I don't know about you, but for us, selling our what was considered a small dairy meant we had to get used to farming on a much smaller scale. We just can't get it our of our systems. Getting out of the dairy doesn't just stop what is in our blood: raising animals! I guess it is considered homesteading now, although we are in no way making a living off the farm anymore. I miss that!
We still run a micro herd of heifers. They don't cost much to buy these days, much to the detriment of farmers still in the business of selling calves. It's heartbreaking to see how little people are getting for their animals and in some cases they receive a bill for putting down the animals that didn't sell. That's ridiculous!! But I digress... We do still raise a handful to sell every year or so, saving one back to eat.
We also put in a greenhouse, something I have always wanted. Up here in northern Wisconsin if you want a garden a greenhouse is one of the best things going. It just doesn't get warm early enough to get a good crop where we are of things we like to eat. That greenhouse made all the difference and we have saved hundreds of dollars at the grocery store by NOT buying those same vegetables. My husband discovered also that he really shouldn't have made me leave such a vast quantity of canning jars for the people who bought our farm. We ended up buying new ones to replace them. That was an unnecessary expense, at least it would have been if he had just let me bring all those jars with us. (Ha!)
We also diversified this past fall. We got a couple female rabbits and a male. The young rabbits will supplement our meat supply and I am going to learn to tan hides. He thinks I'm nuts, but I just can't see wasting the pelts when I can make things out of them, especially when it gets so ungodly cold up here. Who knows, maybe I can sell a few of the items I make! That's a ways off of course. I have to learn to do it first.
We are hoping when we finally get our garage built my chicken house can quit serving as a storage facility and actually become a chicken house. We're planning on adding onto the end without a door for a second chicken building so one can be for egg-laying hens and the other for the meat birds. Fresh is so much better!
Now if only I had some way to raise a hog or two and a goat-proof fence for a milking goat...
What are you doing with your small farm?
