Anybody here interested in homesteading?

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KellyPalmer said:
How is it going? Just came in from my garden…had to spray another round of water/milk in my cucumbers and squash before the tropical storm hits as I’m trying to battle some powdery mildew. Then I turned around to check on my berries and noticed a large snake is tangled up in the bird netting covering them. Poor guy! I love being able to go to my backyard for food!
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What tropical storm? I haven’t been watching the weather channel lately. 😃
 
PaleoConCatlick said:
I think the best bet traditional Catholics have at surviving postmodernism is to invest in the sustainable homesteading movement.

This means raising large families on a farm and growing your own food, raising livestock, but also being self-sufficient in terms of clothing, money, and energy. People have to invest in animals that make clothing (llamas, sheep) and also use renewable energy to power their houses.

A traditionalist Catholic community like this should rise up. It would not necessarily be like an Amish community, in the sense of old fashioned equipment, but the community would have to be self-sufficient and independent.
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Great thread, I can’t wait to read the replies:D Thank you 👍
God bless you, Pax 🙂
 
PaleoConCatlick said:
I’m just telling you guys, if things keep going in this direction, things are going to be a cesspool.

As for whoever said something about the Federal government and healthcare, and land rights, I personally believe that the country is too unstable to continue maintaining this huge Federal government that the Bush and Obama administration created, and all that will render obsolete. I also believe that the US will make some deal with Chinese corporate elites, and our markets will be completely controlled by them.

Imagine that kind of society. People’s Republic of China meets American postmodern secularism.

Basically there should be a small Catholic self-governing sovereign state in America, within the next 15 to 20 years.
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They tried something similar in Florida, but the ACLU did it’s best to shut it down. Apparently, it is ok for the government to take God and religion out of our lives, but it is not ok for us to put Him back in. 😦
 
Catholic1954 said:
They tried something similar in Florida, but the ACLU did it’s best to shut it down. Apparently, it is ok for the government to take God and religion out of our lives, but it is not ok for us to put Him back in. 😦
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details?
 
KellyPalmer said:
I’m with you OP! And yes, I have spent much time on farms. I already grow my own fruits and veggies and am in a community group with two other families, one of whom lives on a farm with livestock. Their goats just gave birth and she just gave me a lesson on making goat milk feta :). My sister quit her amazing job in finance to apprentice for 2 years on a local organic farm so she has been teaching me things along the way as well. I love to ferment and culture foods and beverages. I would like to make this dream a reality where we can all live in closer proximity, homesteading together. Our hold-up right now is that my husband has a few more years left on his military contract. We would like to move somewhere with more Catholics.
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Awesome Kelly:thumbsup: Please keep us posted on your ventures in this thread, I could
learn a lot from you. 😃 I luv the goat feta cheese 😛

This is a wonderful thread, I hope that more people who are doing the same will chime in.

God bless you,

Pax 🙂
 
Sounds great, but sustenance farming has never really worked, not reliably, throughout history. Trade of some sort has always been necessary. Too many things can throw a kink into it: namely drought or hail storms or other weather problems. Also, too many items simply cannot be grown or made easily by oneself: eg furniture, coffee, cooking utensils, farm implements, etc.
 
tafan said:
Sounds great, but sustenance farming has never really worked, not reliably, throughout history. Trade of some sort has always been necessary. Too many things can throw a kink into it: namely drought or hail storms or other weather problems. Also, too many items simply cannot be grown or made easily by oneself: eg furniture, coffee, cooking utensils, farm implements, etc.
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I think subsistence farming might work if that’s all one aspired too. something like a high yield, single crop, like potatoes or yams. if someone could keep current with each year’s pesticide, I understand there’s quite a red queen race going on between us and bugs.

it wouldn’t be Farmville, if that’s what some people are thinking. what I’d do is what George Miller did in The Road Warrior. just have a few establishing shots of chickens tooling around the refugees’ fort so you can show that they’re a viable community. then ignore them and get down to the fun. same deal for this community.
 
Land that’s suitable for agriculture (even land that isn’t) is staggeringly expensive. Around here, almost nothing costs less than $2500/acre, and that’s for grazing land. It’s far more expensive in places where row crops are successful. You might find remote, steep, rocky timber land for $1500.

A good mother cow costs about $1600.

So, let’s say you want 100 mother cows (about the minimum if you even remotely intend to be self-sustaining as a beef producer) that’s $160,000. Then, you will need a minimum of about 3 acres/mother cow, depending on the quality of the land and whether you know how to maximize pasture production. So, that’s another $750,000, and you still don’t have any machinery. You’ll probably get close to a million into it, depending on whether there are already corrals, good fencing, and good water sources on the land or not.

