New member introduction, I guess

[sdwolfden]

Hi there,

Just thought we would introduce ourselves.... I am Gary and my SO's name is Marie. We will probably both be using this name from time to time. We live in the beautiful Black Hills (Paha Sapa). We are near the border junction of South Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska. We have been weaning ourselves from being strict consumers (city slickers) to being hunter/gatherers/producers lifestyle (self supporters or self sufficicient). We do have one major handicap over most members here in that we do not own our own land, however we do have a rancher, friends and a very understanding landlord with an old fashioned farmer mentallity that help and support us in our endeavors. We do raise chickens for eggs and meat, hunt, and gather wild foods from the forest we live in. We deal with local ranchers for some of the other things we use. We have always wanted to be more self sufficient and finally, in our early 50's, we are finally beginning to fulfill our dreams.
We are looking forward to sharing ideas and learning from others with similar ideas and goals.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Hi there!

Welcome, from Texas

 

[the funny farm6]

from iowa

 

[BarredBuff]

from Kentucky!

 

[Hinotori]

from western Washington

 

[so lucky]

It sounds like you are lucky having a landlord who is understanding and like-minded. Are you able to garden or have any other livestock on your place? There are lots of goat keepers on this forum who would be good sources of advice. Also, raising rabbits for meat is getting more popular, apparently. Lots of options. Welcome to the forum. Be sure to check out the extensive past discussions. Lots of the participants have moved away, but their knowledge and experience remains for us to use.

 

[DianeS]

How awesome that you have an understanding landlord. So do we! We have a tiny house on a tiny lot, it's a rental too - but we have 4 egg chickens, raised and butchered 21 meat chickens this past spring, and currently have 18 rabbits. Plus two cats and a dog. And the landlord left her cat for us to care for because "what's one more animal?" And a backyard full of grapes, blackberries, and a garden. LOL! Understanding landlords can be almost as good as having your own place.

Welcome from Oregon!

 

[sdwolfden]

Hi all,

Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm glad to see there are at least some others here that are in the same "rental boat" as we are. Wasn't expecting to answer questions, having to try to explain our situation, but I'm more than happy to.

so lucky and DianeS.... We live in a very small duplex of around 700 sq. ft. so we are very limited what we can do in our house itself, but our LL allowed us to use an old shed that we converted for the chickens (right now we have 10 buffs, 6 barred rocks and one aracauna hens and one rooster that we call "shanghai"). We are hoping to get one of the hens to sit come spring to raise some chicks for meat for next year. We have two old horse pastures that we have access to on the property that we can use but so can all of the rest of our neighbors, 9 other households, we try not to use them if we can help it (keeping peace in the nieghborhood). We tried to garden in the back of the chicken yard when we planted their "salad bar" but didn't have much luck. The ground around here is very acidy since we live in a pine forest on top of large rock ridges. There is hardly enough soil to hold up the pine trees. What little is grown is eaten by the deer that over run this area. I am working on an idea to plant a small plot of buckwheat in a pasture bottom that gets good moisture, but that needs to be worked out. There isn't a fence made that can keep these critters in check. I am trying to talk the landlord into allowing a couple of weaner pigs for a summer, but so far he is a little reluctant...lol. It's hard to keep livestock here since we have mountain lions and coyotes in this area. We do have established rhubarb patches and choke cherry trees in the yard, but have a hard time beating the birds, wild turkeys and the deer to them. Right now, it is just myself and Marie and our two dogs, Mae B. our dashound/min-pin mix and Bernadette our red heeler/corgi mix (since she is crossed between an offshoot breed of a dingo and a corgi, we refer to her breed as a "dingy") and our little henhouse of egg layers.

We are open to try anything that catches our interests, which could be just about everything. Making soap (never tried), making buckskin (did that, it was fun, but a lot of work for the time I have), canning (every year), making fruit wine (yummmm) are a few of our interests along with all of the animals that we deal with here. To us, we are not in heaven here, but "Valhalla" is just down the road about 10 miles from us.

 

[Denim Deb]

from NJ.

I hear ya on the acidic soil. I have the same problem here. We have mainly oaks and pines in our yard as well, so we have the acidic soil as well. I add all the ashes from the wood stove which helps to balance the soil, and if needed, I add lime.

As to not having much soil, you can "make" soil using lasagna style gardening. W/your area, you might find it works better in a raised bed. And, if you add a single strand of electric wire hooked up to a charger, you can keep the deer out. (I don't have that problem even though I live next to the woods, but others on here do and have said it works.) The deer don't see the wire, run into it, get a shock and learn to stay out. But, don't mark the wire so they can see it! That defeats the whole idea.

 

[sdwolfden]

Good idea about the electric fence. Another idea I have heard to keep deer out is to lay chicken wire flat on the ground and stake it down. The deer don't like to step on the wire as it bothers their hooves so the will avoid the area.