Category: Homesteading
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Good Neighbors (and Doing Something Right)
If people don’t occasionally walk away from you shaking their heads, you’re doing something wrong. John Gierach When we started looking for a small holding to be our homestead, this property was not our first choice. More than once we saw the listing for it, but we could tell it was going to be a…
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Size Matters
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. Elanore Roosevelt Consider this a public service announcement. Not all chickens are the same. When we first began our chicken journey we started our small. Just a few chickens. Except that the few chickens became 17 chickens. Chicken math.…
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Worth a Thousand Words
One picture is worth a thousand words. Fred R. Barnard I have a confession. Some days I have no idea what to write about. This is especially true this time of year. We’ve got so much going on around the homestead that oftentimes I realize it is Tuesday and I haven’t even given a thought…
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The Giving Trees
Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel. Aldo Leopold Although nearly a week has passed, I would be remiss if I did…
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When There’s Too Much Drama in the Coop
Many of us who aren’t farmers or gardeners still have some element of farm nostalgia in our family past, real or imagined: a secret longing for some connetion to a life where a rooster crows in the yard. Barbara Kingsolver Chickens. They’re like the gateway animal to homesteading and farming. At first you’re just a…
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When It All Seems a Little Overwhelming
Perserverance is the steadfast pursuit of an objective despite obstacles, difficulties, or discouragement. Albert Schweitzer Albert Schweitzer would have probably made a good farmer. Not that he would have had the time. He was already an accomplished theologian, philosopher, writer, musician, and physician. He was a true renaissance man in his day. Even when mankind…
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The Greening
“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors.” William Blake While these legendary Doors were great, the ones I am talking about are much less dark and cynical…although Jim Morrison was an amazing poet, a madman genius in his time, the doors…
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Jess Sowards – The Rant Everyone Needs to Hear
At home I serve the kind of food I know the story behind. – Michael Pollan That’s it. That’s the post.
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Taking Inventory
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. Cicero We didn’t start out with a farm. In fact, when we first bought our land there wasn’t even a garden on site. Lake Township’s zoning classifies our property residential. There is no separate zoning classification for agriculture. In a historically rural…
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Springing Ahead
Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm. – John Muir Did you know that you’re more likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or automobile accident on the first Monday following the spring time change? It’s true! Apparently we have a hard time adapting to that artificially influenced change in our schedule. It severely…
Headwaters Homestead 