Everything I Built on 7 Acres of Abandoned Land (YEAR ONE TO FOUR)

[Music] welcome to our seven acre farm in central texas we built everything on this abandoned land just four years ago and today we're spilling all the details when we purchased this land we are a family of six from the houston suburbs our mode of transportation a minivan and that was not going to cut it to get on this untouched property so before we built anything we needed access the very first work we did was our driveway in june we began the heavy work of clearing space for our home this crew cleared about half an acre in this wooded portion of the property so that when our house was on site we would have privacy from the road but enough room to garden and begin raising animals when i say this property was untouched i mean we needed to build everything from scratch water is essential for life we used the trencher to dig a line through the roots and rocks and dirt so that we would have water flowing to our home and future animals ready most folks living the country life these days fix up an old farmhouse or build a new stick built home or build a barnuminium we went way out of the box can i show you how we converted a shed into a house we had this vision before we left the city and i'm over the moon to look back at the skills we've learned through sweaty clothes and grimy jobs our building experience coming into this capped out at basic 8th grade woodshop skills the square footage on our two decks is just over a thousand feet after all the hours put in we are working our way to earning our homebuilder merit badges for sure we went with spray foam because it's the best bang for your buck insulation available plus fewer critters would make their home in our walls with this type of sealed off product if you've been with us on this homestead adventure you know the ceiling was a crisis of belief meaning i believed it could happen and beau who did all the work on it was pretty sure it wouldn't work it simply primed shiplap tongue and grew from the center of the ceiling out this gives us 16 foot ceilings in the center of our home and completely transforms the feel from a shed into a cozy dwelling continuity kept this build as simple as possible we chose one floor for the main living space and the kids lofts if you're keeping track the brotherton headcount was six when we got here and that's gonna change by the end of this video it's taken so much love to make this house a home [Music] but we didn't move here just to stay inside this was our adventure the entire home is just over 800 square feet it's no secret we built small to live big the outdoors is where we spend most of our time the compost bin made out of pallets is the easiest diy we have ever done just stand them up screw them together to create the walls and fill it with all your kitchen scraps and brown material nothing goes to waste we're making soil y'all and here is where we put it these were standing raised beds that we brought from the city and we transformed some of these cleared trees into biochar for the garden free wood chips from a local tree company also gave us base to help us build up our top soil and decayed material for the rest of the garden that we had in the works free is amazing especially when you can put it to good use right away like these first cut boards from the sawmill that would become our next garden beds when you think homesteading the first thing you think of is animals we got a dog then rabbits and went hard after our very first chickens is there anything cuter than a little fluffy nugget maybe a baby cow but stay tuned for that from eggs to hatching to grass these birds have been a fantastic lesson about life and loss and growth for us our kids have been an integral part in raising our own food but like the kids in shoes these chicks outgrew their little tractor and needed a new home homesteaders need materials and friends we have some amazing friends ben and meg holler were traveling to find their own property and stopped off at our place along their journey these friends are serious can doers and their middle son left us with a lesson that i cling to daily if you don't have what you need use what you got so we fixed up this modified chick shaw from a justin rhodes design and fenced in the chickens with an electric poultry netting this keeps the chickens safe from predators and helps us collect eggs in one location each day it took a minute but that first egg finally came and we learned that everyone around the property heard about it if you're not okay with legless slithering things look away for a moment this fool is harmless and the chickens aren't at risk but he sure did make a lunch of our eggs we'll move on to happier things rabbits were a fantastic kickstart to homesteading when we were still in the city and they thrived when they moved on to our seven acres where they could grow out on grass we used their meat to feed our dogs and ourselves and rabbit poop is nothing short of black gold for the garden instant fertilizer it turns out the gardens have a lot of pests not just bugs but gophers and dogs and imaginative children who love to make salads in their playhouses so up went the garden fence we use landscape posts and cedar from our own property about six feet apart there are lots of options for fencing we use this cheaper welded wire because it'll never have animals pressing up against it and it easily keeps the chickens out most posts were able to be secured with dirt but we secured the gate posts with a quick dry concrete we used a lot of material from our own property or salvaged like those cult boards i showed you earlier but the big box stores are practically giving away damage boards and are a great way to build a garden bed on the cheap you can go fancy but if you want to go fast and affordable your beds do not have to be pinterest perfect they just need to hold soil and grow food these cedar boards came with a deep discount and built the foundation for the veggies we would grow for literally years to come there is no shame in whatever it takes to get your garden in the ground some purists insist on seeds i insist on food and these starts are from the big box stores and a local nursery they're in our four by eight beds with fertilizer and mulch on top and this turned out to be a thriving source of food for us that winter [Music] are there risks in building your home with very little experience yep we went out of town and came home to water underneath our flooring we realized that because we didn't put flooring under our refrigerator rookie mistake when the hose on the icemaker