Homestead 2017 -Success and Failures

My Homestead Plans for 2017~What worked and what didn’t

This is what I did in 2017. I’ve written in Red my notes on what worked and what didn’t

• Make a Container Herb Garden For Beginners. Win! This worked GREAT! We grew a pumpkin in one and Carrots in the other one. One didn’t drain right so we left it. But the carrots grew all year long. We grilled some, put some in soup, feed some to the mealworms and the chickens loved the tops. They lasted summer long and then in the fall we took the rest out and had a big bowl full that I’ve been adding to soup. It was Awesome!

• Fix the chicken cage, the wire fence around the cage is totally falling down, the past owners of the house didn’t dig the holes deep enough for the poles and one fell over. My chickens can now come and go as they please. But they are around 10 years old so they can do what they want. 🙂 Win! Yep we fixed up the old cage and fence and put my silkie chickens in with my old gals. The old ones stay in a group by themselve. I can’t believe they are still alive. 

• Get new chickens as stated above my hens are old ladies and choose not to lay anymore in their retirement. Win! We ended up buying chickens in the spring, silkie chickens and a golden sea brite which I call “Mrs P” Later in the fall we bought a rooster and hen for her. She wasn’t too happy about that. I just love their color. I also bought s Black Cochin rooster and a couple of hens that I hope to hatch out their eggs next year.

• I also want to get some chickens for meat. Granny always had plenty of chickens for eggs and eating. I can’t wait to get some new chicks on CHICK DAY at our feed store. FAIL! Nope didn’t do this. Did you know that silkies have black skin! I couldn’t bring myself to eat one, even though I wanted to eat one of those Huge silkie roosters that we bought from the auction. They are going back next spring!

• Be a much better garden grower and learn to can my veggies this year. I loved to get grannies canned green beans, can’t wait to put up for myself this coming year. FAIL! My garden was a fail this year. Hubs planted stupid sun flowers in the garden and they shadowed my crop. The rabbits kept eating my green bean vines to the ground each night. I did get a couple messes of them to cook and a few tomatoes. I think we only got a very small amount of yellow squash. There’s always next year.

• Do something about all the weeds that grow up in the flower garden the previous owners built. A couple of years ago I had a run in with a big patch of poison ivy. I was moving some iris plants, that was growing in the edge of the woods. I wanted them by the house. Stupid mistake. I should have got my book out to see what was poison ivy and what wasn’t. I know what it is now! 🙂 It never bothered me before, but I guess with age things change. WIN! We had the best most beautiful flower garden this year. Hubs really worked on getting that looking good. You can see it on instagram. Beautiful! Way better than the weeds in the previous years.

• Make Extra Money I want to make more money this year, I’ve got a lot of things I want to get done. Need a new roof on the house and garage, build a barn for our tractor and campers. Our Heater/Air Conditioner crapped out, so this needs to be fixed before winter. In the meantime, no air conditioner this summer. Yikes! Fail! No we stayed the same or even made a little less. We worked on a craft show for months and made nothing at it. Total waste of time and then we lost out on a bunch of yard sales so that meant less money on ebay. Next year will be better.

• I said we have a Tiny House Rustic Cabin in the woods, that is totally off grid, this will be the third summer and we’ve just about got it finished on the inside. We would like to add solar panels this year to it. I’ll be sure and give updates on that this year as well.WIN! I love this cabin it’s so much fun to go to the end of our driveway and into the woods and be at the cabin. From there you can’t hear or see the house. It’s just like we took a trip and rented a cabin in the forest but we are just a small ride on the 4 wheeler up to the house. Love it! Or friends love to visit it too.

That’s it for 2017! I think it went well. I see more green than red which is good. We did end up getting sick a couple times last year and got the flu at Christmas which turned out that we had to cancel seeing the family until later in January. Next year is going to be big changes on our homestead!

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Michelle

Hi! I'm Michelle. You can find me planning, cooking, and often wrangling chickens in my spare time (who am I kidding? I have no spare time). I am the CEO and creator for homesteadingforwomen.com. All posts are reviewed and updated personally by ME - if you have any questions, feel free to contact me here.

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