Homesteading is hard work

When people hear the term "homesteading", what do they think of?  Someone moving from the "city" to the "country", putting in a garden & some herbs.  Getting some chickens....  Canning and dehydrating, making pickles, baking bread...  Tilling the garden.  Hoeing the garden.  Watering the garden.  Checking daily for bugs (cabbage worms & tomato worms).  Working on an old house.  Cutting and stacking firewood.  Working on roofs, replacing windows, fixing walls.  Laying walkways.  Buying a tractor.  Felling trees.    Getting a "farm truck".  Believe me, you DON'T just move from the city into the country and become a "hobby farmer" without a willingness to do HARD work and get lots of blisters and an empty bank account.

So, I'd like to do a photo history of rehabilitating our homestead.

It started with finding our dream house on the real estate MLS service.  We were living in Northern Georgia and it was John's dream to move to Arkansas.  This required several trips just looking at property until we found what we wanted.  And here's what we found.

12 sided oak log house on 42 acres

Notice the outbuilding in the back?  That's where John set up his workshop.  There are 2 rooms (one with a wood heater).  And there are 2 horse stables.  And a space for hay storage.  The hay storage became a general storage room, mostly for large appliances and lumber.  The larger stable became the "garage" for tractor, lawn mower and golf cart.  The smaller stable is more general storage (think chicken wire, ply wood...).

The interior of the house had been totally stripped in 2000 by the DEA following a drug raid.  I understand they were prepared for a bloody shootout with the druggies and even had a TANK here.  Heck, the house IS 6x6 oak logs...  A real fortress. 

There's an addition/den and enclosed "patio" also.

Den with driftwood

The driftwood was immediately removed and helped fuel the fireplace & burning the knee deep leaves around the place.

So, as I said the interior was totally stripped.  We had the kitchen counter, 2 toilets and a claw-foot tub.  There's also a cool 70's style freestanding fireplace.  And the main feature of the house is the fact that it's built around a ROCK.  In fact, that's how our "farm" got it's name.  When we were closing on the place, the title company kept asking us for the name of our "ranch".  Ranch??  What ranch??  Well, it seems that in Arkansas, if you own 40 acres or more; it's a ranch.  Oh.  OK.   So, our "ranch" is named Big Rock Farm.  Because we have BIG ROCKS.  And we're only going to grow BIG ROCKS.

Anyway, here's what the interior looked like.

You can't tell from this picture, but there's a very large hole in the wall between the sink and the toilet.

The sink wasn't there when we purchased the house.  But we did find in out in the pasture behind the workshop.  So, John (being the very handy guy that he is) installed it!  I'm so glad I married a handy man... 

That makes me think of Red Green... But that's a story for another day!

So here's the Big Rock. 

We found a very nice woodstove out in the yard, under a tree.  It's only got 3 legs.  As best as we can tell, this woodstove had been installed ON the rock - thus using it as a thermal mass.

 We've since talked to some people who knew the people who actually built this house & they told us that the woodstove was indeed ON the rock.  And that was the only heat intended for the whole house.




Here's what the great room looked like.

Here again you can see the big rock.











And now for the den.

Here you can see the freestanding fireplace, the threshold into the enclosed "patio", and the clawfoot tub.  We put the wood flooring down.  We got it locally, from the recycling center.  We have the same flooring in the great room.







We had no landscaping.  No garden.  Holes in the walls, no ceiling....  And we were happy!

Laying out the border for the walkway and flower beds

 We found bricks lying around everwhere.  So, I started laying them out for the border for the flower beds and the walkway I wanted to lay.

Where the druggies had their "garden"

We wanted to have a garden, but we didn't know WHAT the druggies had been growing in their "garden", so we took all this fencing down and tilled the ground.  And then we just left it, to become part of the yard.








And now, I'd like to show you what 7 years of work have completed.

Our main walkway and flower garden.

The Big Rock with propane heater.

Dining/kitchen area.

While John was busy cleaning out the workshop, I started laying the stone walkway from stone plied around in the pasture.  I think it came out pretty well.










We invested in a propane tank and 2 propane heaters.  One went in the den/guest room.  And the other went on the Big Rock.  I really like the way it looks.










The kitchen island was a dresser we found out in the workshop.  We repainted it.  It had no top, but the piece of butcher block was also lying out in the workshop.  And so, we had a complete kitchen island.  I bought the reconditioned hoosier at a local antique store.  And I painted the entire great room in the same color scheme to tie everything together.

Living area with our handmade loom

We turned one corner of the great room into my "fiber corner".  I have my weaving loom (which John and I built) and my spinning wheels in this part of the room.  Sadly, because of my health issues I decided it was time to stop weaving.  Happily, I was able to pass the loom on to a dear friend who is using it.  That's a good thing.  And John's handiwork is still being used by someone who loves it.

Bird cages

We turned the old dog kennels into big cages.  We have Rhode Island Red chickens, Brahma Cochin chickens, guinea fowl and bantam chickens.  And sometimes we have quail.

John in the garden

And, here's the garden.  This picture is from 2010.  That hickory tree has since come down in a wind storm.  It did hit the fence and the roof of the small outbuilding just to the left of the garden.  But that tree provided a lot of firewood and lumber.

Anyway, that's all for today.  Hope you liked looking at the pictures. 

We've done alot of work.  But we've loved it!