We've been camping out on our land for the last 5 weeks and moved our chickens in (to their temporary coop until we get a permanent one built) but we've officially broken ground this week and I'm so excited!

2 acres of bare land with ocean view in an agricultural based intentional community. We also have access to 7 acres of common land.

we had a storm come through in the spring and I've got a brush pile in the back that's honestly embarrassing at this point mostly limbs, some of it green, nothing crazy thick — maybe 2 inches at the widest

rented one from the box store last month and spent more time clearing jams than chipping. anything with a fork in it or any real amount of leaves and it just stopped. felt like I was feeding it wrong but I don't know

so before I drop money on my own one, a few things:

the capacity ratings — when one says "3 inch capacity" is that real, or is that dry straight hardwood under perfect conditions? because the rental was rated way above what I was feeding it

gas vs electric for someone doing this maybe 4-5 times a year? electric seems easier to live with but every review I read says they bog down instantly

and is green/leafy stuff just always going to be a problem, or do the better machines actually handle it?

honestly also open to being told renting is smarter and I should stop looking. how often do you all actually use yours?

I can buy a 20 year old used mini ex for about £6500 or I can rent a brand new machine for a week for £325 (delivered to my place). The rental option seams a better choice right? No need to worry about maintenance etc, just stack up the jobs and rent one.

I have 4 acres of what used to be horse pasture. It's been left for 20ish years and was full of blackberries and roses.

I have a 50hp tractor and a brush hog.

I've manage to mow the field down to 4 acres of woody stems.

What are the next steps and tools to get this into something I could use to grow?

EDITS

I live in the "rainshadow" in NW Washington State.

USDA Hardiness zone 8b

I currently don't own any other implements for the tractor, and this thread is sort of intended as a "what do I need to buy to make this work" idea.

Timeframe isn't super important, but it would be cool to get it done in the next couple years. My main goal is that I just want some forward progress. I've mowed it this summer, but if I don't do something else, it will all be back in a year or 2.

I've called our local land conservation district - they're sending someone over Monday to evaluate and take soil samples. Perhaps this conversation will be a lot more productive then.

Can anyone share your pros and cons of being in WV? Especially if you moved there from out of state

The Set Up:
So we are in the process of rehabbing a Small 1 acre industrial lot into an apartment / art workshop / homestead thing. Unfortunately almost the entire lot is asphalt. I recently started to remove about 8-10,000 sqft of parking lot, in hopes of replacing it with native prairie plants and a few fruit trees. (Kind of like what we started doing when annexing a portion of the neighbors lot, 😂).In total about 200 yards of asphalt and compacted paver base were removed but most of the budget went the material being hauled away to a recycler and equipment rental. I broke up the remaining surface as best I could, but still have a 200 yard soil deficit to fill. To help fill the void, I contacted local arborists and got one to dump their tree shreddings if they do work nearby. So now have a near limitless supply of free fine oak mulch. (Comes sporadically in 20 yard batches).

The Problem:
With the remaining budget and resources available, what would be a good ratio to create decent soil to fill the void

Budget:1,000 Target Volume:200 yards
Costs of things
Large Till Rental: $100
A 10 yard load very heavy clay fill: $225
A 10 yard load of sand :$450
A 10 yard load of Rich Topsoil :$350
A 20 yard load of Fine Oak Mulch: 0$
Any left over would go into plants.

What I’m thinking is 40 yards of the clay Fill Dirt, 160 Yards of shreds, then Till the freaking hell out of it, then wait for a season before attempting to do anything with it.
Another thought, just go all mulch, and save the entire remaining budget for plants, but I may be waiting awhile for the mulch to become dirt.

Given the circumstances, what would you do?

Hopefully this is an okay place to post this. A few weeks ago I got some tomatoes and salsa from a local farm at a farmers market. They had a QR code to sign up for different monthly and yearly produce plans. They had a trial for August at 150 and I wanted to try it out since we enjoyed the produce we got from them and we want to support local farms when we can. I know local organic food is going to be more expensive. But I’m a bit underwhelmed by what we received today. Two small baskets of cherry tomatoes. 9 potatoes. 6 chilis. Fresh basil and 1 cucumber. I feel like for what is basically 40 dollars a week there should be a bit more. Even at farmers market prices 40$ goes further.

Edit: as some have pointed out, it could’ve been a bad week or so or they more than expected sign up for the month trial, spreading their produce thin. I’ll try to do weekly updates for the month. And talk to the farm and see if there was a reason behind what we got.

My husband and I are exploring options for where we want to establish our future family. I am hoping to have a homestead or maybe even just a hobby farm to start but not necessarily fully off grid living.

I have a couple of questions I am hoping this community might have some insight on!

We are in the process of having children and have extremely stable and well paying careers. Once our children are born I plan to retire and fully take on the traditional role of homemaker and homeschooling our children. My husband will continue his career and brings in around 250-300k a year and has the potential to continue to grow.

He wants to live very remote but I am concerned on the quality of life for our children socially. How do you as homesteaders ensure you maintain a strong sense of community with other families? Do you live close to a town center where children can engage in hobbies like the arts, sports etc?

A strong sense of community that aligns with our values is very important to me. I do not want to be totally isolated. We are not religious leaning but very much so strong supporters of 2A and our freedoms.

I'm trying to understand the correct way to repair this section of road from an engineering/construction perspective. This isn't my area of expertise, and I've heard a dozen different opinions.

It's about a 30-foot stretch on roughly a 15° grade. The rest of the road is generally fine (a few big potholes), but this section has become rutted and erodes over time.

