A few years back I got my first Backyard Homestead book.
This is what I used (I have several of sticky notes) for a lot of information on getting my little homestead going. Mostly the chickens and garden, even though I grew up having a garden everywhere we live, it was nice to get some ideas. I think I’ve even come up with the name of our homestead, of course, I can’t share that yet. Lol. I hope to get this blog going into a vlog, so I need to make things legal.
Here’s another one, in The Backyard Homestead series that I like. As can be seen on the front cover, it has the different seasons listed, which is great, but there’s more.
It breaks it down into Midwinter, Late Winter, Early Spring, Mid-Spring, Late Spring, Early Summer, Midsummer, Later Summer, Early Fall, Mid-Fall, Late Fall and Early Winter.
Whew, let me catch my breath.
On top of that, (deep breath) it breaks it down further: Garden, Field, Pasture, Orchard, Bee yard, Barn, Coop, Equipment Shed, Woodlot, and Wildlife Habitat.
What this does is help you to know what you need to do where and when. Because when you are new at this, you can get overwhelmed, really easily and before you know it, it is too late to do certain things.
For me, I have the deposit down on the bees and hive, I am planning what to plant in the bee yard, that will benefit them as well as us (fruit, vegetables, flowers and herbs) and some growing guides, I will be able to measure once the snow has melted and draw out the plan.
I know that my Christmas gift from Bill and the kids is an incubator for the quail eggs, I’ll be getting, probably in March. We are taking apart the chicken coop and turning the chicken run into a barn (once I get the building permit), I already have the construction plans for that and we will be using a lot of the lumber that we have accumulated in the back yard, and I will be keeping my eyes open for more.
As for the raised bed and container gardens in the back, plans are well underway, including getting ready to order seeds, the seed trays should be arriving soon, (though too soon to plant some of them), I have collected a large amount of leaves and shredded paper in addition to our compost bin being very full. I still need to get some more pallets to build my second bed and cut one of our pallets into sections to use as platforms for our potato containers. I have planted the garlic in our first bed, I’m so excited to see how well they do.
In order, to finance some of this, I took on extra hours at Hale for the month of December, and I am paying for it. I am so tired. It’s hard working nearly 12 hours, 4 days a week, getting home late and working the 8 hours a day that I normally do. I am not as young as I used to be, that’s for sure, but I have hopes to get healthier so I can go forward with my plans until I retire, at which time I will be taking on another level of homesteading. Goats! But, they are full time, and I just can’t do it now.
I will be sharing some information in the future about homesteading after you retire that I have found, in future post, so keep an eye out. Maybe that will help some of you who would like that have that option on your journey.
You can check out my article “Baby It’s Cold Outside” for more ideas https://iamsimplybecoming.com/baby-its-cold-outside/
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