Transforming abused land into small, fertile, self‑sustaining farmsteads.
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The idea that anyone should read any part of our chronicles and come away with the idea that we always sing as we work, smile a lot, and agree about everything, would disturb us deeply.
Please get firmly in place an image of lots of people in a fairly small, somewhat shabby, not-too-clean home; people whose tastes and opinions clash just as much as anyone’s; people who, if they do the right thing, might well be doing it with the wrong attitude; people just like you, if you know what we mean. We are messy, distracted, and selfish. If we have something going for us, it is that we have a sort of blueprint for where we are trying to go, and we spend a lot of time together. One goal, and time. Maybe that’s all we need.
- Shawn & Beth
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This is one of the most frequent questions we get. See this blog post for instructions on how to grow mangel-wurzels, tromboncino, and sorghum.
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You can find all our cheese recipes on the cheesemaking tag page.
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You don’t have to have a bunch of money to live a rural lifestyle and raise most of what you eat; but you do have to work. Read through Our Story, or dig into over a decades worth of our blog posts below to learn more.
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The independent farmstead is a relationship between many parts: grass, sunlight, and rainfall; ruminants, poultry, hogs, pest and predator control animals; nutrient generation, conversion, and storage; fertility return cycles. Although it may be necessary sometimes to treat them separately, they are all intrinsic parts of an irreducible whole. Learn more about our practice and philosophy here.
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- #inputsfreefarming
- all-grass dairy cow
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- butchering
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- corona homesteading seminar
- cow won't eat
- cows on snow
- culling hens
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- ditch digging
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- down cow
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- feeding beets to pigs
- feeding corn to pigs
- feeding picky pigs
- food security
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- freshening cows
- good farming
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- grazing stockpiled forage
- growing feed for farm animals
- growing onions
- hard cheese making
- harvesting rain water
- hay
- high tunnels
- holistic grazing
- how to clean sausage casings
- inputs free farming
- intensive rotational grazing
- lambing
- low tunnels
- managed grazing
- management intensive rotational grazing
- mangel-wurzel
- mangels
- milk culture
- milk fever
- mixing sheep and cows
- mob grazing
- non-electric running water
- not a toxic forage
- off-grid
- on-farm butchery
- pasture
- planting onions from seed
- planting potatoes
- potato harvest
- predators and livestock
- preparing for winter
- preparing sausage casings
- pruning
- rain water for stock
- raw cream butter
- raw milk
- raw milk cheeses
- regenerative agriculture
- retained placenta in cows
- ripe cheese
- rotational grazing
- scrap-fed pigs
- setting hens
- small-scale and sustainable
- smallholding
- Speckled Sussex
- spring gardening
- starting seeds
- stockpiled forage
- storing potatoes
- subsistence farming
- sustainability
- sustainable homesteading
- the healing land farm conference
- timing
- toxic forages
- tromboncino
- turkeys
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- whole-grain bread
- winter gardening
- winter grazing
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- winter water
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