The Realities of Homesteading Today

By William Kelland
Is homesteading still a possibility for those desiring a simpler, more natural life? The answer is YES, with some qualifications. Find out the realities of homesteading today in this article.
Homesteading today is unlikely to begin with finding free property. There are no national programs that provide land in exchange for developing it. The programs that do exist are local, and tend to be in remote areas of the country.
This means that most likely you will be buying your homestead property, and possibly acquiring a mortgage to do so. Even if you are able to acquire the land and build on it mortgage-free, there will still be property taxes. Therefore homesteading today will require more cash money than in pioneer days.
This means you will need a plan to support yourself, with one or more work from home businesses, or a job off -homestead job. It is possible to run your homestead as a mini farm, raising vegetable crops and livestock to feed yourself, with a surplus for sale.
However, don't underestimate the learning curve required to be successful at these endeavors; it can take several seasons to learn how to reliably and efficiently produce most crops. And if you are depending on your mini farm for cash flow, you will need to focus on crops that provide a quick turnaround.
This would rule out starting an orchard for example, as most tree fruit will take several years to bear a crop. Even most small fruit will produce nothing the first season. One business that does provide relatively quick cashflow is a market garden.
The start-up cost for this homestead business can be quite low, if you start smart. You could begin by growing vegetables for yourself and perhaps a few friends and neighbours. You could even solicit some cash from them to help with the start-up costs, and pay them back with vegetables from your garden
Market gardening is easily scalable; that is, you can start small, then as your skills and confidence grow, you can expand to the limits of your property (and your ambition). This fulfills one of the requirements of homesteading today.
Raising meat chickens and weaner pigs are two more possibilities for the modern homesteader. Day-old meat chicks will be roaster size and ready for sale in 10 to 12 weeks; weaner pigs will reach market weight in about 4-5 months. This means that, in most areas, these livestock animals can be raised in a summer season. Raising your livestock in warm weather only means low start-up costs.
These are great starter farm businesses, and the whole family can help out. Kids can get involved looking after the animals, and learn where there food really comes from.
These three homestead businesses have the potential to provide you food and folding money. But before you jump in, you need to ask yourself if you are ready for the realities of homesteading today. Needless to say there will be hard work, but beyond this successful homesteading requires a mindset of self-reliance.
You are 100 percent responsible for the success of your homestead; you need to value function over form, have a tolerance for setbacks, and have a genuine love for going your own way. Your life partner better have these characteristics, too, or it will be an unhappy little homestead.
So if you are immune to stress, treat every problem like a learning opportunity, and believe that the only real security is what you can carve out for yourself, you may be ready for homesteading today.
William Kelland is the owner of award-winning New Terra Farm and the author of 4 books about making a living on a small property. You can find out more about the realities of modern homesteading at Homesteading Today
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The Realities of Raising Chickens

(image: Katie Brady)

By Amy Wicks
A lot of my friends have been interested in raising their own chickens in their suburban areas so I thought I would write a post on the realities of this age-old venture. Many of you know that my dad is a farmer and has many hobbies including raising chickens. I thought it would be great to get some insight as to how doable and how much work it is to raise chickens in a restricted space setting so I asked my dad for some advice.
1. What is the best thing about having chickens? It is fun to gather the eggs each morning and there is something about fresh eggs that tastes a lot better than store-bought.
2. How many eggs does a typical chicken lay per week? If the chicken is happy and well fed, it will usually lay one egg a day. Currently, we have 15 chickens so we gather about 7 dozen eggs per week.
3. What is the hardest thing about raising chickens? Surprisingly, it is keeping predators away. There are many predators of chickens but some of the most tenacious ones have been domesticated dogs. Other predators that raise a risk to chickens include possums and raccoons who will even tunnel under the chicken enclosure.
4. What do you wish you knew before starting to raise chickens? It is definitely an everyday chore, chickens need a lot of attention; you can't just up and leave for the weekend, you have to keep your eye on them, they need plenty of food and water.
5. What has surprised you about raising chickens? They need gravel in their gizzards to help them grind their food. Chickens have no teeth so you need to throw a bit of gravel in their pinned area so that they can collect it. Also, an interesting fact is that you can tell the color of the eggs by the color of their ears. Brown eared hens lay brown eggs, white ears produce white eggs.
6. What advice can you give about raising chickens? Roosters are probably not suitable for the city or a suburban area because they make a lot of noise, but if there is no rooster, one hen will take on the rooster role becoming dominant and protective over all the others. While in this role, the hen doesn't lay eggs.
7. What would you need to start raising chickens if you had very limited space in your yard? How much space is the minimum you would need? A movable coop is best for limited space; there are many plans for them and you can purchase them online, some weighing as little as a wheelbarrow. You need at least 1.5 sq ft per chicken, if you had a 7-10 sq ft space you could have about 5 chickens in a movable coop. I would start out with a minimum of 3 chickens as they are quite sociable and are happier in a group. The concept of a movable coop is that it is light, portable, and can be transferred easily around your yard. The issue is that any grass chickens are in will turn to dirt within a few days because chickens like to search for bugs, therefore, it is best to rotate the chickens around your yard if you do not have a dedicated coop area. Chickens also prefer to be rotated around and are happier with the change in environment as opposed to the traditional fixed coop.
8. Are chickens safe around children? Chickens are generally safe around children but they become aggressive and could peck if left unfed.
9. How much do chickens eat? Ten chickens will go through a 50lb bag of feed along with grass and bugs in one month. You can supplement some feed with vegetable trimmings and scraps even introducing omega 3's into the eggs by adding fish to their diet. They also need a calcium supplement which can be found in the form of oyster shells to help make their egg shells thicker. Chickens cannot eat potatoes or rice.
10. Anything else you would like to add about chickens?

