Stop sharing your big dreams with small minded people.
Homestead Heart
I ordered more canning supplies which came today, so now all I need is the actual pressure canner which I’ll get soon. I’m still debating which model to buy and watching for sales, etc. but I definitely want one of those since I’ll be canning a lot of things I can’t use the waterbath method with.
One of my favorite homesteader channels, Homestead Heart, who have some great canning tutorials, put up a video recently that really resonated with me.
While I haven’t encountered any push back from friends or family myself, I do know it happens to some of us that like to be prepared. She has some really great, heartfelt advice for them.
I’m looking at other ways to increase our ability to produce food on this little one acre plot here. We started adding a bigger pond around back near the gardens, which will look something like the one in my header when we’re done, and I got to thinking, can we raise fish to eat in it? 🤔🤔🤔
So naturally I asked Google and this came up:
For trout, plan on a depth of at least 5 to 7 feet, with a capacity of 50 to 500 gallons. For a larger number of trout, the capacity should be around 400 to 500 gallons.
Homesteady.com
Hmm! We both love fishing for trout nearby…
So it’s definitely something to consider since we’re just in the beginning stages of putting our backyard pond in. Over the last few years my entire mindset has shifted and I’d love for it to be something more than just decorative if at all possible.
The one out front is barely big enough for goldfish, but I love it nonetheless.
It is just so lovely and the sound of the water when I open the windows is so calming. It also provides drinking water and a place for the wild birds to bathe, so it’s serving a purpose.
I did a bit of a walkabout on the property today and was happy to see how much work we’ve already done getting the beds spruced up and ready. There are still a few spots that need some attention, though…
We’ve been talking about building a bigger greenhouse and the only spot we can put it has quite a bit of “farm junk” we need to sort through which we’ll hopefully get to this weekend.
Most all of it is useful, we just haven’t found a use for it yet. 😄
With the help of my son, I managed to flip the husky swimming pool completely over so we could finish draining it since the snow melted and it’s no longer an ice rink for them to play in. There were a few inches of really nasty water left in the bottom and I was afraid the doggies would decide to play in it.
Yuck!
The hoses aren’t hooked up yet so we left it this way until we can spray it out and clean it really good before filling it up for the pack. Willow and Dee Dee sure had fun “helping”…
Just seeing it like this made me realize what a great raised garden bed this stock tank would make!
As much as I love having it for the pups to “swim” in (they don’t really swim in it lol) during the hot summer months, I can’t help but wonder if we could be putting it to good use in our backyard farming operation.
It’s something I’ll bring up to the hubs when we’re out working this weekend.
Empty Nest Homesteading 
I don’t understand how so many people are in denial of the reality of the situation in this country. My husband and I began stocking up as soon as “covid” began. This is only the beginning I’m afraid, and the sad thing is the people in denial will be the first to run to us hungry when the time comes.
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I know, right? It would be hard to turn people away because we just don’t have enough to go around. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but I do think about it…
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I recently discovered the Homestead Heart channel and am really enjoying it – even though it is a cruel tease to see what they can be doing while we still have feet of snow on the ground! LOL
That video, though… yeah. That’s a good one.
Thankfully, where we live, we don’t get people giving us guff for being a “prepper”, because here, that’s just normal life, though perhaps not on the scale our parents and grandparents did. I will always be thankful to be able to buy at a grocery store – especially with last year’s drought and heat waves destroying so many crops and household gardens. But our reality is, in the winter, we could be snowed in for weeks, vehicles freeze and break down, and so on. Being prepared is simple prudence.
Also, how wide across is that stock tank? Is it greater than 4 feet? Just thinking, because if it is, the middle likely would not be useable.
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It’s an 8 foot stock tank and that’s exactly what my husband said when I brought it up lol! So then I showed him how people use them to raise tilapia in and he just patted me on the head and told me to stop daydreaming again. 😄
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Oh! Tilapia would be a great use for it!
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I think so, too! Imagine being able to farm your own fish, wouldn’t that be amazing?
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Yes!
At some point, we plan to have a low spot dug out to make a pond that doesn’t dry up (when I was a kid, it was one of the water sources for our cows). I am hoping we will be able to go deep enough for fish. 🙂
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