Our farmers’ market experience was that people were more concerned about “no spray” than “USDA Organic.” To be fair, we didn’t sell cow or goat, just produce.
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I may need to clarify here. I’ve done all this before. I lived on my parents farm for 7 years in south-central Kentucky, and we tried our hand at all of it. Strip grazing cows, organic market gardening, meat chickens, egg chickens, dairy cows, sheep, pigs. It was a good life but the income wasn’t keeping up, and savings slowly ran out. Eventually the decision was made to shut down the farming operation and move to town. In my experience, it is very difficult to make a living selling food directly from a farm unless you cater to rich people in a large city. At this point, I have no interest in doing that.
Although we have a fair bit of land here, my goal is to provide mainly the food we need to eat and a mild surplus for family, friends or possibly to sell. A garden, couple beef and milk cows, egg layers. Possibly goats and sheep. The environment is ideal for raising my family, and I won’t risk burnout trying to make it pay. To me this is the crucial distinction between a “farm” and a “homestead”. Farmers primarily grow crops for sale, homesteading is more about self-reliance.
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Chris, the last time I saw your family was at Argus in 2023, and then you had 6. What is the update now? Inquiring minds would like to know.
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My youngest brother lives here with us now, and we’re expecting again. That makes eight, come July.
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This is true, most farms at 80 acres aren’t profitable for it to be a ‘job’. I was thinking 20-30 head of beef, and just sellling them on the market. I wouldnt do direct to table, that is a pain in the butt, but I do know farmers that will sell 1/6th of a cow and just keep track of buyers then take them to the slaughterhouse and such. I would just stick with one animal and get good at it. I might add chickens just because our egg prices skyrocketed due to the ‘free range’ laws but they are both relatively easy.
It would give you extra money and food for not a whole lot of time.
For the kids our county fair through 4h and FFA clubs for the show the animals, they can sell their animals and businesses buy them at a premium.
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Farmer Jesse is dropping his organic certification and no longer doing market sales, I guess because he is a soccer fanatic. One of my daughters played soccer in High school so of course I had to sit through the matches and pretend I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else including the dentist office. I’m not good with boredom. Anyway I mention Farmer Jesse because he is in Kentucky, so applicable to Chris’s homesteading situation. I think Jesse can give up part of his operation because he has the youtube channel revenue and a patreon channel and crazy people just send him money. Otherwise making money as a grower or doing livestock is long days and more risk than the average person can deal with and not find themselves with a jacket that the sleeves are tied in the back. As far as organic certification goes, I have been on a homesteading site for many years with up to a dozen growers doing week end markets. None wanted to hassle with inspections and didn’t opt for being government certified but placed notices on their tables that all their produce was grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides and their base customers understood that it was in fact organic. I think i was going somewhere with this post when I started but now the oldtimers disease has kicked in. I’m going to post it anyway. Maybe someone can decipher it. i’m pretty sure it was going to have something to do with worms though. That’s were I usually end up.
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If you sell less like 5k and do direct to consumer, you don’t need certification to call it organic. I don’t think Chris wants to deal with the direct to consumer market. I don’t think veggies are worth it. The idea is really to break even while getting tax write offs for tractors, mowers, sheds, tools, etc. Doing the whole farmers market stuff is another level of tedious.
My philosophy is, if you have 1 cow, you might as well have 20 and then you can afford get better tools to make it easier. What I don’t know is where you can wholesale organic cows. I know there is a market that takes them, but i don’t know much about it. I know the sheep go to Detroit.
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Yup
Thanks for graciously putting up with those of us who like to be helpful, but don’t have much to add 
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One of the most important skills I have learned in life is to roll with the punches. We’ve taken a few punches lately. And the rolling is starting to get tiresome… But we’re OK. Here’s the highlights:
In late January, we lost our greenhouse to a very heavy ice/snow storm. It collapsed under the weight, I didn’t even consider that was a possibility, even though I’m sure it’s obvious to our northern friends.
