Working Together: The Multi-Family Homestead

When you have many households working together on one piece of land, you can do less work individually and give your family healthier alternatives.

Keeping farm animals, and feeding them organically, becomes possible. Think about it. If you plant your own produce, and raise your own animals, how much grocery shopping will you be forced to do? Not much. This will save money on vehicles, gas and repairs, that will counteract the cost to feed the animals. The butchering can be done by you, or someone off-site, and you will still be saving money.

Plus, you will be providing far healthier foods for your family.

• How many hens will it take to feed every household eggs and meat?
• How many cows for milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream and meat, and soaps, etc.
• How many pigs.
• How many goats for milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream and meat, and soaps, etc.
• What other animals may be useful.

People working off-site can be expected to do the milking for the whole family before they leave, and the eggs can be collected by someone staying on-site. The cleaning of the stalls can be done in the evenings by someone working off-site, and the hen houses can be kept by someone staying on-site.

There are really many ways to do all of this, but you get the idea. You will not likely need as many animals as if you each had your own homestead, and the work is shared by everyone.

• One henhouse can be built to hold them all, and one fenced in area for them to forage.
• One barn can be built, rather than many.
• Less resources and money will be used by combining housing for animals.

Shannon

Working Together: The Multi-Family Garden

By purchasing land together, and living as an extended family on one piece of land, you can save much time and money.

Gardening is easier. The families get together to prepare the soil and plant the garden, making it easier for those who stay at home to weed and pick the fresh produce.

Plant what is needed by each family, and some extra just in case. Getting together at the big family house to make these plans is ideal. Do it after a nice family meal.

Purchasing the seeds, tools and other needs is cheaper this way. Saving seeds from season to season helps, a job for those who are at home most of the time. It is helpful to have multiples of a few tools, but the more costly ones can be used by everyone. Seeds can be purchased with every families’ needs in mind, without the need to purchase more than one packet of each type.

When the big harvest comes in, the entire family helps out with the picking, and a nice meal is provided for everyone in the big house. Older family members who cannot be in the fields can man this meal, if they are able.

Working together takes less time, and builds strong family bonds.

Shannon

Smaller Housing, More Land

People purchase big houses on little land. Land does not seem to mean as much as it used to, when homesteading was common.

My Proposal:

More smaller housing, on more land.

What I Mean:

Bringing family together again is so important. Helping each other is also important.

If the family members go in together on a large piece of land, families can build smaller housing and come together in a new way. Think somewhere along the line of an intentional community, but with family. Everyone works toward a common goal, helping each other and providing for each other.

The Housing Split:

The Main House:

This is the big house, the one where children were raised. It is the one that elderly parents, aunts and uncles can move to when they can no longer take care of their own places. It is also the place with the wrap-around porch for rocking chairs and family evenings spent together. And with the large open kitchen and livingroom, where food preservation and family holiday celebrations are spent.

Smaller Houses:

Built as the children get married and/or have their own children. These are smaller houses, using little space. Building up and under is important to save land space. A parent’s bedroom, and no more than two other bedroom. Organization is important for space savings. Kitchen, livingroom and one bathroom.

By building smaller housing, and using the main house for large gatherings and jobs, space will be freed up for food growth and more.

Remember, space is of the utmost importance. Cluttering this space with non-essentials will not work.

Going in on this purchase together is important. With enough families, you could pay this off years in advance. If you all had money saved and could afford the land and the main house outright, this would save you tons of money in interest over the years. No loans. No mortgage. No interest.

Shannon

Housing Extended Family

Family units are not as close as they once were. It was not uncommon, a hundred years ago, to find three generations of people living under one roof. You rarely see this anymore, unless it is because someone is sick or needs help. People are not making conscious choices to live like this any more.

People want their privacy. They want to get away from their families. Be alone. Have their own everything. It is a materialistic world that we live in.

In this series of articles, I am going to discuss ways in which families can build stronger bonds with each other, and ways in which money can be saved across the board.

Articles in this series will include:

• Smaller Housing, More Land
• Working Together: The Multi-Family Garden
• Working Together: The Multi-Family Homestead
• Taking Care of Our Own
• Working Together: Preserving Food
• Working Together: The Old Arts

Watch for these articles in the coming weeks.

Shannon

Importance of Organic Gardening in Maine

Organic gardening is healthy for our bodies and our environment. While many gardeners are making the effort to garden organically, many others still are not. I am having a hard time figuring out why.

I much prefer organically grown produce. Not only is it healthier, it is also better tasting. The best tasting produce is the heirloom varieties. When purchasing seeds, the most important words to look for are organic, open-pollinated and heirloom. Hybrid seeds are not the best choices.

