3 My Farm Plan

The new simplified Farm plan

I am getting old. My grandiose plans of a couple of years ago are simplified. My new farm plan is not much of a farm at all. Just a house with a big garden, and a few animal sheds or a small barn.

A garden full of vegetables, a small plot of grain. A couple of fruit trees, apples, plums, peaches and my favorite apricots. A small green house to start seeds in the late winter.

Animals would be chickens, goats and a couple of sheep. Also bees and bats. Probably some dogs and barn cats.

If the house is wood I would want to cover it with rock. I keep seeing a strong fortified house with walls and a courtyard but I know that is unattainable. It will always be my dream.

Below is the super detailed farm plan I made a few years ago. I was thinking I would have a big family and lots of people to help. I don’t see that any more. My first line below is superfluous as you can see from the blog, I have a garden now. I am learning how to grow food. It is fun.

The old super detailed farm plan

How can a guy who never had a garden have a farm plan? Daring isn’t it?
The basic design of my farm plan is to supply Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: life, food, water, clothing and shelter. If it does anything beyond that is surplus that will increase our quality of living. I want the farm to give us a good quality of life, but at its backbone are the four essentials.
Will someone have to work off the farm to supply supplemental income? Yes at first but I hope to increase cash flow where off farm work won’t be necessary.
Will my sons continue to work the farm after I am gone? That is my dream to build a sustainable system that they can work to feed, clothe and shelter themselves and their families. At the very least I hope to learn and teach them the skills to go and do it themselves if they want.
In a survival situation there is a set of priorities for life called the rule of three’s. You can only live three minutes without air. In some situations you can only live three hours without shelter. Without water you can only live three days. You can only live three weeks without food. Finally you can only live three months without hope.
Not to dismiss air, but it is a requirement for life that we have little control over.

Shelter
According to the rule of three’s after air, shelter is the most important. In some environments you can only live three hours without shelter. Shelter can be as simple as the shade of a tree. For my farm plan shelter is the house, barn and other buildings required to live with little outside input.
The house is the center of life. I want thick walls made of stone and concrete almost castle like. It would be a defendable fortification. A wood stove for the kitchen. Off the kitchen would be a large pantry with bins for grains. There would be a library with built in bookshelves. A basement used for a tornado shelter and storage with gun vault built in runs the length of the house. Air conditioning would be Roman style with clay pipes running underground to cool the air before it enters the house. Eight feet down it is 57 degrees year round. I want passive solar built in for warmth in the winter. The greenhouse is part of that. The main source of heating would be wood stoves and fireplaces. Tunnels would run from the basement to most of the out buildings. The roof would be concrete tile.
Near the back door connected by a covered path is the summer kitchen. It consists of three rooms. On the left is the meat preparation room. A butcher house used year round. All of the preparation areas are stainless steel counters for easy clean up. In the center is the summer kitchen. A brick flue to carry the heat up and out surrounds its wood stove. It has a gondola on top with windows that can be opened to let the heat out. On the right is the smoke house used for smoking and preserving meats. In between the summer kitchen and smoke house is a space with an outside door this is a wood storage area.
A large barn is attached to the house by a covered path. Half the barn is the granary and threshing floor. There is a tack room. There are stall for the cows and a pen for sheep. A haw mow is in the upper story. It has a basement storm shelter.
Chicken coop will be made of stone. The door can be closed at night to keep out critters. Built to hold at least 50 laying hens and 75 broilers. Eggs and meat will be a major part of the farm industry.
A greenhouse is attached to the main house. As part of the passive solar system it provides warmth to the main house. Start spring seedlings before the last frost. We will be able to grow and eat green vegetables year round. If there weather is extremely cold the chickens can winter there.
Root cellar will be built for fresh food storage. The dirt floor will keep the cellar humid. Humidity keeps food from drying out.
If there is a spring a thick walled springhouse will be built. It will keep dairy cold. The spring will also feed a cistern. If there is no spring an underground cistern with floor space and a shallow pool can be built instead.
Loom room will be used to make clothes from wool, cotton or flax.
Grape arbor runs on inside of garden walls.
The forge will be built to build and shape horse and mule shoes. Tools and other implements can also be fashioned in the heat of its coals.
The distillery will house the whiskey still and grape and apple presses. Wine, cider and whiskey barrels will be stored down the ramp in the basement.

