Self Sufficient Farming On One Acre

Mother Earth News has a great article in this edition of their magazine about starting a 1 acre self sufficient homestead. While it's true that no two farms will ever be the same, but they cover the basics of how to get yourself started. This is one of the magazines that I feel is definitely worth subscribing to. The article can be read online here. http://www.motherearthnews.com/modern-homesteading/self-sufficient-homestead-zm0z11zkon.aspx

System Updates

Decided to spend some more time with the design and layout of the blog. Just trying to make it as easy to navigate as I can while making it look like a part of me. I also want to try and tie together all the different accounts, facebook, twitter, etc. 

Let me know what you like and what you don't. 

-mike

Wow, things have been so crazy I almost forgot about this blog. We had our vacation although we spent most of the time either working on the Jeep or avoiding the water in our tent. The Jeep's water pump decided to give out but even in that God's hand was in it as it went out the day after we arrived and were in town less than a mile from the parts store. Got the pump, already had the tools, and was able to swap it out with no problems.

We no longer have two lots there in Oklahoma. When we left on the trip we had a 10 acre lot and a 2.5 acre lot. We re-negotiated with Scott and backed out of the 2.5 acre lot. The reason? Another 20 acres attached to the 10 was available and we now have 30 acres that is covered in Black Oak trees and about 7 acres of that is on top of a hill. Gonna be a perfect place to build a house.

I'm going to go into details here soon on what we want to build and out timetable to get started. In the meantime I leave you with a quick slideshow I put together of our trip.

-mike

About That Time

Well, we'll be leaving here in about 96 hours. (I love it when the countdown changes from days to hours) and I can't wait to see what Oklahoma holds in store for us. We'll be driving straight through which should put us there around 12-1 on Wednesday. weather.com shows scattered thunderstorms for the area the first few days we're there, but since when has the weather man ever been right.

We ended up buying an extra cargo carrier for the jeep. Who would have thought you would need to take so much stuff for 10 days.

Four More Weeks

Four weeks from tomorrow we leave to go camp on our Oklahoma property. This will be the first time we'very seen it in person. The dates are set by school and work so hopefully the weather will be nice to us.

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Another Property Post

You may be tired of hearing about it but some people have either asked us to explain just how big 10 acres of land is. Living in the city or even the suburbs people just can't understand how much room that is or even how small it is compared to a true ranch. The image below is an example of our current neighborhood, our current lot, and how big the 10 acres is in comparison.

Click on the image to see it full size.

The Ladies Are Laying

Well the ladies have finally started laying for us. Deb found the first egg out in the coop on Thursday and we've gotten four more since. We're still not sure if all four are laying yet but either two of them are or we have a bird that lays two a day. 

It was kind of weird at first because it was like, "we have fresh eggs now what?" but of course the answer is you eat them. I decided it was lunch time so I'd make myself an egg sandwich. They're definitely smaller so I had two but that's because we're used to buying jumbo eggs from the market. In reality one egg would probably be enough but we've go to get ourselves used to normal portions of food rather than standard American portions that are really too big and unhealthy anyway. 

Here's a few more photos of those first eggs as they cooked. The yolks were a deep yellow and they cooked and tasted like... well eggs. 

I'd like mine over medium please.

A little salt and pepper (yes I broke the yolks)

Some Bread and Mayo and we're all set. 

A little corny I know, but hey it's just one more step on our way to independence.

Surviving Off Off-Grid

I recently purchased the e-book Surviving Off Off-Grid written by Michael Bunker. I finished the book last night and I have to tell you he has opened my eyes about a lot of things from survival to religion to life in general.

This book is less of a how-to book and more of a why-to book. If you're looking for a book to tell you what to buy and how to get yourself off-grid then this is not the book for you. If you're looking for a book to explain what being off-grid truly means then you need to order this book. It does give some practical examples of how to do things but more importantly he explains why you should do it.

The Author is very clear about one thing and it's the honesty of it that made me think. He says he does not have all the answers nor has he even reached his final goals of self sufficiency but he is well on his way and debunks a lot of the major excuses as to why you can't go off-grid. How many here think they could live in Texas (or anywhere else for that matter) without air conditioning? 90% of those reading this will say no they can't but if that's the case explain how the human race survived thousands of years without it?

It's a short 270 page book and I don't want to give a lot of it away but I'll tell you this, If you call yourself a Christian then you must read this book.

BTW, if you use one of the two links on this post to go buy the book, I also get a commission on the sale and it helps us get to our goal of being off-grid.

-mike