Saturday, December 12, 2020

A Few Homesteading Goals for 2021...continued

 The last post, I let you in on some of the misguided goals I had previously shared on Youtube. The biggest one that pretty much had the axe in the heart was the quail.  Most people don't know (mainly because I never share that side of my life) that we have a family group of livestock...and some of our family members have quail and other animals separately from the main family group.

Because we don't have the new house set up yet, we didn't want to do any livestock at the new place either. It just didn't make sense to have critters out there we couldn't protect, and we didn't want to add any more habitats for animals at the "old" homestead family compound.

So the quail idea tanked... for 2020.  

Even with everything pandemically going wrong with the world, I'm not giving up on living life. You have to keep pressing forward, right?  With that said, I will share here (erniehatmaker.com) more of what's going on in our lives that I don't share with Youtubeland.  

Like what? Well, I've had rabbits before.  Meat rabbits (New Zealand and Florida White crosses) and a few Angoras.  I've also taken care of quail for family members, although raising them on my own will be a new experience. We also have a family-owned herd of Boer-Kiko cross goats raised for meat.  

I will be putting a video out soon that kind of explains why I don't show that side of my life, but for you reading, I'll go ahead and tell you--

I don't show the cows, goats, and horses because I don't own them solely.  When Ed and I begin on the other homestead, I will show what we do with them. I just don't think it's right to share things on Youtube that other family members are contributing more to than I am.😂

So these will be my 2021 goals, and if you want to mention them on the channel occasionally to remind me or ask about them, I'm all ears:

    1. Rabbits.  We're planning on a beginning trio, the normal buck and two does.  I don't know what breeds just yet.
    2. Chickens.  We're an egg-eating family. We go through TONS of eggs a week, so chickens that are good layers would be awesome. Right now, we have chickens that roam between our compound, and we don't keep track of them.  They are all kinds of crosses, with the occasional Bantam thrown in.  There are 4 roosters and last we counted (some time back in August when one got run over) 11 hens.  They usually stay around either the goats or the cows, but they cover a lot of territory.  There are bobcats around here, but most of the time, the dogs keep the cats away. The way that we plan to do chickens on the new homestead, they'll get supervised free-range.  Our family group is always majority vote, so as much as I hate just letting the other chickens just go wherever, I follow the rules set by the family.
    3. Goats.  These are a maybe.  And I'll leave it at that. Let's just see how far we get with the others first.
On to the garden.
    1. Raised beds.  We're fiddling with where to put them right now.  Too close to the soybeans, and the deer may drift over.  Too close to the road, and people may want to stop and take some without asking. (Yes, this happens around here. Everyone's so neighborly.)
    2. More flowers!  There are a few wild swarms of bees around the woods and creek, and I want to attract them to stop by the garden. I may even put some "natural" bee housing out to see if we can get some full-time residents there.
    3. Pepper power.  I plan to do more than a few pepper plants this time because I want to make enough to dehydrate a ton and create powder.
    4. More containers.  Nuff said.😂

2 comments:

  1. Is this what they call a vlog. I enjoyed this small read and i understand wear your coming from. I know everything will be lit on your homestead when its time. until then keep smiling xoxo

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    Replies
    1. How have I not even seen this comment until now?? Thank you!

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