The Natural Life - Chapter 4 - The Setup
Welcome back to The Natural Life, today we are going to talk about the setup of our homestead.
When you’re on the homestead journey, you have to be able to look at the big picture. You’re probably going to be there for a long time. It’s important to take some time and really plan out your layout so that you will be successful. No matter how developed and set up your land is, there will always be improvements to be made. These improvements/projects have the potential to get you to the next step of becoming self sustainable, or making you some passive income. Your goal should be making improvements that don’t cause issues for you later on down the road.
Here are some examples:
If you are planning to build a fence or get one put in, the obvious choice would be to put up a fence on the outer perimeter of your property first. The problem with this idea is you may not want to have to open a gate every time you leave your house. If you have a fence around your house, how will the Amazon Deliveries get to your house? You will probably not want cows walking onto your back porch, so you will need another border keeping the animals a safe distance from your house. It's also important to keep livestock from certain areas of your property, like a garden, or an orchard. Maybe you don’t want your goats in the front yard, most people don’t.
All these are reasons why you’re going to have to get a plan together. I recommend sitting down and drawing it out, you might even want to get the google satellite image or a drone photograph of your property and draw over it. A topography map is also helpful because this will give you the lay of the land and show you where your high spots and low spots are.
Here are some items you want to think about when you set up your homestead:
Sun Orientation - The sun is very important for planning gardens or crops. There are benefits to how you orient your house. Shaded areas are good for animals. Being able to view the sunrise or sunset from your yard/house is a huge benefit, plan accordingly. Where we live trees and hills block the sunset from our house, but we walk to a certain place in the evenings to get a good shot at the sunset.
Topography - Low spots gather water and cannot be developed easily. It’s better to plan a pond or lake in low spots. Land with existing creeks or streams are usually not lawfully able to be impeded or cleared, creeks are also a problem if you need to cross them. Make note of any places you would like to have a creek crossing and plan accordingly. One last thing about creeks, animals can get out by going down in the creek and under the fence so it’s best to split up your fenced areas into separate sections with the creek in between.
Existing Structure(s) - This can be good or bad. Try to use what you already have on your place. There are times you will need to demo existing fences/structures to make your dream work.
Trees - Trees are a blessing and a curse. They are good for providing shade, for you and your animals. They can also fall on your house. They can provide energy if you have a wood burning stove. They can also drop leaves and debris making a huge mess every year. Wild animals thrive in the woods and trees which is a plus if you plan to hunt. Try to use the trees on your land to your advantage, if you need extra space you can always clear the wooded area. I would recommend clearing large trees that are close to your house to save you from a headache later. If you can do it before you build the house, that’s a plus! Having a large tree dropped that is close to a house can cost over $5000 depending on how big it is.
Open Field - This is where you will plant crops and keep animals. It’s valuable, so put it to good use! Any land that is not being planted or grazed on will need to be clipped in the summer. This will require a lawn mower, bush hog, or hay equipment. Pastures that aren’t clipped will eventually grow into forests.
Roads - You must keep your fences up along roads, you don’t want animals or kids getting close to them with out a proper barrier. Busy roads offer an opportunity to sell goods. You can put a small fruit stand or a few used cars out by the road for a source of income.
Utilities - Utilities are usually run along busy roads, the farther your homestead is from the road, the farther you will have to run water, electricity, internet, and driveway. This will increase your building costs, but it’s worth being a little farther away from a busy road. If you are looking at buying an existing property that is established well off of a main road, keep in mind this added value.
Below I sketched a very basic layout of our place. The edges of the picture are my property line, with adjacent pasture land surrounding. You can see I didn’t want to fence in my property since I wanted to keep access to the adjacent land. If you were on a piece of land by your self, you may want to fence in the entire property. You’ll notice, if I were to fence in my property I would have to open a gate to get into driveway, just something for you to think about as you plan your place. You will also want to leave room to pull trucks/trailers, equipment through your land, I left some space so I could drive back to my barn from my driveway and vice versa. (arrows)
I’ll holler at ya’ll later. Next time, I’m going to talk about basic tool setup and what you need to get small jobs done around your house.