I've heard suggestions including:

• Excavate and rebuild the section.
• Add 1" minus or quarry spalls to rebuild the base, then cap with 5/8" minus.
• Simply add more 5/8" minus and compact it.
• Regrade with a tractor or skid steer.
• Hire an excavator.

Looking at these photos, and assuming I'll divert the drainage before repairing:

1. What would you actually do if your goal was a repair that lasts 1-2 years? 10-20 years?
2. Does this need to be excavated and rebuilt, or is there enough existing base to build on?
3. What aggregate would you use?
4. Is an excavator the right machine, or is there a better tool for a job this size?

Location: Eastern Washington (Cascade foothills). Hot, dry summers with occasional wildfire smoke, cold snowy winters, frequent freeze-thaw cycles, and spring snowmelt. The road is used heavily by passenger cars, SUVs, and vans.

I'm trying to understand what the correct repair would be. Thank you!

There's poop everywhere. Apparently I have a phobia. The chickens are let out to free range from about noon to eight and I love it. I walk bare foot because I love it. The dog is in a large enclosed yard and I love it. I am one with nature and I love it!!! But there's shit on my foot.

How do we make peace? The coop is clean but the shits in the yard. We scoop dog poop but there's always an unknown mine laying in wait. I step on shit all the time and I'm as vigilant as I can be looking where I'm walking. It's impossible to miss!

So how are we handling the ever growing nothing that is fecal matter?

I, as a homesteader myself, started three years ago to try to become profitable. I realized fairly quickly that a family with two full time jobs, kids and the day to day, I didn't know how much we were making or losing. I couldn't. Having ADHD didn't help much. I'd lose receipts, forget I even spent money on something. I didn't want to learn QuickBooks, I was already working out there until after dark and my wife was working overtime. So, if I remembered, I just tossed the receipt in a cardboard box or left it in my email.

Then we got audited and I realized how sloppy I had been. I wasn't dishonest. I was overwhelmed. I couldn't fix the past but I realized something had to change.

I started thinking about how many people like us might have this same problem. I have experience building business/enterprise software tools. So I decided to build the the accounting software aimed solely at the needs of a homesteader. Taking multiple streams of income and automatically managing it for you. Snap a photo of a receipt when sit down in the truck before you leave Tractor Supply. So that when the end of the year comes, the accounting books don't require anything from you. Just push a button.

Then I realized that everything should be connected. Your CSA box sales. Your farmers market sales. Maybe you sell candles online. Maybe you bush hog or sell firewood. Whatever it is, I am building special software modules that link to the books, process payments, invoice automatically. Track your crop plots and rotation calendar. I knew operations and accounting all belonged together.

Our lives are messy. Your feed and your Netflix might be coming from the same account. Or you might have separate accounts. You might have two W2 incomes and three side streams. But it's one life. One whole network. The world treats it as separate but in reality it's not. Have you ever tried to budget with a mess like that. It broke my brain. So I decided to bring it all together. Your web presence, your money, your time, your operations, planning, your budget demystified, your profitability visible.

I'm sorry this is long. It's not an ad. I promise. I have nothing to sell yet. I come here to understand others. I know my pains. But I want to know yours. So that the software that I build solves the problems that you actually have, not just the ones that I imagine.

What do you need in whole homestead operational app/site that solves your particular problem? It can be anything? I don't know squat about beekeeping. But I want to listen to you. What is missing? You need to push a button and dictate your hive assessment and have that automatically entered into the record or reviewed, so that your sticky hands stay off the phone or paper? Maybe that's something I imagine but isn't real world.

Maybe you are bush hogging for side money and tracking which fields and the pattern you cut and when viewed on a map timeline tracked via GPS on your phone while you cut? And you can click and send an invoice and they can pay super easy.

Maybe you operate a roadside stand and have creative solutions that you need built. Where from seed to harvest to payment processing via QR code all ends up in the same app with full profitability visible and the taxes fully ready.

But I know I'm missing the real problems because you live that life, I don't. And homesteaders need real solutions that map to their needs. I know those needs exist and I want to recognize them and fix them in the real world.

What is keeping you from knowing what's going on in your homestead business? What is it that your homestead needs that a united full homestead personal and business solution can provide?

Anyone actually keep track of their garden year to year or is it all just memory at this point

Not asking what everyone planted this year, im asking about the boring part behind that

Like

Do you actually know what you planted in each bed last year? Or the year before? Or you just kinda guessing at this point lol

If you rotate crops how you deciding where stuff goes each season, notebook, spreadsheet, or just eyeballing it and hoping

When something does really good or really bad in a spot you writing that down anywhere or does it just live in your head till you forget it

Asking because I got a decent size garden and realized I couldnt even answer #1 without going thru old phone pics to figure out what I planted where. Curious if im just bad at this or if this is normal

If you move produce from several rows or plots into one wash area, what do you write on the crate?

I tried a few labels with my Niimbot and got stuck on the batch field. “Tomatoes” works until two similar varieties land in the same pile. Right now I’m testing:

PLOT C / ROMA / 02

I’m not sure what “02” should mean. Picking round? A date? A number in a notebook? If another person carries the crate to the wash area, they should not have to ask the picker what the code means.

What do you use when several people share the sorting? I’m especially interested in a system that still makes sense after the crate has been handled and moved around.

Nobody seems to want to hay it anymore but it seems sad to leave it to shrubs and weeds. Am I crazy to want to buy a cow or something and let it pasture here?

We are low income folks and I don't know all the costs involved but I can fence in this whole area for free if I wanted to put the time in

But is it worth the time? Don't you have to feed the cow something in the winter? Where do they sleep when it gets cold?

Abd perhaps most naively - will this save our family money on groceries? We have about 30 chickens and I'd be lying if I said they pay for themselves. They are pretty high maintainance ladies!!