I wish I would have known more before moving to the country...

good morning everybody Welcome Back To Living Traditions Homestead it is a beautiful but brisk morning here on the homestead it was 44 degrees when I first came out this morning it feels great to be getting a break from the summer heat Sarah's out of town this week due to a death in the family so if you could all be praying for safe travels for her and peace and comfort for her family we sure would appreciate that that leaves me here on the homestead to get everything done that needs to be done so let's start this morning with our morning chores good morning girls [Music] good morning Myrtle [Music] there you go buddy good morning Charlie there you go big guy foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] lift up a shout of praise [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] morning silkies [Music] to the South let it rise [Music] oh lift up your voice and sing he'll lift up a shout of praise [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] but the answer rise up because [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] all together we sing [Music] [Applause] [Music] well now that morning chores are done I wanted to take a few minutes to talk to you guys about something that's kind of been on my mind for the last few days as many of you know we are in the process of moving from our what we call our Homestead Property to our Farm property and that has included packing up everything that we own once again and moving now it's a lot different this time we're not moving across the country we're not you know making a huge change as far as quitting jobs and moving to the country and all of that in fact just about three months ago we passed the six year mark here in Missouri and you guys we don't want to be anywhere but right here in Southwest Missouri we absolutely love it but as I was sorting through everything in the barn for the last few days and getting things ready to move it got me thinking back to what it was like when we were still living in the city when we were getting ready to move out to the country tree and some of the things that I wish that I had known then that I know now there's a lot of those that I wish I had thought about thought about learning in the Years where we were planning on moving and not waited until we got out here so I wanted to talk to you guys about just a few of those today and hopefully it will help some of you who may be where we were six or seven years ago thinking about moving to the country and thinking what do we need to do what do we need to get ready and uh hopefully this will shorten your learning curve once you're out in the country so the first thing since we're right here that I want to talk to you about and this came to mind as I was packing up one of our Barns and I started to look through all of the supplies that I had acquired for electric fencing over the last six years when we lived in the city we had a lot of animals we had an acre of land and so we raised quite a few animals on our property in the city but we never used electric fencing I'm not exactly sure why I think because it was easier on a small scale just to use regular fencing and we didn't really have to deal with electric fencing but once we got out to the country I realized quickly that this was something that I needed to learn and I wish that I had learned it sooner because for the first couple years that we were out here I was actually pretty intimidated by Electric fencing but you guys since that time I've it's now my go-to thing if I need to put a fence up quickly or I want to cross fend something or I just want to keep animals in a certain area electric fencing is the way to go 100 percent so this is a skill that I really feel like you need to start to learn if you're still in the city in a normal backyard uh just you know fence off a small area with electric fencing maybe an area and try to keep some chickens in a certain area or something like that or if you really don't have the room to do it at the very least East go online watch some videos about how to set up electric fencing and get comfortable with it because once you're in the country it really is going to be something that is going to save you a ton of time it's going to make a secure area for your animals and like in our situation here on our Farm property we have miles and miles and miles of old fencing that isn't quite bad enough to tear down but I don't a hundred percent trust anymore either to keep the animals in and by running an electric wire just on the inside of that fencing which takes no time at all we can keep using that old fencing for many many more years it gives me peace of mind knowing that the animals won't cross the electric fence and you guys it is just something that I absolutely think you need to master if you're going to live the home studying Lifestyle the next thing on my list is welding this is something that I think everybody needs to know at least the basics of uh it's something that to be honest I thought for a long time I didn't need to learn how to do but after we've been out here for several years it I really started to realize this is an essential skill if you're going to live in the country and you need things to be able to keep working I'll give you a quick story I was out bush hogging down in our bottom land I turned around to look at the bush hog behind my tractor and I realized that I'd hit a stump and the back wheel on my bush hog completely broke off so that ended my bush hogging for the day I couldn't keep going so I had to go find all the parts I realized that the metal Fork that holds the wheel actually snapped so I I found all the parts I came back up by the house jumped online ordered the parts that I needed but then realized that it was going to take six weeks to get the parts that I needed to replace on the tractor that meant for the next six weeks I couldn't use my bush hog at all behind my tractor and it was the time of year when I really needed it it just so happens that that following week my brother was coming down to visit and my brother is a good welder so when he came I was telling