Building up your own homestead is a fun and rewarding project. You don’t have to have a big land, you can start with what you are capable of. I started with a few pot plants of herb and spices several years ago. When I started I didn’t know anything about gardening. I tried growing plants just because it seemed fun and challenging. I remember when I first grew one of the world hottest chilli, Habanero. I named it ‘Hannibal’. Hannibal the Habanero gave me only a couple of fruits in its entire life. The low yield was because of my lack of knowledge and experience. But still, harvesting the fruits gave me the rewarding feeling. I felt it was like a miracle when something made to the kitchen at that time. My memory is still clear with my excitement with my first Habanero. It was greatly appreciated and used in Thai curry. The tiny orange colored chilli was so powerfully spicy hot that made my eyes water. (I still think the name was very appropriate because of that.) If I knew more about gardening at that time, I could harvest more fruits and I would have its offspring growing in my garden right now. Unfortunately, the plant died after a few months but what I gained from it was lots of fun memories and valuable knowledge and experience.
Today, I’m growing four different kinds of chillies successfully. (Yes I’m a bit of Chilli fan) Habanero is one of them of cause. I now know that they thrive in semi-shaded area under the tree, they like dry rather than too wet, green fruits are still as powerful as fully ripe fruits (hot enough on my tongue anyway), and they die off in winter so I need to take seeds during the season for the next year. I can see that my knowledge and experience are growing and serving well now. The more I learn, the more fun I receive. It is a life time hobby and challenges for me.
As my homestead challenge expands, I naturally dream of a big land so that I can raise bigger animals like goats for milk to be more self sufficient. I often go to real estates websites to dream. I know I can’t afford a big land like that yet but it’s just fun to look for what’s available. Most of the lands are far away from the busy city, in the middle of nowhere. I imagine there would be lots more stars on the sky there at night. I dream of the land and dream of the peaceful lifestyle there. It would be wonderful if the dreams come true.
The other day, I was doing my usual ‘off-to-the-dream-land’ web browsing on the real estate websites. Then I found a big land not far from where I live. What a rare finding!! I was so excited about that. Not that I can buy or anything but I didn’t think such a big land existed so near from me. The land gave me huge motivation to work on my future. The land like that is very rare, but the opportunities are out there. If I can grab the opportunity, I don’t have to give up on the convenience of my current lifestyle, especially living close to my relatives is something I currently value a lot.
Now, I feel the huge land is closer to me. That made me think more about what I want to do in my dream homestead. I reached to a couple of books for what farmers do. I don’t have much practical farming knowledge. I read closely about chickens since I already have four hens for eggs. Apparently, most farms don’t keep hens more than two years because the egg production rate reduces as years go by. There will be a time that the cost of hens’ food gets higher than the value of their eggs. What they do is either selling older chickens or make them stew pot… I don’t think I want to do either of them.
As I mentioned in previous posts, two of my four hens are ex-battery hens. I rescued them from a farmer just before they were sent off to the slaughter house. The farm does culling for the same reason I just said, ‘money’. Whenever I think of the situation, it makes me sad. I want to give priority to the lives before money. My ex-battery hens lay eggs everyday. They are surely worth living.
When the hens stop laying eggs, they can be just pets. Like dogs and cats. Dogs and cats don’t produce anything useful to make income but people still keep them as company. I don’t have problem keeping old chickens as pets. But for most farms, that’s not possible. So, I thought about the ways old chickens make money for their own food (and maintenance).
One idea came to my mind was training the chickens. They are surprisingly intelligent animals so I have no doubt that they learn a few tricks. To prove their ability, there are videos on YouTube about trained chickens. If they are trained for something useful, they would be able to pay for their own living costs wouldn’t they? Like show dogs or guard dogs, they make money. Why not give the chicken to do the same?
I have no idea how to train them right now, but if I think of a long term homestead plan, it might be a fun project and a good investment of time for the future. I think I’ll give it a try.
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