We really like the show Homestead Rescue. The Raney family from Alaska, who have lived off grid for decades, travel to failing homesteads to teach, repair and gift their help and goods to give the homesteaders a new beginning. They are brilliant with their ideas and are hard, hard workers. They repurpose and reuse, as well as do more involved projects.
As we are watching, I always think, "Why would you spend every dime to move to a place where you know nothing, don't hunt, you're afraid of the wildlife, and can't produce your own food or water?" Interestingly, this question might fit us pretty well. You know, one can delude oneself about how much one feels prepared to do!
For me, I rely on memory and research. Hmmm...that sounds uninformed straight out of the box. Memories are sweet, but they don't include instructions! And research is only as reliable as the source. Yes, Grandma had chickens and my mom talked about cows all the time, and I gophered for my dad's projects a great many times. None are the same as doing. Nothing is as simple as it looks or as common sense would dictate. Nothing.
Man, were we lucky with the chicken house. We did the responsible things - updated electric and replaced glass windows with plexiglass panels. We carefully considered needs and repurposed where we could. The mistakes are harder to swallow. Instead of putting up more panels
and chicken wire for a bigger chicken yard, we used snow fence. OMG - what a mess. We traded certainty for faster. We never bothered to consider that a 100# Pyrenees could pull it down enough to hurdle it. And you see where that got us!
Another issue we've had to learn is what comes first! Not just in prioritizing projects, but in project steps. We've been replacing fence since October. Boundary battles (totally unexpected) and weather have set us back. Without that fence, goats will go where they will. The goats were headed to livestock sale, and our timeline got tight to take advantage of the price. The building was ready, and we had 30 days to take delivery. Fencing goes to the final battle (we won), then we have two weeks of rain, creating a muddy hillside for the fencing crew. One more day building a temporary place where the goats are corralled unless we are outside. We bought them to wander and groom the pasture - now we hand deliver their greenery every day. Necessary, but not ideal, steps.
Murphy's Law is really real to us. We do the work and something always happens, fails, falls apart, goes south - you call it. Long ago, we changed that to Jennings' Law - if something can go wrong, we find the weirdest way! However, we are pretty pragmatic. We know we don't know and we know what we don't know and go on anyway. It is all in the work, and the lessons, I suppose, are God's way of showing us to be more prepared and be better planners, not to mention keeping us humble! That said, we are still proud of our commitment and work toward building the little ranchette we've wanted.
Only time will tell and in what order. Hopefully, it is dogs come home (they finally did), fence is finished (almost there), and the damn goats get busy!
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