Welcome to the beginnings of our homestead! We are situated in Texas, just out the backdoor from San Antonio. The property is a large but manageable 2.6 acres, 1/3 of the property is forested which butts up to an old dry creek. The other 2/3 half is mostly cleared with three large ancient oak trees and some hack berry trees. There's an old home and an even older barn (once school house) that are the main structures. There's also an old concrete water silo that use to store water from a now gone well.
Our plans for the homestead range from growing our own food and meat animals to selling various products we are able to produce in excess. My husband works a regular long shift at work during the day with weekends off which helps a great ton. I have been retired for a little over three years from the military. He has knowledge building and making things from wood, he's a general can-do handy man in other areas as well. I work with fiber arts such as making yarn, crocheting warm fuzzy things and light sewing. I am able to build as well but not on my husband's scale. I'm very primitive with regards to nailing and screwing things together to make a solid item.
We were located in Okinawa, Japan close to two years the second time around. The first time we were there for four years. What can we say, we love the small island feel and the culture. We were never bored there and the easy going attitudes made the island a safe haven for families. It was time to leave since our only child had graduated high school and currently has plans for a military career of her own. During those two years I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. I came across this thing called homesteading through fiber arts. I Youtubed a lot of videos on all things yarn which lead to raising the animals that create the fibers to the life style of some of these people who make things from scratch. (I will post in another blog some of the Youtube channels I follow that homestead)
I began calculating and thinking long and hard on this type of life. It was simple and not suburban, I hate everything about the suburbs. So, I talked with the husband about different ideas about what we should do for the long term and he was on board. We will do our best to save money and pay off debts and that is where we are at today. We had a little nest egg saved before returning to the States, we gave some in form of garage storage to the in-laws for putting us up in their home. I should also note we bought the land from them at a great price and that helped us tremendously. We were all set to stay with them for a long time but after many discussions and research we took up their offer to purchase the secondary property they owned (which is next door to them).
We got the land (which is on a land loan) and some necessary things like fencing, riding mower, a shed and various tools for the husband to use. All of this was costly and soon depleted what little we were able to save. Can you say stressed out? So now that we are situated on the land we are going hardcore save mode, our debt includes two vehicles and a home we are trying to sell that resides in the vast suburbs of west San Antonio. We have a renter at the moment in the home, we tried for 6 months to sell this income drain to no avail. The decision as been made to keep it as a rental for as long as possible, preferably till our vehicles are paid off. So, four years? Yeah, that's a helluva long time.
Some improvements were immediately needed for inside of the home. The house was rented out to a smoker who hoarded and generally did not care one bit about the state of the house. He was there for ten years I think. He has some left over stuff and various old paint and chemicals which are housed in the barn for now. As much as I hate it we just have to deal with it all till he is able to take the rest.
Needless to say, we cleaned and cleaned and then cleaned some more. The dust and webs were out of control but that was only the beginning. We also had a hell of a wasp infestation and god knows what else! Once all the bugs were taken care of by professional pest control we set to work repairing and painting. After some wary functional checks we come to find out only one burner on the old stove worked, the kitchen faucet was not useful and the bathroom was a complete nightmare.
We dropped more money at replacing the stove, kitchen faucet, new sink and cabinet for the bathroom. Oh and surprise! The toilet decided to blow a seal and water drained into the septic undetected till we had mud. I'm so thankful to my in-laws. They helped us a great deal with this, they basically paid for the septic to get pumped. Well the home is now at a level of function and comfort that is acceptable for the time being. There will be a home improvements that will come when we have extra money and first on the list will be to level out the floors. My computer is in the corner of the home that has dropped about two inches and it's a weird feeling walking to my computer. It's not severe to warrant urgent fixing, it's a gradual slope. My chair rolls me to the desk with great ease, so there's that little silver lined cloud. Check out the "after" pics :)
I realize we have absolutely no experience homesteading. This isn't a blog about all our successes, no, this will be a blog of amateurs doing a thing and maybe messing up but it will also be about us realizing we messed up and finding different avenues to achieve an efficient and money saving outcome. (deep inhale) Ok, yeah that's good. :) Till the next post <3
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