r/homestead

I always think of this as the goal of homesteading - feed your family from the homestead. A chicken or 2 per person, one pig for meat per year, one milking cow (additional animals as companions for your "working" animals). A garden, fruit trees and bushes.

For you guys, is this your ideal goal? How close are you to getting there? How long did it take?

I know things can seem more straightforward than they actually are, once you put the plan into action. I feel like I have experience and competence with all of the pieces, but haven't put them together yet (looking for a property).

I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts and experiences. Are there things you tried that just weren't worth it? Or that you didn't enjoy so you stopped? Have you found people to barter with (eggs for milk, etc?) Thx!

Such a bummer.

Had 2 dozen pita pinta eggs in the incubator, and went on vacation. This is day 6 of incubating.

Had an egg explode. Gross. Disgusting. Icky.

Had a feeling, after cleaning THAT mess up that something else must be going on. Candled the eggs, not seeing anything right for day 6. Popped some other thermometers in there.....

Yeah, doubt I'll have pita pintas. Incubator is running 10 degrees F too high. For 6 days. I mean, seriously its not that hard!!!!! Its got one job. ONE. It didn't do its job.

I’ve looked at a lot of rural properties, and it’s funny how the “perfect” place is different for everyone.
Some people care about privacy, others want water, good soil, road access, or just enough space to build without dealing with a bunch of restrictions.
When you found your property, what was the thing that made you think, “Yep, this is the one”?
And looking back now, was there anything you completely overlooked?

Hi everyone. I have a river water question.

the river runs on the edge of my property.

in my state you can use the river water as long as you don't obstruct the flow of the water.

We are on a ditch system from this same river.

We rely on the ditch water we are not getting right now for our well. There is an issue at the head gate they need to fix but the guy with the backhoe has been out of town several weeks. I am going on 2 weeks now with no water in the ditch. That means no water keeping the well filled.

Me and my grandsons have gone to the head gate several times to see if there is anything we can do to get the water moving.

The only option I can think of, at this point, is to get water from the river since it runs on the edge of our property.

I am thinking of digging a small trench and let the river water run into the flood plain/meadow where we need the water for the well. Just enough to let some water in.

I'm going down there today to see where the best place would be to dig a trench.

Do any of you have experience with this kind of thing?

Please share any ideas.

Thanks!

Been lurking here for ages and finally built something I actually wanted myself.

Basically — EcoFlow, BLUETTI, Jackery, ALLPOWERS etc. all put out affiliate discount codes constantly but they're scattered everywhere and half of them are already expired by the time you find them. I got fed up searching so I built a page that just lists the active ones, filtered by region.

Right now there's 127 live codes across EcoFlow, Jackery, BLUETTI, Renogy, ALLPOWERS (they have like 8 regional stores), Zendure, OUPES, Fossibot and a few others. Typical savings are 5-15% off, some are fixed amounts like €210 off a specific product.

No login, no email, nothing. Just: whichwatts.com/discount-codes

It's part of a bigger price comparison tool I've been building for this stuff — still a work in progress but the codes page is pretty useful on its own. Let me know if anything's broken or missing a brand you use.

Hello,

I have a property for sale that I personally believe would be perfect for a family who wants to homestead while staying close to the city. My Property is just outside of Tacoma in unincorporated pierce county, it has an acre of land with 2 fireplaces, one on the main floor and one in the basement.

Is there any website that I can post this property to that is specifically for people looking for homesteading? I think this property has a lot of potential but it just needs to be seen by the right people and I would hate to not try to find that family and just hand it over to a flipper or a corporation.

Thank you ahead of time for any and all leads :)

I run a hay price tracking newsletter, so I spend a lot of time on the phone with growers, brokers, cattle ops, and dairy nutritionists. Yesterday a rancher in Idaho I've been talking with for a bit sent me an unprompted read on the market. Posting it here because it lines up with almost everything else I've been hearing, and none of it shows up in the official numbers.