• You can keep eggs for up to 3 months at 44 degrees.
• To help eggs last longer, don't wash them completely because they have a natural protective coating.
• You can use an LED flashlight as a candler, what you are looking for is a blood spot within the egg. If you crack an egg and find one it needs to be discarded and is not edible.
• They sleep up high on a roost, you can use a branch or dowel within your coop and they love it!
• Twice a year, chickens molt, or lose all of their feathers and during this time they do not lay eggs.
• They are very comical animals.

for more informative articles on DIY, home design, crafts and how to create your dream home please visit my blog! http://blog.amymayd.com/
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Getting Government Land for Free - Is it Easy?

(image: SnapsterMax)

By Ian Pennington
Even in an economic downturn, housing prices are still rising far beyond the rate of pay. Many middle class families have found themselves simply priced out of the housing market. If you are a family in this situation, finding government land for free or at least very cheaply can sound like an attractive option.
There are a few ways to find government land for free or cheap. Although none of these are guaranteed sources, many people have used them with great success. You can use them as springboards for your own home hunting search.
1. The Bureau of Land Management. This government agency owns land all over the country, but it only is allowed to sell its land in the far Western states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. It doesn't usually give land away for free, although there have been a few notable exceptions, but it usually sells it for cheaper than average prices. These parcels are often in less populated areas but has been professionally maintained and may be ready to be built upon. If you are trying to get government land for free, the BLM may be a good starting point.
2. Homesteading. Although the federal homesteading act was shut down decades ago, many sparsely populated states have homesteading programs. These usually require the prospective landowner to build a house on the land in question and to put in electricity and roads. The homeowners must personally live on the land for five to ten years before becoming official owners. The areas that have homesteading programs are usually very remote and may be hours away from the nearest small town, so this is a great option for people who want to live off the beaten path--WAY off the beaten path.
3. Land grants. Another way to get land for free or very cheaply is to buy it with government land grants. These are available to help low income people, minorities, and women become property owners. Although few grants offer enough money to outright buy a home, many can be combined to take a supersized chunk out of one's housing cost. With information on these grants available throughout the internet, there is no reason to pay full price, or even half of full price, on your dream home.
4. Government Auctions. Although you will not find free land at a government auction, you will find land listed for just pennies on the dollar. If you are the only bidder, the price never goes up. Most people at a government auction are there looking for a deal, so the prices often never reach even half of what would be charged on the open market. If you buy a home and auction, you may be able to sell it for three to four times what you paid. If you do this a few times, you will have the money you need to buy your own home free and clear--without ever spending more than you did on rent. This is a deal that no American citizen can afford to pass up. Your taxes already paid for that property--why pay for it twice?
Ian Pennington is an accomplished niche website developer and author.
To learn more about getting government land for free [http://newsellingrealestate.info/getting-government-land-for-free-is-it-easy], please visit New Selling Real Estate [http://newsellingrealestate.info] for current articles and discussions.
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Prepping With Redundancies

By Alex D Newton
Most preppers follow the "rule of three" which states that for every prep and every plan there is a backup, and for all of those backups there is another backup. Confused yet? Yeah, most people are confused. Part of the confusion stems from people not understanding when you need a backup versus when you need a redundancy, and the difference between the two. So, for this article I will fill you in on how I view them and how I use each of them in prepping.
Backups
Backups are very important in prepping. A good example of a backup is in your planning processes. When planning to Bug Out you will ultimately need to map a route from your location to your bug out location. Knowing full well that this route could become compromised for any number of reasons you would need to create a backup plan, which is a new route with the same start and destination.
When dealing with items (knives, guns, flashlights, etc) most people will use the term "backup" to describe a secondary device kept in case of a failure or loss of the primary device. I agree with this usage as most people don't ensure that their backup devices are the exact same as their primary devices. They will perform the same functions, but the make, model or style is most likely going to be different.
Redundancies
A redundancy is not just a backup, it is a backup of the exact same make, model or type. The advantage of utilizing redundancies is that it allows you to service your items if they malfunction with parts from other malfunctioned devices of that line. A good example would be a flashlight. If you have five flashlights of differing brands, sizes and lumens, then as they break they are useless in a SHTF situation. However, if you have five flashlights that are redundant to each other and one breaks due to a lens malfunction and another breaks due to a battery connection issue you can possibly use the parts to come up with one working flashlight. Instead of having three left you still have four, and so on down the line. You have in effect extended the life of the tool.
The most apparent need for redundancy in prepping (and least utilized) is in firearms. Many preppers will collect a vast array of weapons of differing caliber, make, model and type thinking that the sheer number of weapons will suffice. This is a false sense of security however as firearms will wear down and break over time. A smart prepper with multiple redundant firearms systems (all pistols, rifles, shotguns of similar makes, models and types) can easily extend the life of his firearms using pieces and parts from weapons that have malfunctioned or broken over time. Instead of having seven different pistols of differing specs, perhaps have seven pistols of the same make, model and type.
This goes beyond the common practice of making sure your weapons have interchangeable ammunition and into the idea of having weapons with interchangeable parts. In a true SHTF event it may be rather difficult to find the parts and pieces you need to fix your weapons. Having the ability to fix them yourself by scavenging from your own stock would certainly be a bonus.
Lastly, if the federal government does manage to incorporate a new assault weapons ban the parts needed to fix your existing weapons may not be available. It would certainly be advisable to have additional weapons or parts available during such a ban to keep your weapons operating properly.
Alex Newton
Plan and Prep - http://planandprep.com/home
Author - Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
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