I don’t mean to be discouraging, but farm establishment is very expensive.

Now, if one truly means to “live off the land” in a subsistence way, it won’t cost that much. But when one says “subsistence” he/she better know what that means. It’s pretty rough.
When I was a kid there were hillbillies around who lived at that level, and I wouldn’t want to live that way at all. I remember shooting a groundhog once when I was a kid, and a young man saw me do it. He hung around and hung around, and finally asked me what I was going to do with the groundhog. Then I caught on. He wanted it for his family to eat. So I gave it to him, of course. Might have been their best meal all week. Probably was.

There is an old rancher’s saying that goes something like this. It describes what it takes to be a rancher.

-A good pickup.
-A wide-brimmed hat.
-Boots.
-Jeans.
-Cows.
-A tractor.
-Land.
-A strong back.
-And a wife with a good job at the courthouse.

Now, if a person, like one of the posters, has a spouse who has a military pension and wants to raise a big garden and some goats, it’s entirely possible. But that pension has to fund the livelihood, and the sale of the present residence will make the down payment on the land.
 
Fairwinds said:
I think you’re talking about a Catholic Bunker.
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Actually, I think what he essentially wants is a Catholic monastery of the kind the Irish had oh, I don’t know, what was it, 1500 years ago or so? Families, and not just celibates. It’s a great idea, but it would be very expensive to get one started in our times.
 
EasterJoy said:
Actually, I think what he essentially wants is a Catholic monastery of the kind the Irish had oh, I don’t know, what was it, 1500 years ago or so? Families, and not just celibates. It’s a great idea, but it would be very expensive to get one started in our times.
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maybe run a brewery. or a winery in Napa Valley. -]or a silver mine in Peru/-]. that would be very cool.
 
My friend with the goats also raises chickens and turkeys for sale and personal use. She is in the process of looking at cows and I’m not sure how you are coming up with the 100 number without even knowing how many people are involved. She got her land for practically nothing and it’s in a very good area. They have been learning how to build their own chicken and turkey tractors thanks to the free instruction Joel Salatin. They now have two that they pull around the fields in addition to the large enclosed coop that they also built. Right now we get our beef from a farm not too far away, going in on shares together for grass fed steer. My kids and husband are all intolerant to cow’s milk so goat’s milk is the way for them – or no dairy at all. She also has horses, donkey, rabbits and more. She is able to open up to the public for animal husbandry clinics to make money in addition to selling her eggs and goat milk shares.

The farm where my sister apprenticed was on the Eastern Shore where land is much more affordable than where we currently live. There are many farms out there due to the low cost of land and it’s very good for farming.
 
EasterJoy said:
Actually, I think what he essentially wants is a Catholic monastery of the kind the Irish had oh, I don’t know, what was it, 1500 years ago or so? Families, and not just celibates. It’s a great idea, but it would be very expensive to get one started in our times.
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They were in fact monasteries as we understand them, but had villages and farmlands attached to them.

ICXC NIKA
 
I think a lot of our problems with bugs and other issues stem from the poor methods of farming that are motivated by our consumeristic society. There is a good documentary about this called Back to Eden which made a lot of sense to me from a Christian point of view. This is the way that we farm.
 
KellyPalmer said:
I think a lot of our problems with bugs and other issues stem from the poor methods of farming that are motivated by our consumeristic society. There is a good documentary about this called Back to Eden which made a lot of sense to me from a Christian point of view. This is the way that we farm.
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you might want to read EF Shumacher’s Small is beautiful.

pesticides and pests just keep evolving side by side, its a manic pace. if you want high yields (so we can feed the starving planet), you need chemical fertilizers and this year’s pesticide.

killing them is fun, but man-o-manischewitz, dressing and butchering large mammals isn’t fun at all. I don’t know why anyone would voluntarily choose a life of doing that. blood up to your elbows.
 
Fairwinds said:
you might want to read EF Shumacher’s Small is beautiful.

pesticides and pests just keep evolving side by side, its a manic pace. if you want high yields (so we can feed the starving planet), you need chemical fertilizers and this year’s pesticide.

killing them is fun, but man-o-manischewitz, dressing and butchering large mammals isn’t fun at all. I don’t know why anyone would voluntarily choose a life of doing that. blood up to your elbows.
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I don’t think so. Those things are actually destroying argriculture. Watch the film and let me know what you think.
 
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