It was being used as firewood storage, and we weren’t quite done with heating season, so I salvaged what wood I could before it got soaking wet. We managed to find new hoops on FB Marketplace for a reasonable amount, and we have all the materials to rebuild. But that project got put on hold for awhile, as you will see…
In February, we got hit with a decent size flood. This one was similar to the 2021 flood I posted about a few years back:
We had water in the basement, but we managed to get everything out of the way. My brothers’ cabin got flooded pretty good, so we had to disassemble the walls and dry out the rockwool insulation for a month or so. It went back together just fine. Unfortunately the greenhouse also received some water, and all the remaining firewood was wet. Still not done with heating season, so we went ahead and installed that mini-split I was wanting. Very welcome supplemental heating source! I really like mini-splits now. All in all, we did very well getting through this flood.
We were doing pretty well on the rebound, spent most of March cleaning up things. Then April brought more heavy rains, and more and more rain, and we started seeing flood warnings again. We are getting good at flood prep, I thought… Moved everything out of the basement again, watching the forecast, waiting… then they raised it. The updated forecast called for water 12 feet above ground level. We hadn’t really thought about leaving, we usually ride these floods out… but this time there was no choice. Fortunately there was time before we had to leave. We spent a frantic day moving things up as high as possible in the house, packing vehicles, trying to move what equipment I could, moving the chicken coop to higher ground, and trying to triage what would survive and what couldn’t. Then we left.
Eight days later, the water came down enough we could go back onto the property. I was the first one to come down the road when the water dropped, and I was driving a 26-ft U-haul. The plan was to salvage everything that had stayed dry, and everything that was washable. We did manage to salvage about 80% of our belongings, praise the Lord. We got everything salvageable in a single truckload, and took it to my Dad’s house in Frankfort. Unfortunately, as the basement was completely submerged, and I didn’t get everything out, I lost some tools and supplies. Its definitely a major setback.
We did have flood insurance, and FEMA has provided additional help. We are not going to fix the house. I don’t want to spend 100K putting it all back, just to sit and wait for the water to rise again. I’m convinced things are changing to the point where these extreme floods may be a regular occurence. We were already planning to build on higher ground, we’re just accelerating those plans. The good news is, with the flood insurance payout we will be a lot closer to affording the new house.
We’ve decided to build just the basement for now, just a basement with a roof on it. If you remember, it will be ICF walls with PEX in the slab, walkout on one side. I’m going a bit higher now than I had planned before (!) you can imagine why… In the meantime, my father has graciously vacated his house in Frankfort. He’s camping and traveling for the summer. So we have a place to stay, a very nice place actually. But I’m going to get us back to the farm ASAP for obvious reasons. We have a lot of work to do.
I could have taken a larger loan and tried to build the whole thing, in fact that was my plan until a few days ago. But I realized as I was walking this road, that the world is geared very much to charge more and do it all for you. Trying to DIY anything in that process was going against the grain. And on top of that, you’re saddled with a large payment for years, buying a built-for-you house that you wanted to do for yourself. Going a different route, and just building the basement house, we will have full control over the process. Again my father has graciously offered the equity from his paid-off house in Frankfort, which we can use instead of a construction loan from the bank. This is night-and-day different in terms of what we’re allowed to do, and what timeframe we can adhere to.
Again I want to emphasize, we are all OK. Financially we’re doing fine. It’s been a roller coaster of emotions and stress… and don’t forget there’s a baby due within a month or so. But we are safe, warm, food on the table, and a solid plan moving forward. Rolling with the punches, like I said. End of the day, this will be a major step forward. Just not how I wanted to get here, really…
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Hey Chris sounds like you hit some major speed bumps. I wish you and yours well as you navigate the setbacks. You will not regret the icf choice or in slab pex. I believe building for the 100 year storm and above should be the norm in uncertain times. As I know you know I will just say it for thread general knowledge to make sure to upgrade your footing width and depth to reflect the additional floor to come and maybe add horizontal lifting bars into the truss assembly at the time of construction in consult with a crane company for when the day comes to just lift it off and reattach. Here when we plan a multi year build we usually shrink the footprint and built up to full height then mirror the build to go bigger or build on a wing. It is more cost effective especially for the diy builder on a budget. It makes borrowing easier as well as your first loan is smaller and you can leverage the finished smaller build to finance the addition all while living in the smaller home. Your bank likes it also as it closes out the construction loan sooner. I know you already have a design so probably a no go on this project. It is a tried and true method though as demonstrated by the multi winged farmhouses you see. Most of those are half hazard things but with strategic planning a multi stage can be aesthetically pleasing.