Here's what he said, paraphrased:

"Parts of Idaho got their water turned off. Hay growers here are way behind or had to replant from late frost. Cattle ranchers can't turn cattle out, so they're buying hay. Dairies in Idaho are buying too. Look at hay in Florida. Now add fuel and freight. They're going to make hay into gold."

That text got me thinking about how much of the actual hay market lives in conversations like that one, and how little of it makes it into the reports.

A few things I've learned in a year of tracking this market:

1. The USDA number often isn't the deal that happened. Voluntary price reporting has a bias baked in. Growers want higher prints, buyers want lower prints, and local reports lean heavily on broker conversations instead of verified transactions. Multiple producers have told me the reported average is $20-40 off what they actually got that week.
2. Split lab samples come back different grades. One grower sent the exact same lot to two forage labs. Came back Supreme from one and Good from the other. That's a $50-80/ton swing on identical hay. He double-tests everything now and averages.
3. Nutritionists, not dairies, are increasingly making the buying calls, especially in California. They're not comparing hay to hay. They're comparing alfalfa to corn, canola meal, almond hulls. When corn drops, alfalfa demand quietly softens even if the print stays steady. Except that relationship has been breaking down lately. High milk prices plus short water in the West are pulling premium alfalfa harder than the corn math would predict.
4. There is no "national hay price." Western Nebraska printed $300/ton FOB last week. Central Nebraska, same week: $135-150. Four hour drive. Same crop. Same state. The average of those two numbers is a lie that helps nobody.

That rancher is in the middle of it, but the same story is printing everywhere around him:

• Wyoming: USDA calling prices "sharply higher," D3 drought over 39.6% of the state, irrigation water short, Good/Premium large squares at $350-380/ton
• South Dakota: guys baling wheat as hay at $160/ton because forage is that tight
• Columbia Basin export timothy: $245-260/ton and still in good demand per USDA

Three different states, same pressure. That's a Western water story, not a state story. And it's happening while corn sits at $4.06/bu and DDGs run $155-167/ton, which means the feed substitutes that normally take pressure off hay demand aren't going to take pressure off anything this summer.

If you run cattle, buy square bales for horses, or operate a dairy, the number in the report is only part of the picture. The real market lives in freight math, water availability, cost of production, and who's talking to who.

Curious what everyone else is seeing on the ground. If you're growing or buying hay right now, what part of the country are you in and does any of this match what's happening around you?

Hey friends, let me know if this isn't the right group for this question... I figured y'all have good experience and advice.

I'm on year 3 of building out my produce and herb garden. I have a booth at the farmer's market. Things are going well. BUT, I am at the point where my limited experience is limiting what I can accomplish. I am looking at opening a small restaurant and the goal is to supplement the menu with as much food grown locally as possible.

For this to work, I need someone to maintain the garden and work on building some hoop houses, plan out starters and get them in the ground, probably work the farmers market booth weekly. Once restaurant renovations begin, that will have me on site all day.

What questions would you ask in interviewing someone for this role?

What would you consider a good wage for a full time role like this in the Midwest?

If I offered housing (off grid RV on the farm) would that attract a better applicant?

Any other advice??

Thanks y'all.

Good afternoon,

I recently bought a piece of my families dairy farm that has a 10 acre open hayfield that I’m trying to come up with a plan to get back in shape. It hasn’t been sprayed, fertilized or planted in at least 20 years, and it was always the last field hayed so everything in it almost always goes to seed before getting mowed and baled. 3/4th of it seems to be mostly a mix of canary grass, Timothy, orchard grass and red clover (and random weeds here and there but not too bad) the decent portion is a lower wet spot along a seasonal creek, it’s never standing water but it is wet a portion of the year.

The higher 1/4 of it though seems to be a solid stand of spotted knapweed. I brushed hogged all that last week, but now I’m doing research on how to deal with the knapweed. I really don’t want to kill everything with roundup and screw up the soil quality/kill off earthworms. I did read that 2,4-D would kill the knapweed/other broadleaf based weeds (including the clover) but leave the grass hay. Does that stuff screw up the soil microbiome/kill worms? I assume with that I have to wait until it grows up a bit, spray it, wait for it to die, and then drill desired grasses?

