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Everyone has dreams and goals they wish to accomplish in life no matter how outlandish they may seem. I know I enjoy thinking about the future and what our little family will be up to in a few years. My dreams have changed and evolved especially since we had a child (plus have one on the way) and started the homestead. We have recently hit our one year mark for our homestead, and we still have many things we would like to accomplish. I am proud of what we have done so far, but some of our other homesteading dreams are:
To expand. Right now, we are living on a two acre wooded hillside beside the road. It may not be the ‘ideal’ homestead property (really, what is?), but we make it work for us. Sometimes, we can feel impatient about wanting to move on to the next goal and buy more property, but we try to the focus on being content with what we have and making it work in the best way possible. We are still learning, but the great thing is we are young and have plenty of time to perfect our systems and expand later on. In the future, we look forward to being able to purchase a larger piece of pasture to facilitate the rest of our dreams.
Add more animals. I love the animals we have now, and they work perfectly for the set up we have, but we would love to have more. There is nothing better than looking outside and seeing the pigs rooting in their paddock or chickens scratching around in the yard. We hope to eventually add a milk cow, pasture-raised beef cows, goats, sheep, and more chickens. I would also like to add honeybees to the mix, but I think I need to talk myself into that a little more!
To produce all of our own eggs, meat, and dairy. Within the first year of our homestead, we were able to produce all our own eggs which has been incredible. We also did our first batch of meat chickens, and I will never buy chicken at the supermarket again. (I will do a separate post on the meat birds soon since we just got a new bunch!) We plan on butchering one of our pigs this fall even though it breaks my heart to do so. It will yield a large amount of meat, but we aspire to do our own 100% grassfed beef and dairy for our family.
To produce more fruits and vegetables. This year was out first garden, and we basically planted and said many prayers that it would turn out. Like I wrote in my summer gardens blog, we were very blessed with our harvest! We didn’t produce much fruit, but my hope for the future is to plant a fruit orchard on our property. I am interested in edible landscaping instead of just landscaping for aesthetic purposes and hope to get into more of that next year. We would like apple, pear, and nut trees plus a variety of berry bushes.
To bring Chance home full time. This year, we were able to sell a fair amount of our extra eggs that we had which has been great. We have also been able to sell a pig for when they are ready to butcher, which will be a nice supplement to our income. We hope to eventually build up our business and be able to provide not only our family, but our community with locally grown, organic/Non GMO products. Ideally we would like the family to work the homestead full time.
As we wrap up our first year on the homestead, we have accomplished quite a few of our goals and added many more to work toward in the future. My main goal for our growing family is to live abundantly! I hope you will continue to join us on this wild ride. What are your dreams for the future? Expand your homestead? Jump into homesteading? What would your dream be if you need no limitations? Comment below and let me know. I would love to share in your dreams! Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog to keep up with the latest on the homestead, and share with your friends!
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