Category Archives: Farm Life

The Chicken Coop: “Coop Deville”

Posted on January 7, 2016 by | 13 comments

The Coop Deville: A mobile chicken coop

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When we moved to Missouri we had to leave our mobile chicken coop, “The Eggmobile” (a la Joel Salatin) behind.   Travis had designed and built that coop, but it was just too big to move from Colorado to Missouri.  We sold the chicken coop to a good friend and decided to build another coop similar to what we had had before.  A mobile chicken coop was a requirement for us, we wanted the chickens to follow the livestock for pasture sanitation and fertilization.

 

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Posted in Animals, Farm Life, Homesteading

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Goats Gone Wild!

Posted on November 13, 2015 by | 5 comments

 

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Homestead in the Holler is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

We have been using electric fencing to keep our Kiko goats in all spring and summer, moving them at least once a week or more often to make sure they have plenty of food to eat.  We don’t have goat proof perimeter fencing, some areas have no fencing at all.  We are working to remedy that problem, but have had pretty good luck so far.

Suddenly it was fall.  The leaves started to change colors into a beautiful world.   A beautiful world where the goat’s favorite foods (brambles and woody plants)  are losing leaves.  The goats suddenly had to be moved every other day, they would eat every edilble thing they could find, and fast!  We were watching the goats and their food supply closely, but one Wednesday afternoon when Travis and I went to move the goats, the goats were gone!

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Posted in Animals, Farm Life

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Straw Bale Building

Posted on October 14, 2015 by | 3 comments

 

hay2
Homestead in the Holler is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
 
 
When we moved to our homestead a year ago, the plan was to build a house sometime in the near future.  After a year full of building infrastructure and adding animals to our homestead, it’s time to focus on the house!  We did a lot of research, reading books, watching videos and talking to people in the area before making our decision on what kind of house to build.  Let’s start on another adventure, and build a straw bale house!  Since this is a new way of building for us and there is a lot to learn, we decided to start small and build a guest house first.  The idea being that we will get all of the kinks worked out before we start on our house.

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Posted in Farm Life, Straw Bale Building

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It’s Been One Year on the Homestead

Posted on October 8, 2015 by | 2 comments

field

Homestead in the Holler is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

It’s been a year since we moved from our hobby farm just outside a city to our beautiful homestead in the holler!  We’ve gotten a lot done, yet the to-do list is still a mile long.  I have a feeling that the to-do list is going to be constantly growing as we think of more things to add and make improvements to what we’ve done.  We’ve learned a lot this past year and will continue to learn as time goes on. So what have we learned?

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We’re still plugging away!

Posted on September 9, 2015 by | Leave a comment

 

Homestead in the Holler is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Busy, busy, busy!  Whew, it has been quite a summer so far.  Sorry for the lack of updates.  We have had our heads down working and writing after a long, hot day hasn’t been our priority, I’m afraid.  So, what have we been up to?  Hmm, let’s see…

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Posted in Farm Life, Garden, Straw Bale Building, Update

Spring Update

Posted on June 1, 2015 by | 1 comment
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Spring is a busy time of year on the homestead.  It’s time to start the outdoor projects that have been dreamed up all winter long.  This is the first spring on our homestead, which means a long to-do list.   Here’s what we’ve been up to lately.

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Posted in Farm Life, Update

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Purchasing an Existing Homestead

Posted on April 2, 2015 by | 10 comments

barn2

Homestead in the Holler is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

We purchased an old farm in 2014 and are working on getting things up and running again.  This farm hasn’t been functional for quite a few years. The pastures were rented out for grazing, but the buildings have not been used.

When we were looking for properties, we were looking with our mind on permaculture design.  While any property can benefit from applying permaculture principles, there were certain elements we were particularly interested in.  Having water, pastures and trees all designed carefully is a high priority for us.  While there are advantages to buying an older farm with existing buildings, we are finding there are challenges as well.

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Raising Chickens: A Kid’s Perspective

Posted on March 3, 2015 by | 6 comments

hen

Homestead in the Holler is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

As a homesteading, homeschooling family, we try to include our kids in what’s going on around the farm.  Our son has been watching all this blog stuff with great interest.  He finally asked us if he could write his own article.  So, here is the kid version of raising chickens.  It is really quite interesting to see what things are perceived as the highlights (by this kiddo anyway).  Just to make things a bit clear, here is some background:

Chick Mobile: several years back, my husband built a brooder in the pole barn in CO.  It was roughly 4’x4′ and when he finished, he set it on a wheeled frame he used for working on arcade games.  It turned out to be handy to be able to easily move the brooder around the barn, so now our son thinks a brooder should be mobile… and hence the “chick-mobile”

Egg Mobile: we can thank Joel Salatin for this.  Joel is always so creative with his naming, so we called our first mobile coop an “eggmobile” as well.  Ever since our son can remember, we have moved our little layer flock around our property.

Scraps: all our plate scrapings and such are shared with the chickens.  Don’t worry, we provide plenty of layer feed as well. 

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Living without Trash Service

Posted on January 22, 2015 by | 23 comments

living without trash service

Homestead in the Holler is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Before moving out to the Missouri Ozarks, we lived just outside a large city on an acreage.  This meant that we had the privilege of a trash service coming out and picking up our garbage once a week and our recycling every other week.  We totally took advantage of this service, watching our garbage and recycling magically disappear week after week.  Sure, we fed food scraps to the chickens and had a compost pile going.  But the bulk of our waste was being carted away by a trash truck.

Then we moved to the beautiful Ozarks.  We live in an area that there is no trash service out here in the country.  Our trash no longer magically disappears.  In fact, we realized just how much trash our family of five made!  Holy moly!  It’s very common to see people burning their trash in burn barrels around here, so we tried it once.  It was effective, but it made Travis’s allergies flare up, he was stuffed up for days!   Not very pleasant.  So we decided to recycle as much as possible and try to get our trash output as low as possible.

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Posted in Farm Life, Recycling

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Chores with a Baby

Posted on December 14, 2014 by | 8 comments

Chores with a baby

 

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While Travis was driving back and forth from Colorado to Missouri, having adventures like this, I stayed home and held down the fort.  I did as much packing as I could and cared for my 6 year old and 6 month old.  There were also rabbits, chickens and dairy goats to care for.  Chores were done twice a day, every day.  With a baby.  Alone.  For the entire summer.

It sounds challenging, but really it wasn’t.  My 6 year old is an animal lover and loves to help out, so she was easy.  How did I manage with a baby?  Baby wearing.

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