him about having to order this part and how long it weighed how long it would take and he said well why don't we just go buy you a cheap welder I'll teach you how to weld and we'll get that part fixed in about 30 minutes so that's what we did we went to Harbor Freight I picked up this little cheap welder right here it was about 200 a Welding Table a few other accessories I think total cost me about three hundred dollars for everything that I needed and within an afternoon my brother taught me how to do just simple welding um this is just what's called a flux core welder it is a real simple thing to use it just plugs into a regular 110 outlet it's very simple but with that we were able to fix that part of my tractor and I was able to get back to what I was doing if I had had that skill weeks earlier uh I would have been able to bring that part back up to fix it put it back on the tractor and get right back to work so this is a skill that I absolutely think if you're going to be out in the country and you need things to be working when you need them to be working or you need to do some structural things this is something that you need to learn you don't need to learn how to do it pretty what I always say is I can't weld pretty but I can stick two pieces of metal together and really from a farming or home studying aspect that's what you need to be able to do just be able to keep things working the next thing on my list is basic Veterinary Care if you're going to be raising animals on your homestead and you're living out in the country there's not always a vet close by and even if there is a vet that will do farm calls they're not always available when you need them not to mention you can save a lot of money by doing some things yourself now if something is serious you should always check with a vet but you guys learning some basic veterinary care for your animals is absolutely essential now I'll admit I had a little bit of a leg up in this area because that's actually what I went to school for I went to school to be a veterinary technician but I mostly worked with cats and dogs and for a while I worked with a veterinarian who mostly did reptiles so I didn't have a lot of experience with farm animals of course some of it carried over but there are quite a few things that I wish that I had taken the time to learn before we moved out to the country that would have made things easier when we first got here I've gotten pretty comfortable with everything now but you guys I would highly recommend that you learn for every animal that you think you might want to raise at least where you should give them shots how you should give them shots if you need to do vaccines if you need to draw blood if you you know if you have an animal that's sick and you need to give them an antibiotic or something like that you need to know the best place to do that on each of the animals and you need to know that you can do it in a safe way it also wouldn't be a bad idea to get yourself a good reference book that you can have on hand so that if there's a lot going on and you kind of get flustered and don't remember what you need to know you have a reference to look at so that you can do what you need to do to help your animals in that situation the other thing is you need to learn that sometimes it's best to just leave the animals alone I'll give you a quick example that happened just this week about three days ago there was a night that I came out to feed the pigs and Myrtle right here didn't get up to come to eat and I thought well that's really strange so I went and I looked in her hut and she was in there asleep I kind of poked her a little bit I mean she was breathing and she all in all she looked fine but she just didn't want to get up and eat that night which is very strange for Myrtle because normally Myrtle is trying to eat everybody's food so I could have very well gotten very concerned and tried to do a lot to Myrtle and you know really went over the top but I decided you know what I'm gonna just wait they've had a lot of you know stressful days lately they moved down here they're in an all-new area uh there's new grasses to eat and things like that I looked through I knew there was nothing in their pen that was poisonous so I just figured you know what I'm gonna wait until morning and see what happens and once you know by the next morning she was right back up a little sluggish but you know back up eating with everybody else and by that evening completely back to normal and has been ever since so you guys you need to learn basic Veterinary skills and when and when not to intervene with your animals the next thing on my list is tractor implements this is something that you know I didn't have a tractor when we lived in the city and when we first moved out here I knew that it was something that a tractor was something I wanted to get pretty much right away when we moved out to the country I just knew that it was a tool that I was going to need and you guys I highly recommend if you leave the city and move to the country and you can afford to buy a tractor even if it's a cheap used tractor buy a tractor you may not think right away that you're going to need it but you will and if you plan on doing anything on any type of scale you are going to need a tractor at some point for instance right now we need to feed our cows in the winter the bales of hay that we use are 800 to 1000 pounds each that's not possible if you don't have a tractor so we need a tractor to move those around but we use the tractor for a lot of things you guys see us use it for a lot here on the homestead and when I first moved out here to the country I went and I went to a tractor store uh you know and I bought the tractor that I wanted and they tried to get me to buy a bunch of supplements because they were going to make me a good deal if I bought a lot of things right at the same time and some of the things I just wasn't sure whether or not I needed so I didn't buy a whole lot right then and there there's some things I regret I wish I would have purchased when I bought my tractor because I probably would have gotten a better deal on them up front and