Happy to be back at our Homestead

We are back in VA and our homestead. It’s been a busy time for us, moving to and back from Texas was quite an experience and we are so happy to be back at our homestead.

It was good to see the old place again, but, oh my, so much work was waiting for our return. The grass had grown so high! It’s taken weeks for me to finally get it almost all cut with my just riding mower, but there are just a few more acres to get under control before I can rest for the winter.

We have also broken ground for our new kitchen garden and put up a fence around the 50’x50′ area. The ground had never been tilled and was very compacted. Using a shovel was out of the question so we needed to buy a roto-tiller which struggled but did the job of loosening the soil.

The soil is awful. No visible signs of life except for the weeds. Our next task is to plant ground cover to start the process of building soil by planting winter rye, crimson clover and field peas.

In addition to the garden, we will be seeding another half acre with the ground cover in hopes of creating an organic market garden in order to help make the homestead self-sufficient.

Out buildings are in need repair, and we want to build a barn, greenhouse and chicken tractors. We are looking forward to restarting our chicken flock in the spring, as well as getting ducks, geese and a couple pigs.

The homestead is totally off-grid. There is a shallow well and a small pond which we hope to enlarge. Also on the to do list is creating a rainwater capture system.

I don’t know how long it will take to check off everything on the to-do list and I can envision how it will look, beautiful.