Check Out What We’ve Been Up To…
What’s In My Emergency Chicken Kit
Life out here means we’re out here. At least 20 minutes from town, one way, is too long to wait when an emergency arises right now. See all the supplies I keep on hand to keep my flock happy and healthy, as well as how I treat common ailments like mites, bumble foot, wound care, egg bound hens, and more. Learn more here.
Your New Favorite DIY Poultry Waterer
Step by step we show you how we built the best, mess-free water setup you’ll ever have. Easy to make, easy to secure, easy to refill and only half the price of what you’d pay in stores! Read more
Raising baby chicks can be tricky! I talk about all that I have learned by research, and by experience, about Coccidiosis, and how to treat it. Learn more
Bringing Home 50 (!!!) Baby Chicks
What do you do when 50 baby chicks arrive the same day as 3 inches of snow? You grab the kiddie pool, plug in the heat lamp, and make room inside! Tag along as we bring home our chickens, show you around our town, and get the chicken coop and baby brooder ready for their arrival. You also get a peek at our DIY hydro hen waterer. Watch now.
Welcome to the Thankful Roost
We have an ever-growing coop full of many funny characters. Get to know the extended part of our family, and say “Hi” to a new chicken every Wednesday.
Check Back Every Wednesday For A New Farmstead Post!
What Makes A Farm?
“When I grow up, I want to be a farmer” That’s something that kid’s seem to say, but eventually grow out of. The reality is that farming is hard work, long hours, working against the weather, uncertainty, aching bones, and often is a feast or famine kind of life. A lot of times it’s a job you’re just born into, following the boot prints of many generations before you. But more recently, a multitude of reasons has put a strain on family farms, with farmers (and more so, their children) leaving the fields and pastures for a job with a bit more stability (and air conditioning). These family farms are being sold for hefty price tags that first generation farmers can’t afford to pay. It doesn’t make it easy for the little guy, the kid with the dream of growing up to be a farmer, to afford to start and successfully run a sustainable farm from scratch.
We happen to fall into the latter of those scenarios, where we both hail from families that were successfully farming 30+ years ago, but for many different reasons, neither of our family’s operations are still in existence. Never seeming to grow out of the “when I grow up…” phase, Dylan and I longed to raise our boys the way we were raised, and we decided that if we couldn’t have the hundreds of acres and a commercial production, we would start exactly where we were, and that, my friends, is with homesteading.
We have 4 acres and a plan to utilize every little bit as much as we can in order to push our family towards being as self-reliant and homegrown as possible. We currently have 23 layer chickens and 2 roosters, and are anxiously awaiting spring in order to add more livestock. In February we started the journey of raising 50 chicks with the purpose of providing meat for our family, and are learning more every day about this process. We also hunt what the season permits, with the intentions of putting food on the table. We feel good being responsible for our own food, from the fun times to even the hard moments, and are trying to leave a legacy for our boys to enjoy all through their lives, as well.
We aren’t “experts” or “master homesteaders” by a long shot. We’re a normal family following our dreams, learning more every single day, and wanting to show others like us that it is never too late to get back to your roots.