Setting Goals for our homestead

Good Monday Morning!  I know that's kind of an oxymoron.  The way I see it, is that every morning is a fresh start and a new gift. 

As we began our homestead(in October), we had a few general goals.  Get the site ready for our home, get some sort of shed, get the perimeter fences, get moved in, and get a few animals.  Very general goals, that were mostly met.  We began working on our homestead October 2nd.  By the 17th of October we were ready to have the house delivered.  The house was delivered October 24th, and by the 1st of November we were moved in...not unpacked or settled...but in, none-the-less.  November was spent getting the trim done outside the house, getting our laying hens,  new gutters, fencing the front half of our property, and unpacking enough to have Thanksgiving.  December brought our horses, more unpacking and preparing for Christmas, and readjusting to having something that was constantly being done.  January we finished our loafing shed, worked more on fences, more unpacking, and still readjusting to our new home.  As we finished out Winter and welcomed Spring, we spent time working on more unpacking, I made a trip to Alabama for a job interview at a nuclear plant, Chloe turned 3, and we got to visit with all 4 of my parents.  April was a seemingly insane month.  Not too much new happened, but had a lot of repairs to fences, still trying to get organized from the move and holidays. Planted a few seeds indoors and got most of the gardens planted.  The beginning of May brought us a severe storm that dropped almost 6" of rain, washed out 2 of 3 gardens, left flash flooding, and a really muddy yard/driveway, and our venture at raising baby chickens. 

It was shortly after we moved into our new homestead that we began setting goals for ourselves, our family, and our homestead.  We have gardened since we've been married, and I learned how to can/freeze the stuff from those gardens early on.  As we both started learning more about the toxins put into our foods, we started making a switch to more natural and homemade foods.  When we decided it was time to purchase a place of our own, we had very specific goals and plans.  1. keep our mortgage as low as possible so we could afford whatever animals we wanted, stay in the county we have lived in for several years, have plenty of room for our kids and whatever animals we wanted, and be able to pay off our mortgage in 15 yrs or less.  We were able to meet all of those goals when we bought our homestead.  This year, we have set some new goals.  We want to be as self-sufficient as possible.  To do this, we will need to raise our own beef, pork, chickens, dairy, gardens, and fruit.  Although we aren't going to his the goal of growing our own fruit this year, it will be happening next year.  We have our chickens(meat & eggs), we have an Angus heifer, and we are currently looking at dairy cows, and breed pigs.  I am making most of our food from scratch, and buying in bulk has helped to keep some grocery costs down.  We are also working to pay off every debt possible(outside of our mortgage and his student loan).  This goal will probably take another 8-10 months, but it's possible and going to happen.  We still have decks to build on our home, some minor indoor remodeling and decorating, some water lines outdoors to run, some electrical work to get power to the shed, and some fencing to finish. Not to mention waiting for it to dry up around here so we can gravel our driveway. 

I am very anxious to take on this new challenge of self-sufficiency, and learn more about the whole hobby farming thing.  I know many have told me that we aren't farmers because we don't have enough land.  That's OK, I'm not one to really put much value on others opinions. : )  What we do is farming, we raise livestock, we are dependent upon our own labors for food, we have the values of helping our neighbors, and in our little homestead, we have faith that we will be given what we need. 

As I learn, grow, and adapt to our new homestead, I will be sharing my own experiences here on my blog, as well as our homestead web site, face book page and my personal face book page.  Feel free to follow us on our journey.
Health, Happiness, and Prosperity!
Salli