there are some things that I probably didn't really need that I ended up purchasing so you can see behind me I have my bush hog here in the middle I have my tiller over here those are both essential in my opinion over here on this side I've got a rock rake I use that occasionally that's one of the things that I could probably do without but it has served its purpose a few times the other thing is if you know what type of implements you need you can always be on the lookout for them let's walk over this way a little bit and I'll show you a couple of implements that I actually ended up getting for free here's two implements that I was able to get free of charge this first one here this is what's called a Middle Buster it's got a kind of like a plow here on the bottom and what this is used for is to dig out big rocks or roots and things like that when you're first getting a new area ready for gardening this especially here in Missouri has come in handy many many times I was actually given this by a friend of mine he didn't need it anymore and he actually ended up trading me for some tomatoes so I was very happy to get that and then here this this is a scraper blade this can go on the back of the tractor to scrape rocks or dirt it can also be used at an angle to dig small ditches which is actually What I've Done along the sides of our driveway and this was actually given to me by the original owners of this property when they sold everything else that was here that they wanted to get rid of they asked me if they thought if if I thought I could use this for the driveway I said yes and they gifted this to me along with the property so I was super happy to get that and I've used it many many times since then so this Implement is called a fence unroller and this can actually hold a big roll of field fencing like a 330 foot roll of field fencing and this goes on the back of the tractor so you can just drive and unroll the fencing as you go when we lived in the city I never really used big rolls of fencing because I never had anything that heavy to unroll but I'll tell you the first time that you try to unroll a big roll of fencing up a hill you'll learn quickly that this is a very good Implement to have they're not very expensive I picked this up at Tractor Supply several years ago you guys have seen us use it it can also be used for pulling the fence tight when you get to the end of the row so you guys your needs may be different I'm just showing you an example of a couple of the things or a few of the things that I've acquired over the last six years that we've been out here but do your research learn what's out there learn what might make your life a little bit easier and then you know come up with a plan for how you may get those things once you move on to your homestead the next thing on my list is basic building skills this is an area where I'll admittedly feel like I'm still not very good at but I have acquired enough skills to build things that I do need now I'm not building our own house I didn't build my own Workshop but I have acquired the skills over time to build basic structures like these hoop Coupes that we use for our chickens and and Ducks I can build rabbit cages I can build Quail cages all of the things like that that we need and you guys that is something that you can definitely start learning while you're still in a neighborhood if you're going to get some Quail don't go out and buy quail cages build your own uh figure out that you can do it like a lot of things on The Homestead it's a matter of doing it a lot of things are intimidating until you do it the first time but over time you'll learn that you can do it it doesn't really matter whether or not it turns out perfect you guys hear me say all the time the chickens never complain they don't care if things aren't perfectly Square you guys you can do it you can acquire the skills over time and having those basic building skills is going to make your life a lot easier it's going to save you a ton of money and in the long run it gives you a lot more sense of accomplishment accomplishment that you're doing the things that need to be done on your own Homestead well there you go you guys those are just a few things that I think are essential skills that you will want to know once you start living this homesteading rural lifestyle these are things that you can realistically start practicing or learning about while you're still living in the city and it'll give you a leg up once you move out to the country you can see that we're still waiting for the house it hasn't come quite yet I know some of you thought you could see it in the background of the last video but uh I can promise you it's not here yet you can see the empty Foundation behind us we do have everything arranged if nothing changes as far as weather and everything else it should be coming next week and being put on the foundation and then hopefully it won't be long after that we can actually move down here to the farm property until then we're busy moving buildings and everything else as you know all of the animals are now here so you guys this is an exciting time we're glad that you are along to just watch all of this unfold and uh we just look back at the excitement that we had when we first started this and I feel like part of this process of moving again and doing all of this has kind of brought some of that excitement back so we're really really looking forward to the future here on this property you guys don't forget that the absolute best way that you can help us here on the homestead is just to share our videos on all of your social media so that other like-minded people might benefit from them as well and as always don't forget to hit that subscribe subscribe button give this video a thumbs up if you liked it and until next time thank you so much for stopping by our Homestead take care and God bless

Channel: Living Traditions Homestead

Views: 118,017

Keywords: Living Traditions Homestead, Missouri, Ozark's, homesteading, Ozarks, self-sufficient, homesteaders, unjobbing

Id: mOTWS2wZ6q0

Length: 22min 38sec (1358 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 28 2022