Cheers, thanks for posting the less glamorous parts and we wish you well.
David Baillie and family.
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Funny you say that, we were considering exactly such a thing. The roof on the new house will be a different design, not trusses, but I would LOVE to just lift off the truss roof and set it back down on another building of the same footprint, if I already had it ready to go… Can you really (safely) lift a truss roof from above? I know they are designed to be supported on the outer edges, not lifted from the center. Maybe some sort of a sling? I’ll have to research this idea. There will be a crane on site for the timberframe raising in any case.
We did consider the addition / multi-wing house approach, but in the long run thermal performance wise and where the house sits, I don’t want a huge footprint. We’re pretty happy with the basement route, and it is also a tried-and-true method at least around here. I’ve talked to several folks who either had them or their family had them. My wife’s mother grew up in a basement house for 8 years before they moved upstairs. Our neighbors lived in the basement first while they built the rest. And one of my co-workers told me his wife grew up the same way, her parents built the basement first then slowly finished the rest.
Thanks for the well wishes, we are slowly moving from stressed out to being excited about the new build. At least something good will come of all this.
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Yes lifting a roof off is very doable. Usually you would have a horizontal bar on the crane and they will attach 2to 4 vertical slings down from that which hooks onto a horizontal board inserted at the Ridgeline inside the trusses. Trusses are normally built to resist uplift as well as download. I would make sure you had steel not asphalt to limit load but it is doable. Nothing wrong with taking it apart of course just use structural screws for attaching to the plates and doing all you bracing.
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High winds can generate surprising lifting forces on a roof, hence hurricane straps in hurricane zones. I would guess most roofs can tolerate a gentle lift off but you would want to distribute the load to the extent practical.
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I guess a sandwich panel is best for the roof? They come with a tile profile too. Just steel will give moisture problems.
Thanks Chris, good that your family is ok. Flooding gives a stinky mess, stress guaranteed.
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hey ChrisKy.
Good to hear from you.
You are wise now to learn you simply must move up off of your lower flood plain. I know a little bit of your pain as winter snow, spring rains melt-off flooded our family mountain cabin twice in the winter/spring of '95/96.
I had dug out, footings set and poured to 2X expand the cabin. Buried in washed down sand muck. And the stacked boards and lumber washed down onto a neighbors property. I simply could not get the family to consider moving the whole shebang 150 feet up west off of the flood plain that was 12 feet higher. Ohh no-no. I’d learned then that it had flooded previously in 1949, 1964 and once again in the 1980’s. “It only floods every once and while.”, I was told.
But basements? A no-no out here in the rains-9-months-land.
Whatever floats your desires.
Where we moved to now I have one adjacent neighbor who acquired the side sloped land going down to Studebaker creek. The previous owner had stepped dug into the slope and built a ~24x20 concrete floor and back wall, two room cabin. The current fellow then just stepped down below that and added an expansion 24x20 floor level for more space and rooms. Interior stairway. He later got married. And they later fostered youths; then later even adopted two of them. So he added another sloped stepped in; 24x20 bedrooms expansion section above the original. Still with our months of ground saturation rains he had water seepage seaonally on whichever was the uphill concrete wall. Sure-sure. Double French drains and all. He had to run a powered dehumidify most of the year.
The two adopted boys went into the building trades and as young adults gifted their folks with an uphill mini excavator dug out upslope gap. U-shaped with a sloped stacked blocks retaining wall.
No more into the house levels, of moisture intrusions.
The rain and snows moistures are directed around and away before walls contact.
The roofs sloped draining highest down to the lower.
The whole set-up survived well a near 5.0 earthquake.
I’ve seen pictures of old mountain village Swiss churches that had their upslope end corner pointed up-slope, like a boats bow to direct avalanche run-outs. The church as the Refuge structure.
That is your home . . . a Refuge.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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