New house for homesteading

[CHenry]

Fence it and put about 6-10 goats in there to eat underbrush while you get to clearing trees. Goats eat everything. Clear areas to plant in pasture and garden. Plant some good Bermuda grass and then get a couple cows. Garden and home grown beef is what I do. I have 8 acres with world feeder burmuda and can pasture 6-10 cows at once if we get good rain. A small/movable chicken coop is next. Maybe around 5 laying hens and 20 or so to raise to butcher every 6 months. Grass fed chicken is so much better...

 

[p238shooter]

Congratulations on your new home, I hope you enjoy living in the country close to the lake as much as we do.

I have a total electric house out in the country also, that was the only thing we did not like about it along with the expensive crappy internet service.

You will need to think about a power failure. My area had no power for 7 days a few years back during an ice storm. We were able to manage with a 6500 watt portable generator and four of the little heat strip box fan heaters and the fireplace. We ran the frig and freezers a couple hours each day, and had coffee, an electric skillet, and a microwave when we needed it. I had several gas cans I use for the mowers and the boat filled just in case, but had to make a fuel run after a few days. Our water plant was down 4 days, used the generator exhaust to melt 5 gal buckets of ice to pour in the toilets to flush. Cell phone tower ran out of diesel and went down after 4 days, used my ham radio running off the boat battery for communications to some friends who could make an emergency call if needed.

For practice, you might want to turn off your heat system and see how well your fireplace does for a day or two and think about things like enough extra heavy duty extension cords, working around your electric garage door opener, figuring out how to disable the dammed beep from the alarm system battery going down, extra flashlight batteries etc. Just after that outage I purchased a Grate-wall-of-Fire for our fireplace and it made a huge difference in the heat it put into the room rather than up the pipe, wish we had it earlier.

Now we have a “to do” sheet for the next time it could happen. We will get everything setup and then use the last hot water in the tank for a shower, it might be a while until the next one.

Welcome to the country, and the critters.

 

[gldnflash23]

Thanks for all the positive encouragement. We sold a house in the Tulsa city limits about 1 mile from downtown. Took that money and bought a RV and have been saving every penny we could for a year and we will be closing on our house in less then 2 weeks. Everything is a go, but waiting on people to come back from the holidays so closing got pushed. To answer a few of the questions, Yes this is a full time residence for us. We are preparing for loss of job, ice storm, economy collapse, less impact on our future carbon credit, etc. I have not checked the soil but I do plan on it, no willows or pecan, some acorns on the ground. I grew up on a farm in Creek county, my wife is an "old schooler" for 30 years old. She loves cast iron cooking, former EMT, sews, overall good ol country girl.

Again, thank you for all the positive encouragement and helping with a list. We will start with the trees and bushes that take time to grow/produce, and work on a garden this year, and manage the trees. really big help and thanks OSA

 

[Jeff405]

Couple things I thought you might look into:
A source of water and a way to draw it if electric is out. (Maybe a hand pumped well of some sort.)
Solar power backup. (Maybe try to setup the 8x10 building to get started.)

 

[gldnflash23]

Couple things I thought you might look into:
A source of water and a way to draw it if electric is out. (Maybe a hand pumped well of some sort.)
Solar power backup. (Maybe try to setup the 8x10 building to get started.)

I am majorly interested in both of these issues. I will need to do more homework before I tackle either of these projects

 

[1krr]

That sounds awesome. Congrats! Both of us have lived in suburbs our whole lives and love the country setting. Couldn't pay me enough to move back into the 'burbs.

I like shooter's ideas about testing your survivability. We had a similar situation to his but from a tornado ripping up power lines nearby and it was 4 days without power. I didn't have to break out the radio though (actually enjoyed the silence for a while). We had well water and a generator big enough to run it so if we planned our usage, we didn't miss much.

I asked about willows and pecans as a curiousity about how your soil was. If it's really rocky or just sand, you might have to put some effort into ammending your garden plots or you can build raised beds with a mix of native soil, top soil, and compost. If you want another side project, look up terra prata. It's basically a soil made with rich matter mixed with pulverized charcoal. Since you are clearing/burning some trees, if you wanted the extra effort, might be worth it. I did a terra prata bed next to a normal bed of the base soil and got quite a bit more yeild from the same tomatoes and peppers.


If you are interested in alternative energy/self generation, check out www.otherpower.com. These guys build their own wind power turbines and it looks like a very fun project if you've got the ability to fabricate the parts.

 

[ByrdC130]

Don't know much about prepping, but I'd think switching to propane or natural gas for cook stove and heating would be something to think about. I've gone with out electricity for over two weeks several times and had to run my generator to power the central heat blower. And a water well is nice to have also. I'm running a 65k generator and it'll run most everything in the house you'd use during the winter time, just not the central air during the warmer months, like after a tornado.

 

[Blitzfike]

I recommend a fire place insert for heating. We have had one for the past thirty five years and love it. It is an old tripple wall Lopi with fire brick lining, and sticks out of the fireplace far enough to cook on if needed. It will heat the whole house if we keep it stoked. We have a ranch style brick single story with about 1700 feet before we added another 500 feet of living space as a family room. Here is a link to a youtube video showing how to make a bailer bucket to use in your well if needed. You would have to pull the pump to use it, but if power is gone, that will work. Here is a simple pvc hand pump suitable for shallow wells or creeks or ponds. Lots of things you can do, don't forget your Sawyer point one water filter http://www.amazon.com/Sawyer-PointONE-All-One-Filter/dp/B00D454KAO These will keep you in safe water what ever the source. I got charcoal filters to go on mine to remove any chemical taste as well.

 

[adventure_advocate]

Thanks for all the positive encouragement. We sold a house in the Tulsa city limits about 1 mile from downtown. Took that money and bought a RV and have been saving every penny we could for a year and we will be closing on our house in less then 2 weeks. Everything is a go, but waiting on people to come back from the holidays so closing got pushed. To answer a few of the questions, Yes this is a full time residence for us. We are preparing for loss of job, ice storm, economy collapse, less impact on our future carbon credit, etc. I have not checked the soil but I do plan on it, no willows or pecan, some acorns on the ground. I grew up on a farm in Creek county, my wife is an "old schooler" for 30 years old. She loves cast iron cooking, former EMT, sews, overall good ol country girl.

Again, thank you for all the positive encouragement and helping with a list. We will start with the trees and bushes that take time to grow/produce, and work on a garden this year, and manage the trees. really big help and thanks OSA

Sounds like you've just done what we are saving and planning for right now! Bought our first house in the burbs a year and a half ago and when we did that we also made a 5 year plan to be out of the city and onto 5+ acres. Our reasons are basically the same as yours, we want to be more self-reliant, we want to KNOW what we are eating, we want to be prepared for job loss and economy collapse (god forbid), and we want land for our 1 and 3 year old to romp on as they grow up. I grew up on 5 acres in the country and miss it incredibly bad.

Many of the things we are planning to do once we've purchased a place have already been mentioned, but we want to have solar power, a water well, rain water collection, large garden, chickens, maybe a cow or two, and a fireplace or wood burning stove is a must. All of these things are easily achievable on 5 acres and help big time in preparing for the things you wish to prepare for, so don't listen to these folk saying you haven't got enough land. Congrats on your purchase and keep us updated on the progress!

 

[EFsDad]

Just after that outage I purchased a Grate-wall-of-Fire for our fireplace and it made a huge difference in the heat it put into the room rather than up the pipe, wish we had it earlier.

Is this what you speak of?