Homesteading Lessons Learned

Much of what I share on this blog is about what I’ve learned homesteading. But I know that many of you have also learned a lot. So, a couple of weeks ago, I asked the Facebook fans of Thrifty Homesteader about the lessons they’ve learned homesteading. Here are some of their answers …

My grandpa always told me when I was looking for a place to call my own, to find a farm with more land than I thought I would need. Back then it sounded crazy, why purchase more land than one will utilize, right? Well today I wish I had have listened. We have spent a lot of time and money making our farm our home, not only for ourselves but for our livestock. It’s hard to uproot from all that we have created here, and even harder to purchase adjoining land. You can build and add a lot of things on a farm, but land is not one of them. As we found ourselves falling in love with livestock, we have also found our limit. We are at max capacity on our little farm, but the urge to expand our operations is great. This has been a hard lesson for us to swallow. Now we are faced with the choice of staying where we are and not expanding, or uprooting from all of our hard work and start over somewhere new. ~~ Will Daniel, Virginia

Don’t be cheap when buying ANYTHING. Healthy animals, good feed, solid equipment, will save much time, energy, and expletive deleteds! Two of my favorite farm investments; a good vet, who charged more than some thought sensible, but taught us how to do everything so we could be more independent. And, good tools. The quick purchase of a Farm and Fleet chain saw or rake caused so much trouble, compared to the trouble of budgeting for Stihl or something similar. ~~ Melody Peterman, Arizona

Teach your children about the possibility of losing your livestock to animals or sickness. Because that was a hard first for our children. And it never fails that it’s one of the kids’ favorites. ~~ Jenny from Indiana

You have to take the bad along with the good. And sometimes it can get really bad. Just keep persevering. ~~ Jackie from Texas

Know that making mistakes is just part of it. Learn from them and move on. Oh, and never underestimate the value of good fences ~~ Tori Tilton, Share the Soap/HCDream Nigerian Dwarf Goats

And that reminds me of something I wrote in one of my books …

What are some of the things you’ve learned homesteading? Share in the comment section below.