Locust Grove Homestead

Just something about a fire that pulls you in. Finishing the last winter project today (yes I know it’s May) feels good. Now bring on the summer goals.

First bowl from the garden for the season. Some delicious snap pea and sunflower micro greens. 🤤

The no till garden is built and fully planted. Should be a great year. Early crops are looking good and haven’t pulled a w**d yet.

The homestead is beautiful this time of year. Anything more captivating than spring wild flowers?

Making lumber is one of my favorite chores on the Homestead.

How often do you look at the world and see the adults with no skills and think how am I contributing to that problem?

I know I do, I try to make sure my children have a role model to teach them the skills they will need in their lives. I think because I've chosen that path I've become more aware of the behaviors I need to change in myself. I know if I don't correct my issues those issues will eventually become my children's problems.

Life's a journey they say. I think once I stopped looking at it as my journey and started seeing it as our journey I could no longer pretend I wasn't contributing to the issue.

So many options for heirloom tomatoes. What's everyone's go to variety?

For us after testing over 50 varieties over the last 10 years we've settled on 3 main varieties.
Amish Paste for canning
Church for slicing
Riesentraube cherries for everything.

Reason #1 to homestead. Exposing your children to the responsibility of caring for animals will teach them to care for everyone better.

Now is the time to start planning on making memories. Yes a garden is great for food production but it can also be fun for everyone in the family.

That's a two hundred pound pumpkin and 4 watermelons all over 100 # each. Cyrus loved growing those and we'd go out an check every day in August to see how much they'd grown. I think it's a great way to keep the kids interested in gardening.

Looking for something to screen your garden or even your whole yard? Amaranth makes a beautiful screen that'll make strangers stop and knock on your door.

We've planted this garnet red amaranth at the last 3 homesteads over the last 10 years and every time we have strangers knocking on our door. It's a beautiful crop and a great way to attract my kind of people. The grain works great to feed to chickens and my 9 year old will eat it right out of the bag in the winter. Mind you, he'll eat anything.

https://youtu.be/q5ujIeqYwZU

Little boy is growing up and it melts my heart to see him exploring his vast new world.

Mud Builds Character A little rain and a one year old having fun playing in the mud.

Sun Prairie farmer embraces regenerative agriculture Odyssey farm owner Ryan Erisman operates his land using regenerative agriculture.

This was me 4 days ago…

Totally

I've worked on farms and with farmers my entire life. Heck since I was knee high to a grasshopper I was walking thru corn fields and riding in combines. I'm not really sure when things changed or if they every were the way people say 'things used to be'.

I do know somewhere along the way a lot of us started believing the propaganda that the reason we farmed was to feed the people and be stewards of the land. But who are we kidding, it's all about wealth creation anymore.

Very few farmers I know are the "poor" farmers I used to know as a kid. The guys who showed up in their old pickup trucks loaded down with scrap and old parts they'd picked up at a flee market. Those guys didn't have big IRA's and real estate side businesses owning dozens of low income housing like a lot of the farmers who live in my community now. Their wealth was in the mountain of scrap they used to keep their old equipment running. Of course with all the zoning restrictions nowadays, those guys couldn't live the way they used to anyway.

Maybe that's just the way things are for production agriculture anymore. Farmers enjoy the high tech life now and society doesn't really want the scrap piles that used to dot the country side. Maybe the only way to a healthier food system is just to accept the fact, if you want something done right you gotta do it yourself.

Good growing Homesteaders!

For us the lightning bugs have been the most noticeable loss but they’re just the canary letting us know things are getting worse….

Winter can get rather dull in the Midwest but every once in awhile you get a beautiful scene like this. Was at the back end of a field and turned around to be surprised by this view.

Woke up to this big fella knocking on the tree next to the house. Guessing he has some nuts stored in there for himself. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who squirreled away food for the winter.

It reminded me how important it is to have a larder stored away for when times get hard. It's not the immoral hording the ill prepared try to make it out be, it's a natural behavior of any responsible animal. Especially in times like today.

Enjoy the day folks, looks to be a warm one and any day you don't have to break ice in February is going to be a good one.

Picked up this beauty yesterday. That's a 20" Osage Orange log. We had a big wind storm here two days ago 60 mph wind and this old lady fell down across my neighbors lane. I saw him out there struggling with a wedged saw, so went over and introduced myself and told him I'd clean it up really quick for him with the tractor. Made a friend and got some rare and beautiful lumber that I'm looking forward to running thru the sawmill

https://youtu.be/WKvgqc1eII8

Firewood with a plan. Firewood doesn’t have to be all the hard work folks make it out to be. In this video I’ll show why I season my firewood in log form. Saves me a bunch of time over conventional practices.

Best Way to Season Wood Long Term Seasoning wood is often a hotly debated topic among wood buyers, not so much wood producers. So in an effort to put to rest the claims that wood cannot be s...

Every think what's wrong with the trees? Why don't they have leaves and grow in the winter? Maybe if they just tried harder right? It seems so obvious to most, so obvious in fact that people rarely even think about it. Trees don't have leaves in winter because their environment isn't conducive to growth, they won't get back their investment so it's not worth doing.

You every apply that same understanding to your life? I know I do, maybe the reason I'm not achieving my goals is because of my environment. Maybe the answer isn't just try harder, maybe the answer is change my environment.

So if you're struggling with something on the homestead, maybe think about changing the system because just working harder is probably going to result in you burning out. We see it to often on homesteads across the country. When homesteaders don't get back their investment, it becomes not worth doing and we end up with a bunch of empty homesteads that look like trees in the winter. Tons of potential but bare and fruitless.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/91kx3citpmU

One of my side goals being back on the Homestead after a year and a half break from the lifestyle is to work more functional exercise in to my daily chores. Keeping that ax swinging keeps my heart rate moving.

One Swing At A Time splitting firewood by hand is fun. It's even more fun when you give yourself a challenge and push thru my shortcomings.

Winter's beauty can be almost as overwhelming as the feeling of bitter cold air on your skin or the feeling that your sole purpose in life is to break up ice for drinking water.

It's February and like most homesteaders I'm ready for spring. Bring on muddy March...

Cutting slab wood used to be a pain but boy does that grapple make it easy.

Slab Wood The Easy Way Processing slab wood can be a pain in you can't keep it bundled tight and boy does that grapple make the perfect clamp to hold that wood in place so I can sa...

I'm reminded daily when I go to stock the stove that I must continue to stir the things in myself to keep my fire going. It's far easier to stir the coals than to reignite the fire once it goes out.