Why Planning? Unforeseen Issues that can arise which will cost you Money, Time, Effort, and Emotions

Outbuildings

How many outbuildings do you want to have? In your long term plan it could be 10! In short term it could be just 2. One for your Chickens and one to hold your feed and bedding.

If you must build outbuildings for animals or storage, there are a lot of ideas on the internet to reference from. I’m not one for fancy stuff, but if that is what you are into, all the power to you. For myself, I like doing things efficiently and cost effective because we didn’t have a lot of spendable income to spare on outbuildings. We used recycled 2×4’s we bought used sheet metal found a door on the side of the road someone was throwing away.

If you know what your use is for these buildings you need to start sourcing your materials.

If you don’t mind recycled materials, look on market place, kijiji or any classified sites in your local area. Also if you have any social media platforms, post a message what you are looking for. You’d be surprised people who want to get rid of “junk” just sitting in their yards.

If you found some fancy design for a chicken coup, but you don’t know how to build it. (Find step by step instructions or build what you know how. Trust me, those hens are not fussy.  

Once you know how many buildings you want to add to your property. Print off a Google map of your property. Start (with a pencil) drawing where you would like to put it. Plan out your property. It really sucks when you put a building up and later realize it’s in the wrong area.

Remember we are not getting younger so if you implement the mind set “I’ll be older” someday how do I get to that building? It will help with the planning stages.

So you need to ask yourself, do you or eventually do you need power or water to this building? How big do you need it? This is really important to understand the layout of your property.

Capitalize on what you have around you. Water, power, access especially if you need it in the winter months if your in a place that get’s a lot of snow. Will you have to plow to it? Shoveling it out.

Once you have your buildings in place, now you need to think about water and power.

Maybe you don’t need either. Maybe you need both.

If you can afford the cost or don’t have access to run water lines, you can always think about getting a side by side with a box or an ATV with a trailer.

Now we move on to heating. If your building a shed or garage and your trying to figure out a heat source. You will need to do the pro’s and con’s about power heat aka baseboards, heat pump, propane heaters or wood.

For Us hands down we use wood. I’m always thinking what if the power goes out? What if we can’t get propane? At least I can cut some trees down or if you don’t have any tree’s on your property….take a drive and you’ll find lots on the side of the road cut down. Or you can ask your neighbours also there could be someone in your area that sell’s wood. We are big on self reliance.

Going further I’m going to lightly touch on Infrustructure.

We had raw land, there was only one little spot close to the road that was cleared.  Most of our land was wet (it was considered a bog or marsh) it was just wet.  Come to find out we had an abundance amount of springs. Which is like gold on a homestead (free clean water)

When you are dealing with raw land you need to really plan what and where your going to put things.

Once you cut trees’ they are gone. Also if you hire it out it can be an expensive mistake if it’s not thought through. Its time and money. Especially in this lifestyle you get ONE season a year to complete the projects you want done.

We decided to hire it out vs buying a machine and doing it ourselves. We had a thousand other projects going on and also we were not experienced in using these types of machines.

We found skilled companies to come in and work on specific projects. I believe we had 3 going on in one year.

Figure out where you want your roads and how easy it is to make them, especially if you have hilly terrain.

If your going to run power, is it going to be overhead lines, in the ground etc. Not now but eventually? Plan this with who ever you are getting to do the work. So they know if they need to dig a trench, leave room for a trench, leave room for overhead lines.  Keeping your long term goals in mind with help with all your short term goals.

Clearing your land and creating an infrastructure is probably the biggest expense you will have, so planning it out for now and for future projects will save you a lot of money, time and hassle.

Remember Find your groove improve your plan as you go

Homesteading is ever changing.

What your plan or goal is today, could change next week or next year. Success is what you want it to be NOT WHAT OTHERS WANT IT TO BE.