• Organic soil is also important.
• To acquire organic manure, the animals need to have been fed organic diets.
• Composting is a great way to create healthy soil.

It is important to think about these things, especially when considering a healthier Maine.

Shannon

Roadside Selling

I love good weather, when I can walk down the street and find someone selling what they have grown or picked from their vehicle. The signs, the fresh produce or seafood. It all reminds me of something from the past.

This service is great for those who cannot get these foods fresh on their own, and I hope to see more of it in the future.

However, I would like to note something for the sellers of these products: Consumers do not like to be cheated out of their money. Not that all sellers do this, but some do.

A friend purchased a couple of pounds of fiddleheads from a young man. She had a feeling, and weighed the produce when she got home. The fiddleheads were certainly not weighed at 2 pounds. She went back, and pointed this out to the young man. He did not want to give her the proper amount of fiddleheads, but ended up having to do so.

My mother and stepfather purchased a big bag of potatoes. When my mother opened the bag to use the potatoes, they were diseased and there would bugs on the potatoes.

Please, sellers, be honest and watch what you are selling.

I realize that most sellers are more honest than this.

Shannon

Can You Eat on 1 Dollar a Day?

This link will lead you to a short article and a YouTube video describing an experiment on low-cost eating. I cannot view YouTube videos on my computer, so I am wondering if someone could gives us a rundown of what is said.

Can You Eat on 1 Dollar a Day? Watch New Documentary ‘Food Stamped’

 

If this can be done (at $1.00 per meal or less), then we may want to have a challenge here on the blog. Let me know your views on this. I could post the challenge on my other blogs, too.

 

Maybe everyone would agree to let me combine all of their ideas, tips and recipes into an e-book that we can each have a free copy of. Then we could sell it here for a $1 or $2.

 

Let me know if this is something that you would be interested in, and I will get it all set up.

I am very interested in learning if this could work in Maine. You do not have to receive food stamps to participate.

 

Shannon

Post Offices: A Recycling Idea

This is a quick and easy to implement idea for any post office. All you need are two boxes or plastic bins, one with a ‘Magazine’ label, and one with a ‘Catalog’ label. Post a notice about what you are doing.

When customers are done with their magazines and catalogs, they can put them into the appropriate bins. Customers are also allowed to go through each bin and choose whatever magazines and catalogs that they would like to read. When they are done, they can put them back into the bins and choose new (to them) ones.

Be sure to mention to customers that they should be sure to black out any personal information on the covers or ordering pages.

Shannon

Should There be More Teen Hang Outs in Maine?

I remember when they were making the plans for the community park in Old Town. They said that they were going to have a place for the teenagers to roller blade and skate board, ride their bikes and whatnot. It never happened.

I remember when they asked the teenagers to stop playing ice hockey at the Milford park. They told them that they would create a place for them to play ice hockey, but that was a few years ago and they haven’t done so yet.

They did manage to put a place in the YMCA for them here in Old Town, which was nice.

People take issue when the teenagers are skateboarding in public, but they don’t want to give them a place for this activity in their own communities. This is sad. They get in trouble for things like skateboarding in roads, when they have no other place to do this activity. They aren’t even hurting anyone.

I believe that we need to have places for our teenagers to hang out. Places where they do not get to cause trouble (because some do).

They should have access in their own communities to a place where they can do multiple things:

• roller blade
• use BMX bikes
• roller skate
• skate board
• play arcade games
• play pool
• study/read
• work on community action programs
• watch a movie
• have a cafe or cafeteria with decent food

Is this too much to ask for? I think not. We provide areas for younger children to play. I believe that we should extend toe same courtesy to our teenagers.

Shannon

P.S. Do you have any ideas for a communtiy based teen center? Please tell us about them in the comments section. Thank you.

Medical Identity Theft

Maine has more than its fair share of problems right now, economically. With all of the business closings, and more and more people out of work each month, it can be real tough to get by.

I wonder if there is any way in which we could really prevent this type of identity theft from happening here. What steps could be taken? Maybe photographs on medical cards? Or a photograph in the computer at each necessary office?

Pennie over at the Empty Nest blog had an post that is of interest to all of us on her blog on January 8th. It refers to medical identity theft, and tells us the basic events regarding her 6 year old granddaughter. You can read the blog here: http://empty-nest.contentquake.com/2009/01/08/medical-identity-theft/#comment-5544.

 

I thought that this was important enough to pass along to everyone. I couldn’t afford to pay off medical debts placed upon me in this way, and I don’t think that anyone else could either.

 

Shannon