your own rabbits…I mean there are a lot of skills needed for that lifestyle.

I think It is good to think the costs through completely.

We did not. We had two good incomes before we went to Portugal and build the place up with the money we had spare. That worked fine until we went back to one income and Lehman brothers filed for bankruptcy, which led to a world wide crisis 2 years later. This was the moment that we started.

Coming from a comfortable situation we just didn’t imagine things were going to be so tough. Our budget shrank to one fifth of what we used to have and we had a massive project ahead. We survived, managed to build up our homestead, still not having a bathroom in our house, but who cares. There are two bathrooms in the tourist accommodations that we use in winter. In the summer we use the garden hose behind the house. We have a compost toilet in the house so we do not need to sit in the rain. Many tears and a lot of sweat later we made it to the other side. I could think of wiser ways to get there.

Using raw material is time consuming.

Also using material that you have on the land is mostly very time consuming. It can be very hard work too. Sometimes much more work than earning money and buying material.

When you buy prepared material a lot of effort is already put into the material to make it ready for use. Because this is done in large numbers it can be done cheaper than you can do it yourself. It is all a matter of calculation.

Our site is very steep. Some hardliners who have joined our building projects had critics on the fact that we use cement.

Building projects need a lot of preparation. The preparations are time consuming, boring and sometimes costly. So preparations are very often not presented in courses where you can learn about using cob, straw bales or logs.

Dragging stuff down on our land without a donkey is hard work. And with a donkey it would take ages. So you go for the lighter materials, in this case part of it being cement. Again don’t be deceived by the romantic picture.

Making money from the homestead.

Making money with a homestead and building it up in one go is also not so easy. There are many ways to make money with a homestead but there are only 24 hours in a day. From those 24 hours you need to sleep and eat. If you do not want to burn out you will need to rest as well. And remember you were still building a house. This needs to be thought through very carefully.

For example: Here in Portugal a good tasty egg brings in 20 cents. A good chicken lays one egg a day. To have an income from eggs, say 800€ a month, how many chickens do you need? One chicken lay 30 eggs a month worth 6€ a month. Calculating losses, non laying chicken (because they are not laying yet) etc. in you will need 200 chickens. That is a lot for a small income. In Europe with 200 chickens you already need to meet a lot of regulations, which means you will have to invest. Will selling some eggs help? Yes, it does, if only to get your eggs for free. But it will not help you get all the investments you need for building up your place together.

The other strategy is to do more than one thing. You do need to pick these things carefully though, because they will consume time. It is not possible to handle too many things. So what you pick needs to bring in a substantial amount, without having to do to big an investment. After all you will need the investment for your home. And just remember whatever you pick everything takes effort and time to get it started.

In the coming blogs I will pay more detailed attention to the different topics described here. Connect with us or follow our Facebook and you will get notified by email or Facebook.

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17th May 2018