began leaking we never noticed it seeping under the flooring and reaching across one half of our entire first floor of our home board by board we removed the flooring and board by board we had to replace and rebuild that floor i feel very much like i've created a safe space these are the lessons that can feel like a kick to the mouth somehow there was no water damage and no mold due to the waterproof subflooring installed when our home was built we insist on failing forward around here so as soon as the weather began to get warm again we were on to the next project and friends she was a doozy by far this water harvesting system is the largest project we have done to date expert gutter guys gave us the means to direct the water but it had to go somewhere enter stage left the shamu size water tanks two of them these are 2500 gallon tanks totaling a capacity to hold 5 000 gallons of rain water right here on our property and would you believe that we have actually filled them up we built a simple gravel foundation for the tanks and hired the help of our permaculture designer friend pete from drought proof texas to come out and help put the fittings together and make sure that we capture all the water possible from our massive roof we could add an additional filter to make this potable and use it in our home but for now this water system goes to watering our garden and our animals remember that rhyme about this little piggy going to market well these little piggies are the piggies that came home our home we installed an electric line with an energizer to help train these little piggies to a wire along the hog panel pen after they were trained we could open up the panels and contain the pigs with just the wire which made rotating them so simple what do we name them well after comic book characters of course sheldon peter porker and the hulk got fast after the work of rooting up the soil so we could seed once they moved to their next space the electrified wire made it easy to put these boys to work all over the front of our property at the two-year mark on our place we could have been happy with what we'd made we could have stayed comfortable but we learned that's not really our style so we dreamed up a new space a space that would allow us to create more films and run our businesses a space that we didn't have to share with dogs or children our shed builders united portable buildings are nothing short of brilliant and creative they took our design and created a new studio in just days [Music] this is a 14 by 24 shed to studio they frame the whole thing in a workshop including the loft windows doors and roof even the interior walls [Music] we match the color to our main house and even in real time these guys are masters [Music] the quality is something we cannot get over and just a few weeks later the shed to studio was delivered and nestled right behind our main house with a bathroom and room to work and rest this serves as our guest house and studio back to my beloved primed shiplap from the big box store and this time we covered the whole dang thing [Music] do [Music] we would be darned if there was going to be any leaky fridges in this building we learned that we like luxury vinyl flooring because it holds up to the wear and tear of the country but no underlayment this time this time we upgraded and got planks with underlayment built in the install was much less fuss and each board snapped together with ease giving us so much room for creating [Music] where the homesteading gets real gritty is when you begin to raise your animals for food those little chicks we hatched were the beginning of our layer flock now it's time to talk meat birds most of us pick them up from the grocery store but with infrastructure we could raise our own so we built an a-frame tractor from john ciscovich stress-free chicken tractor book our property is rugged in spaces and this tractor with the chick lift on the back helps us get these birds wherever we need them the lift mounts up on the back and picks up the back end of the tractor we can pull the front end to fresh grass a couple times a day these birds grew out for about eight weeks and then we're ready for processing pro tip if you're butchering a bunch of birds with just a few grown-ups the yardbird plucker is where it's at this drum can pluck a scalded chicken in just a few seconds the steps from chicken on its feet to chicken in the freezer are this dispatch the bird then scald it over of hot water then pluck the bird and bring it to the table for eviscerating you remove the internal organs feet and neck and then into an ice bath before bagging them up for the freezer after a few rounds of raising and processing our own meat birds we find that we like a two day process so we do everything i just mentioned on day one keep the birds in super cold ice overnight and then we bag and weigh the birds on the next morning these storage bags become vacuumed tightly on the bird in hot water it's pretty quick with 40 or so birds this method makes light work and don't worry we'll put all the materials and resources in the description below we do so much life on these porches you can find us here just about 9 to 12 months out of the year from school meals to child lead messes that we call art these gigantic porches are where we make memories to keep up with them we gave them a hefty stain and completed the faces on the front stairs as we work our way to a more finished look of the house all hands on deck when we received two happy additions to our water harvesting system we added slimline tanks to one end of our deck that captures water from the front porch and another beside the garden each of them needed a framed out base with leveled sand and dirt a much simpler version of the base from our big mamajamma tanks in the back off the front porch this water collection is so basic anyone could collect water in a similar way we ran plumbing fittings from the front porch gutter directly into the top of the tank where there's a small metal mesh to keep out debris [Music] a second round of pigs inspired us to begin our own pig operation meet bill the cutest stinkin pig there ever was he is the father of our burgeoning idaho pastured pig herd a newer breed of pig with the gentle nature of the kuni kuni the marbling of the old berkshire and the size of the duroc he is the happiest pig and turned out to be a great addition to our growing farm and this is his lady love missy most folks who bust out of the city in search of a simple country life are also looking to minimize their variables we wanted less stress and more freedom and that means