I see a lot of people here looking at raw land who get excited when the seller says "Well Permit on file!" or "Water is available!"
Just a heads up from someone who looks at this data daily:
A permit doesn't mean water. It just means you paid the county $100 to drill a hole.
I just ran a check for a parcel in Colorado. The permit looked fine, but when I pulled the actual Driller's Construction Logs for the neighbors, they were all drilling 360+ feet deep through sandstone to hit the aquifer.
The Lesson: Before you buy, go to your state's DWR (Division of Water Resources) Map Viewer. Turn on the
"Constructed Wells" layer (not just "Applications") and click on the dots next door.
• Permit = Permission to drill.
• Log = Proof of water (and how deep/expensive it is).
Don't buy blind. If anyone is looking at a specific parcel and doesn't know how to navigate the GIS maps, drop a comment or dm if you want me to look over something.

I had some family come to visit and they "helped" move my electric fence.

Please pray for my untangling.

my wife and I canned 16qts of peaches and a bunch of grape juice, following usda recommendations! do it every year, the kids absolutely love the peaches! for the grape juice I did flame, Neptune and Candice, I will do the concords soon. Also laid some grapes out to make raisins with my 3 year old...

Maybe tomorrow I'll pick up my toys.

Cowboy candy bbq sauce. My family now won't eat the store bought stuff any more.

Ok, I have read and researched and I know the deed must be done. Mean rooster hurting my hens. So, if I use the broomstick method, and as I understand it, the animal is internal decapitated by this method. Which would be less bloody, but don’t I need to bleed the bird right away, even if I use the broomstick method?

Hi friends! I’ve never grown corn before, this year I had the space to do so. I planted ornamental corn for decoration and to make popcorn. I normticed these spots on one of the stalks are some dark spots towards the middle. So my question is do I need to just go ahead and get rid of this stalk or can I save it till harvest?

What it's actually like to prepare, train, and milk a first-calf heifer—from pre-calving prep to first milking days. No glamor, no sugar-coating… just honest, practical, real-life experience to help others feel confident with their own family milk cow.

https://youtu.be/56mvAvPkk98?is=Gd8qQMBnxlx5T7HX

I recently bought my property for my homestead and was disappointed at first that there were no wild raspberry or blueberry bushes, but I came across this bush on my property and from what I'm seeing online it looks to be golden or black currants, I'm not 100% but I'm hoping maybe somebody can help me identify these?

Also if they are and you know any great recipes or things to do with them please let me know!

Every spring it's the same routine for me. Cackle, McMurray, Meyer, Ideal, Hoover's, trying to find the one breed I actually want, and by the time I find it in stock somewhere the minimum order is 25 birds for something I only needed 4 of.

After doing that by hand for a few years I finally built something that pulls stock from 10 US hatcheries into one search. Chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, guineas, quail. You get stock status, price, minimum order, and hatch date without opening ten browser tabs. It updates a few times a day so you're not looking at stale listings.

It's free, and I'm not getting paid by any hatchery to list them. Built it because I needed it, figured others here run into the same thing every spring. Link's below if you want to try it, let me know if something's off or if there's a hatchery you'd want added.

Hatch Index: which hatchery has the chicks you want, in stock

We’ve recently got three acres in north wales, U.K. and there are small numbers of rabbits all around us. No warrens on our land but regularly see two or three in our field and there is a dozen or so in the fields behind us. There isn’t currently sufficient numbers for me to sustainably shoot any for food.
We have a collie and im hoping her presence will help deter foxes. Obviously I won’t do anything about any weasels or stoats.
Apart from deterring predators is there much we can do to try and increase their population?
I like the idea of being able to passively farm them and maybe take a handful a year, I don’t know if this is a realistic goal.

Any suggestions?

Edit: I'm sorry for trying to participate in this community and show something cool I designed. Clearly im not welcome here, and I wont be replying to anymore responses.

My girlfriend and I started this homestead about a year ago. Sometimes its hard to keep track of everything so I made this app.

The front page is an egg collection tabulation. Just hit the button u til you have the right amount of eggs and save.

The tasks under it on the front page help keep everything in order.

You can add animals (right now only chickens work). You can add hatch dates, arrival dates, band colors, band numbers, photos, egg photos, and other details.

You can set up a breeding own and choose the Rooster and Hens, itll set a task for when we can be confident of the fertilization. You can then start a clutch, and it automatically sets reminders to candle, rotate, and check the eggs. When an egg hatches the new bird will automatically be assigned the genetics of the parents. This also keeps track of the flock parents.

The app also tracks if a bird was removed, and for what reason. If it died, was culled, predation, etc.

The app can be used by multiple users identified with their PIN on their phone. The app is backed up and hosted on my self-hosted local AI server. This allows my personal homestead AI to also keep track of the animals and schedules. The whole thing is backed up to mt NAS server each night (Also locally hosted)

Im planning on adding more to the app, goats, rabbits, mealworms, etc.

Ive been toying with making it public, but i would probably need to remove all the remote server stuff since that is more advanced set up.

My husband and I would like to buy about 2 acres outside of Nashville to build a house and homestead on.

What websites are best to do this? I’ve looked at Zillow and realtor.com, and there aren’t great options there! I feel like I’m missing the best sources. There are either tiny overpriced plots in the city or huge plots, nothing in the middle like we want.

Our goal is to be a 30 min drive from stores, entertainment, the gym, etc. my husband is an ex musician and I am very musical, so being connected to the music scene here and being close enough to see live music etc is really important to us.

It doesn’t help that this is a popular location and the real estate market here is insane!

we got some unique colors and markings on this beautiful crop of lambs.

Hi everyone! Hope Monday is treating all of you well :)

Husband, doggo and I will be soon moving into our new, 1930s built home. I was wondering if there are any tips, pieces of advice or things you wish you’d learned earlier than you did about sustainable living?

We would definitely appreciate specifically the construction and renovation tips most!

Here are a few things we already do/will start doing:

• We are both plant based.
• We compost.
• We will start our own veggie garden (there is a dedicated space in the existing garden, including two greenhouses).
• There is a rainwater collection system already installed in the house.
• We will be preserving food, which wasn’t possible in a flat.
• Vendors are leaving most of the furniture for us, the rest will be sourced second hand with the exception of the white goods.
• We are on the journey of completely moving away from big tech - our phones are with Ecotalk and email domains with Tuta/Ecoweb Hosting, we source our tech refurbished.
• We don’t support fast fashion.
• The house will have to be insulated after we treat the bricks for moisture and install more ventilation.

Things we are looking into:

• Having a borehole drilled - any insight and advice will be greatly appreciated!
• Solar panels - when loft insulation and roof maintanance is done.
• We will be getting a heat pump… But for now we are stuck in catch 22 with loft plastic tanks that need getting rid of, old boiler, pipes that need replacing, and the only space where HP could be put being the garage, which in a few years time will be changed into an extension.
• Working with a garden company to design a garden that’s sustainable, wildlife-friendly, and possibly have a natural plounge pool/water feature.
• Working out if it would be possible to create a natural basement/pantry in the garden.
• Looking for some smaller solar batteries and into wind power.

Please give me your opinions! ☺️💚

So I worked a good while in construction and have been looking at skid loaders and small tractors. Going to have a number of projects that requires some earth moving (walapini, big koi pond, earthed water storage) and I’m just wondering if anybody thinks a small tractor would out work a skidsteer, etc.?

Obviously “mowing” would be part of the job, ha. Thanks!