Ideally I wouldn’t spray this field at all but the knapweed is so thick I don’t think mowing and drilling a grass mix is going to do a thing. If this was your field, how would you handle it?

Side note: this would be in hay to round bale for beef cows.

Thanks for any advice!

Hello, I don't know what to do. We bought land without a driveway, there was a steep hill and we found a way to cut the driveway in. We were planning to do a gravel driveway for now. After the crew finished 80% of the driveway (the finishing touches left to do after the house construction is done) we were able to drive up on our Honda Pilot without a problem. However, after few weeks with barely any traffic one specific area is soft and ours (and other cars) can't get through. I was going back and forth with the crew and asked what to do, the solution was to bring more crusher run and i asked for a compactor, they didn't have it, so had to rent. After this was done my husband went on to check and rode up fine, all looked good, but today my builder had called me and said he got stuck again at the same spot. Wanted to add that we're in a drought and ground is very dry now.
The builder is suggesting to put asphalt now, the driveway guy has said in the past that the asphalt needs to be put there otherwise the problems will continue. Asphalt was in the future plans. Anything we can fix or is asphalt is the only solution.

PS. Please be kind, the driveway people may be inexperienced, but they are good honest people. We knew this when hiring, because we could not afford 50k on a driveway plus materials. First time landowners, trying to build on a budget ourselves with help of friends and acquaintances.

this is after rough cut. some solid and soft rock under

Top of the hill

This is after finishing and driving few weeks (not much traffic at all )

https://preview.redd.it/46sw5n7evmbh1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=00eba59fe677c2a3ba03052ef4676d8e6830cc77

https://preview.redd.it/umbkdp7evmbh1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b1352e6c7aad15e82c543c80df5ffe6232300f3

https://preview.redd.it/mp3jnk7evmbh1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=88d46bf49e4703ece51d10d69ab648fd7f1824a4

https://preview.redd.it/gus11n7evmbh1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=acfe5be621c31ce1db43e8996316b4694fa85ef3

https://preview.redd.it/gtz58o7evmbh1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ce6973c4d188ef1baf228a1e793c767490721aae

https://preview.redd.it/ndtqlo7evmbh1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=14774ef33938f4cbd1393e4be6a44fa7292b798f

https://preview.redd.it/m96xjo7evmbh1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=030a19ccfc90e2d0896caa8938cd776cd95fd623

Where I got stuck and couldn't go up

THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEM AREA IS (IDK what happened?)

Been hunting on Zillow, LandWatch, and Realtor for months. Everything is either overpriced, 0.2 acres in an HOA, or impossible to search properly for what I want.

I want 5–20 acres, ag-zoned or unrestricted, with water access. Willing to go off-grid and build slow.

For those who've bought:

· Where did you search?

· Any niche sites, auctions, or local boards I'm missing?

· Worth using a land broker, or waste of time?

Please drop your tips. I'm all ears. Thanks!

Posted on a burner account and will be deleted afterwards.

Visited my neighbors property because she asked for help cleaning, to keep it short I started with the cow calving stall which had six inches of shit and piss embedded into the floor.

Her lamb stall was about a foot deep of the same thing, it was leaking out the sides and smelled terrible, it seeped into my boots and I had to throw them away, I duh into the straw with a pitchfork and immediately threw up and had to leave.

I then moved onto the chicken coop which was overcrowded, not as disgusting as the others and immediately found a half dead chicken crushed under a metal grate with an exposed skull and brain and a broken/partially necrotic leg. When I brought it to her she put it in a bucket with water in the 100 degree barn. I will trying to convince her to let me euthanize.

Her 15 cows live on a 2 acre bare plot with 3 acres of grass and hay next to them which they do not get to go into as well as (I THINK 9 donkeys) all of which are pregnant (cows AND donkeys) her two stud donkeys are missing halves of their ears, tails etc because they fight through the fences or in general when they are let in together.

I had to hide in her barn to cry, I know farm life can be overwhelming but this is too far... Her cows are fed straw because hay is too expensive for her.

Images in comments

I don’t have a pressure cooker lol