...wait'll you get up to homesteading size. My wife and I spend an average of 6 hours a week maintaining ours - and that is definitely not counting the hours spent processing, dehydrating, canning, freezer-prep, and seed-harvesting the produce we do get out of it.
On the plus side, we get long conversations w/o electronic interference, and 50% of our grocery bill is taken care of (I'm currently expanding things so that 80% of our grocery needs disappear.)
Yeah, we're pretty much at the max our lawn can support because of the tree cover. We get about 15% of our veggies from our garden in the summer. I mean if the shit hit the fan we'd cut 80% of our trees down, use the logs as barricades, shooting stand the rest as Turrets and would be able to reasonably sustain our veggie needs that way. Plus, with about 40% of our neighbors being lefties, after we repelled their attacks we'd turn their lawns into community gardens too. But yeah, its real work and blights, bugs and the like can ruin it all. Maintaining a small garden gives me real respect for farmers, because they are responsible for SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much more than my little patch and all of our lives depend on them.
Fair call, and yeah, I bear that same respect, big-time. To be fair they have the equipment and resources to handle it, but their schedules are still insane, to put it charitably.
actual question from a keto-er ---> wouldn't it be less work to just raise some cows, and slaughter one or two a year, use the rest for dairy if you so chose, and raised some chicken for eggs?
Animals are a TON of work, and have different needs entirely. They also have a regular schedule that you cannot ever allow to slip.
Cows require lots and lots of land. You need about 1 acre of good pasture per cow for grazing, or you'll end up buying a lot of hay (and a moderate amount of grain) to keep it properly fed.
Goats and sheep can get by with a bit less, but these tend to eat the grass right down to the nub, so you have to rotate the pastures out faster for them.
Chickens are your best bet, since they require the least amount of maintenance. However, they are also the most prone to being eaten by predators (raccoons, stray dogs/cats, coyotes, the occasional cougar out here, hawks, eagles, etc.) so you have to prepare and keep a lookout for that.
I usually stick with gardening because if civilization shits the bed, I can always get protein from squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, moles, opossum, crawdads, freshwater mussels, trout, mice/rats, birds of almost every description, etc. (forget deer, ducks, elk, or other traditional game - within a week or two most of those will either be dead/eaten, or they'll be hiding in places that no human can easily reach on foot.)
Also, with a garden I can take a week off during many times of the year, and not fall too far behind once I got back. If I took a week off w/ livestock and had no one watching them, they'd be dead or dying when I got back unless I was lucky.
...wait'll you get up to homesteading size. My wife and I spend an average of 6 hours a week maintaining ours - and that is definitely not counting the hours spent processing, dehydrating, canning, freezer-prep, and seed-harvesting the produce we do get out of it.
On the plus side, we get long conversations w/o electronic interference, and 50% of our grocery bill is taken care of (I'm currently expanding things so that 80% of our grocery needs disappear.)
Yeah, we're pretty much at the max our lawn can support because of the tree cover. We get about 15% of our veggies from our garden in the summer. I mean if the shit hit the fan we'd cut 80% of our trees down, use the logs as barricades, shooting stand the rest as Turrets and would be able to reasonably sustain our veggie needs that way. Plus, with about 40% of our neighbors being lefties, after we repelled their attacks we'd turn their lawns into community gardens too. But yeah, its real work and blights, bugs and the like can ruin it all. Maintaining a small garden gives me real respect for farmers, because they are responsible for SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much more than my little patch and all of our lives depend on them.
Fair call, and yeah, I bear that same respect, big-time. To be fair they have the equipment and resources to handle it, but their schedules are still insane, to put it charitably.
actual question from a keto-er ---> wouldn't it be less work to just raise some cows, and slaughter one or two a year, use the rest for dairy if you so chose, and raised some chicken for eggs?
would that be less work, or just different work?
Animals are a TON of work, and have different needs entirely. They also have a regular schedule that you cannot ever allow to slip.
Cows require lots and lots of land. You need about 1 acre of good pasture per cow for grazing, or you'll end up buying a lot of hay (and a moderate amount of grain) to keep it properly fed.
Goats and sheep can get by with a bit less, but these tend to eat the grass right down to the nub, so you have to rotate the pastures out faster for them.
Chickens are your best bet, since they require the least amount of maintenance. However, they are also the most prone to being eaten by predators (raccoons, stray dogs/cats, coyotes, the occasional cougar out here, hawks, eagles, etc.) so you have to prepare and keep a lookout for that.
I usually stick with gardening because if civilization shits the bed, I can always get protein from squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, moles, opossum, crawdads, freshwater mussels, trout, mice/rats, birds of almost every description, etc. (forget deer, ducks, elk, or other traditional game - within a week or two most of those will either be dead/eaten, or they'll be hiding in places that no human can easily reach on foot.)
Also, with a garden I can take a week off during many times of the year, and not fall too far behind once I got back. If I took a week off w/ livestock and had no one watching them, they'd be dead or dying when I got back unless I was lucky.
You're my hero. I have such reverence and envy for people who are even close to a homesteading lifestyle, especially without going full hermit mode.