being prepared for tough times and coming out on top if there are none we entered the world of plant propagation and fodder trees willows hybrid poplars figs mulberries all of these are making up what we're calling the propagation station these trees will grandfather many generations of trees around our property that will serve as fodder or food for our animals in the dry droughtful summer months these trees give nutrition and nourishment to our animals when hay and feed is hard to find and the green stuff is just pretty to look at the ambition here has been high but we are in it for the long burn until this point everything has been done by hand in small power tools the seven acres is a beast when you're getting those steps in on foot so we took a serious plunge and got a big boy tractor to help us beat back the forest and manage the property more efficiently this was a huge shift in the game in stewarding our land well our heart is that this land will leave a legacy for our children's children [Music] and i was like i think we are done i think we are like we're gonna cap it off at four kids but you left the door open and you said unless you think we're not done i wonder if this is the longest three minutes of people's lives that one went fast oh [Music] like i knew when we moved to this property we were a family of six but god moved our hearts to make room for one more brotherton baby due the next spring i felt terribly sick my first trimester so we did the only logical thing and bought a milk cow we found goldie at a nearby jersey farm and this girl was destined to be ours [Music] [Applause] [Music] equipped with some more justin rhodes plans and help from the school of youtube we built a stanchion this would become the home base for our morning routine milking out our cow [Music] we decided to calf share the milk because jerseys produce even now a year later i can't find the words for the majesty of cows it's a dream i never dared to have now before i paint a glamorous picture of cows on green pasture with no trouble in sight allow me to share both the bad and ugly of raising animals beau dreamed of the barred rock for three years a beautiful dual purpose bird that lays eggs and yields lovely meat when the laying days are done tragedy struck when our flock of 18 barred rock chickens were massacred just one week away from joining our regular layers our awesome chicken tractor that has never had an issue evidently it ate through here and then found a way to open this thing up we never learned just what attacked this flock so violently killing each one and eating none but we did learn to never use chicken wire on a tractor it seems like in the city that when we completed a project it was complete on the homestead when we complete a project there's just another project inside the main house the kitchen table needed room to grow as well the secret sauce to this table the base is just a basic kitchen sink cabinet from a big box store we built an island and used my favorite primed bead board as the facade the leaf at the end adds an entire seven square feet to create seating for eight we installed electricity so we could do more in our kitchen like make butter another perk of that pregnancy panic purchase we call goldie the milk cow cows pigs chickens these things round out our meat and dairy around here and in all honesty the animals have been easier to keep up than growing produce it turns out systems like drip irrigation on a timer really make all the difference in growing a garden before this we were running sprinklers when our plants really wanted watering right at the roots we made a much more sustainable solution with a strip irrigation system right inside our main garden get ready for the cuteness remember the chillest pig ever and his ladylove missy well they got busy and three months three weeks and three days later the most adorable piglets were born i mean come on we successfully bred raised and sold two female idaho pasture pigs they went on to new homes and we felt like real farmers as pregnancy drew to a close there was no way we were going to manage a big garden with the effort it would take over the spring and summer so a closer smaller garden just off the side of the house came in the form of these swanky garden beds kids helped us put them together and we layered it like a lasagna with organic matter here we grew tomatoes and peppers and perennial herbs this will be the site of a much larger kitchen garden with quick access as we expand our veggie production [Music] speaking of expanding georgia elliott was right on time adding a new purpose to our shed studio this space also became our birthing suite this was our first home birth and it was nothing short of magical we have a theme here at better together homestead build something once and make sure it can do multiple jobs so what makes more sense than building a cow pen for a jersey when you're newly pregnant repurposing it for a bowl calf when you have a newborn of course i honestly can't believe how well this went we had a new baby and our heifer calf was just too big to be nursing goldie anymore but if we stopped nursing goldie with the heifer that meant we were gonna have to milk twice a day and to us that was impossible with a newborn so baby georgia was two weeks old when we brought home one week old taco goldie grafted him like a mother she is a champ and he knew just what to do this method of keeping a family milk cow has helped us manage our time and our resources we'll raise taco for well tacos and burgers and steaks and he will help us with manure and nursing goldie to keep her healthy and maybe just maybe allow us to take a weekend vacation every once in a while we did what we could to keep this as short as possible and some of you might have even more questions so i've included a list of our materials and some free resources below and if you love this check out this video time lapse to see how we built our home or this video for a full tour of our 7 acre homestead

Channel: Better Together Homestead

Views: 1,915,345

Keywords: survival, living in a shed, farm vlogs, family milk cow, dairy cow, family cow, homestead cow, milking a cow, milking cow, jersey cattle (animal breed), converting a shed to tiny house, mobile chicken tractor, raw land, abandoned land, raw land for sale, cheap land, everything i built, off grid, off the grid, rainwater harvesting, how to collect rainwater, rain water, shed to house conversion, raising meat chickens, how to raise your own meat

Id: xnLRPmVZO0g

Length: 24min 42sec (1482 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 16 2022