I’ve decided to end 2025 in such a way that beginning 2026 can be a true start to this blog, even though we’ve been moving forward with many things for the past two years. The Blog part always seems to be a low priority. That needs to change. So, this is the first of five (maybe six) weekly posts that aim to summarize and outline parts of our current lifestyle so it all starts to make more sense. I hope.
Part I – What we’re Building
Building covers the whole bubble. It makes the most sense to start here. After the chaos of Covid (which for us also included a flooded house and reconstruction, a 13-month stay with my daughter and grand-daughter in NY, and assorted family drama), conversation turned to “what now?”. In our case, talking sparked the vision we jokingly tagged “Off the Rails Homestead”.
We started clearing what was left of our half-acre suburban lot to make space, and then we built: a chicken coop, a greenhouse, a high-tunnel hydroponic greenhouse, and raised bed gardens. We bought 7 Buff Orpington chickens (6 hens and a rooster) for the coop, planted seeds in the garden beds and seedlings in the greenhouses. We bought fruit trees and berry bushes, asparagus corms, and more seeds … so many seeds! We turned to the house and built some more: a climate controlled pantry for storing roots and canned vegetables, a huge chest freezer for beef, pork, and chicken, and stacks of canning jars. Oh, and a freeze-drier. More about that in a later post.
You’d think that would be enough, but no. We are nothing if not gluttons for punishment. And chicken math is real. So we built coop number two to house extra roosters or unruly personalities or occasional (ok, regularly occurring) broods of babies. Hatching is addictive. Since there is no twelve-step-program for chickens, we built a third coop. This fall we relapsed and added 36 more chickens and 22 quail, so we had to build a brooder and quail house. We’ll be dividing the third coop into a duplex to house the Black Copper Marans and the Ayam Cemanis.
We built more garden beds to plant herbs and medicinal plants. Then we built a garden for the next-door neighbors. Then we built planters for sale to people who’d been watching us grow. Finally, we built a market cart.
Building is such a foundational aspect of our lives that I can’t envision a time when we won’t be adding ‘something’. Creating with purpose just feels like the right thing to do. I fully expect the construction to keep right on going as new needs arise and ideas blossom. Bringing “Off the Rails Homestead” to life is a journey I never saw coming, but I wouldn’t change a minute of it.
P.S. While all this was going on, Gary was giving presentations on hydroponics and working at the Friendship Community Garden growing food for church pantries, and I was getting my Nutritionist Certification and Associates degree from University of South Carolina, Sumter.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”
~ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1986