Our pintrest page was a great help in compiling and organizing articles and information online that helped in setting our original order of priorities. https://pin.it/5QweUPrx0
1st priority was to push the treeline away from the house. This was a saftey thing as much as anything else.... when we moved in there were several 80ft oaks and pines 20ft from the house. The risk of a tree falling on the house during a storm... or a fire getting to close to the house wasn't something I wanted to worry about now, or when I'm 80.
It also had the bonus of giving us room for our garden, and orchard.
2nd was the orchard and garden- we knew it would take several years for fruit trees to get established abd producing after being planted... so once the area was cleared we bought 4 apple trees, 2 pears, two plums, 2 peaches, 2 plums, and two cherry trees (wr have since added a 5th apple tree and lost the cherry's soully because the dent loved them so much they nawed them to the ground... between each fruit tree is a bush of some sort... either blueberry, raspberry. Blackelberry, or current. And a red and green geap vine is over there as well.
For the garden we took logs from the trees we cleared and made fence posts. The ground had been hard packed and a forrest floor for as long as the dirt could remember... so even if we wanted to do no till type gardening we preformed an initial till to break up the soil and mix the thick leaf layer in as a fertilizer.
3rd the chicken coop- chickens are open seen as the gateway animal or the gateway to homesteading... they are easily the simplest animal to raise.
We figured that for our family 6 hens would give us plenty of eggs. So we designed the coop and outdoor run large enough to hold 12... then somehow got 14...
This is the easiest thing we could set up to run with as little interaction from us as possible. And as allowed us to sell excess eggs to the point that *most* months they pay for their own feed.
We picked heritage dual purpous birds so that when they begin to age out of laying they provide meat for the table.
4th was the bees- bees can be maintained with a little bit of time on the weekend for inspections and maintenance. And a little bit of as needed work such as mite treatments. They have the benefits of providing pollination for our garden and orchard, as well as after the first year or two (dependent on the health of each hive) gives us items to sell.... honey, wax, propolis, ect.
5th- or rather another 4 because it kinda happened at rhe same time... the bakery- to this point the home bakery is easily the best income producer we have. Every state has difrent laws about what home kitchens can make with or without an inspection. While over time we have bought some specialty equipment to help with efficancy and to increase profits, it was very easy to start a sourdough bakery with stuff we already owned... the first thing we needed (I made) was a warming/proofing box for the dough... it was cheap woth items from Home depot and Amazon, and we have since moved from a small box to an entire cabinet.
6th. This is where we currently are. Livestock- This is delayed because it is waiting on the completion of the ever delayed logging operation. Not clear cut, but thinning out thr trees to allow undergrowth to flourish and promote the health of the trees.
Our first plan is for hogs... to sell by the share, the bual purpose meat meat/dairy goats and sheep to sell the meat. There isn't a huge local market for raw Wool near me, but if we can find a way to sell it... we will lol
These are furthest down the list amd take the longest to get to because the time commitment, they need the most amount of interaction and right now we aren't able to provide that... however we are slowly aquireing things we need and preparing, that way when we are ready we won't be starting from scratch.
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