Some Things I Have Been Learning About Lately

I love to read. Do you? Learning is so fun I think. So I am constantly finding new books I have also enjoyed finding interesting things online to read about and learn. As we are working on getting our new homestead up and going and producing I have been reading and thinking a lot about that lately. I would really like to do things right the first time if possible since we are starting fresh. I thought I would share some little bits of things that I have been reading about and thinking about lately.

Some books I have been enjoying lately:

• "Folks This Ain't Normal" by Joel Salitin - I found this book really fun and refreshing and not really what I was expecting. Where he talks about how everything (animals, soil, plants, bugs, us) are all made to work together it really just made me so in awe of how God created things perfectly. I hadn't realized just how wonderfully He had designed some things. The more I learn the more I am in awe of our Creator!
• "The Self-Sufficiant Life and how to live it" by John Seymour. This book just reinforced what I had already been reading about how God designed everything to work together so perfectly!! Made me want to get a cow even more. 
• The book of Deuteronomy.  This book is a neat one to go along with my homesteading thoughts. I have been enjoying the instructions that were given to the Israelite concerning creating and working on their homesteads and of course remember God in everything that they were to do. The reminder a couple of times to talk of Him as they walked, lay on their beds, tell their kids, etc. I really want to have that be how my life is.
• "The Harvester" by Gene-Stratton Porter. This was a fun book to read but another one that enforces yet again how God created everything perfectly and with a purpose. I started reading this outloud to the kids but it ended up having to much romance for the boys taste and wasn't quite what I like to read aloud anyway so I ended up finishing it myself.
• "In His Image" by Paul Brand. I have been reading this one aloud to the kids. It is so cool to read about how marvelously God made our bodies and how that it compares to the church - the body of Christ. 
• The book of Acts. What fun to read about the very beginning of the church. This book never gets old. God was working then and He is still alive and powerful today!
• "The Girl from Johnycake Hill" by Virginia Voight. This is the fun book I am reading to the kids now. It has been fun and reinforces our love of the old-fashioned life. 

Okay... I had better quit telling you about books (we do love to read!) and tell you about some of the other things that I have been dreaming about....

-Chicken Tractors.  We have a lovely chicken coop for our laying hens but we need something to keep the little chicks in that will be hatching in about a week. They will stay in big tubs for a while but then they will still be to little to integrate with the big ones and will need a place of their own. It is possible that they will go over to my parents but if possible we would like to make them a chicken tractor that they could live in and also work on getting rid of weeds and building up the soil in my garden area. Here are a bunch of photos of different Chicken Tractors.  Here is another post with links to chicken tractor plans. Have any of you ever made or used a chicken tractor? I would love to hear about it if you have.

-Vermicomposting (in other words - using worms to help with composting). I heard about this a long time ago but didn't ever bother to try it but I intrigued once again because I read that not only will they help you with composting your kitchen scraps but also they make great protein to feed to your chickens. They will multiply so you can then feed extras to the chickens. I do know that chickens love worms. We are looking into this more( I would really love to figure out ways to grow our own chicken feed. Here are simple instructions for making a vermicomposting bin. Here are some basic instructions for Vermicomposting.

-Aquaphonics The art of raising plants over fish with no dirt. The waste from the fish fertilizes the plants. One of our local grocery stores put up a greenhouse that used aquaphonics to raise food to sell. Aaron and I were able to go on a tour there yesterday and now we are dreaming of how to have our own small aquaphonics set up.

Here he is showing the roots that go down into the water.

Getting a milk cow, a pig, a dog and some rabbits. We need some more sources of good manure in order to grow a really good garden and we would also love to have our own milk and our own meat. This is very much still a dream but it could happen. We have to find somebody that wants to do chores when we want to go on vacation though. We don't want to be tied down completely and a cow could certainly do that.

Utilizing State land to it's full potential. We have a lot of state land around us. I am trying to figure out how all we can utilize this land to help towards our goal of not buying food but growing it or at least harvesting it instead. We know we can pick berries there and I think it would be fine to harvest mushrooms as well.

Baby Chickens and Ducks. This is actually not so much my dream but the kids. The boys have busily been saving eggs, caring for the incubator and excitedly waiting for their "babies" to hatch. They will be arriving soon!

What have you been reading or dreaming about?