Water
Going back to the rule of three’s a human can die in three days without water. Water would come from multiple sources. The main source would be a 15000-gallon above ground (Or possibly half buried) concrete water cistern. A screen on the gutters would filter it. Filters and a pump will feed it into the house with a windmill pump and tower cistern as backup. A windowless stone building would be built around it to protect it. There will also be below ground cisterns filled by rain gutters through a sand filter.
A windmill pump driven water well would be the next source. Hopefully the property I would buy will have a spring on it. The spring would feed a springhouse and cistern. Finally I read this web site about milking the hills for water by laying a perforated pipe out in a gravel trench at the bottom of a hill and catching the ground water that would normally flow into streams as runoff.

Food
When it comes to farming, food is the essential element of life that is the most time consuming and knowledge intensive. We get our food from plants and animals. Plants we grow in kitchen gardens, fields and orchards. The variety of vegetables, grains, fruits and herbs are almost endless. They can be selectively chosen by hardiness zone, rainfall and family taste.
In the kitchen garden you want to grow vegetables your family will eat. I plan to grow: asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, sweet corn, pinto beans, carrots, okra, spinach, cauliflower, rutabagas, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, strawberries, eggplant and pumpkins.
I want to be able to eat from the garden year round. During the fall and winter months I will grow winter vegetables in cold frames and a greenhouse. Winter vegetables are rutabagas, cabbage, carrots and some species of lettuce.
I plan on an extensive orchard with any excess sold at a roadside stand. I plan on having apples, apricots, grapes, lemons, limes, pears, peaches, cherries, pecans, persimmons, olives and figs. I want almonds and pistachios but I don’t know if they will grow in Texas.
The cool thing about herbs is that they can be grown just about anywhere. You can grow them in pots on the patio or as a decorative shrub in the front yard. If you are like me herbs make my allergies flare up. So I plan to grow them on the edge of the fields or wood lot. Herbs I want for the farm are cumin, mint, parsley, sage, ginger, rosemary, thyme, peppers, basil and oregano.
Grains are an important part of the diet and have many uses. I hope to not have to grow acres of field crops. Crops I plan on growing on a small scale are oats, dent corn, rye, wheat, potatoes, hay and sugar beets. They can be used in large quantities for animal feed, but I plan to pasture raise animals on natural forage as much as possible.
A non-edible plant I want to grow is the wax myrtle or bayberry. Boiling their fruit removes the waxy outer coat that can be used for candles.
Animals are the other half of the food equation. I plan on raising chickens, goats, sheep, rabbits, cattle, bees, turkeys, guinea fowl, fish and encouragement of wild game.
The types of chickens I want to raise are Rhode Island Reds. I also want turkeys and Guinea fowl. All poultry eat bugs. Guinea fowl are known to be good watchdogs. All poultry can be used for meat and egg production. The meat and eggs not consumed on the farm can be given to friends or sold. Their manure is good fertilizer and their feathers can be used for fertilizer and pillows.
I want Boer goats, which are a meat breed. An Angora goat or two would be good for hair sales. Both breeds would be used to sell their kids. The kids would also be good to make rennet for cheese. Their manure and pelts would also be valuable.
I think the Navajo-Churro sheep is best because it is an older breed without a lot of selective breeding in their line. It makes them hardier against disease and infections. Their meat, wool, lambs, milk, pelts and manure make them valuable.
Rabbits I would raise to sell primarily for their meat and live sales. Pelts and manure would also make us a profit.
The cattle I want are the Dexter breed, which are a small breed of cattle that would be easier to handle than a normal sized breed. I would only want to keep a couple. Their meat, milk, calves, pelts and manure make them valuable. From their milk we could make butter and cheese.
Bees’ honey is the primary reason for keeping them. They would also pollinate the vegetables and fruit orchard. Bees’ wax for candles is another reason to raise them.
Pond raised fish are excellent for meat and fertilizer.
While I am not raising wild game it can be encouraged with wood lots, ponds, shelterbelts and saltlicks. Deer, quail, doves and ducks are all hunters’ favorites and edible.
Some non-edible animals not listed above are bats, worms and Martins. I plan on building a large bat house. Bats keep the insect population down and their manure is valuable. The worm farm creates valuable fertilizer and soil enhancing wigglers. They are great for fishing too. I want to have many Martin houses. A large Martin population chase away crows from the fields.

Clothing
Now that the food and water are taken care of let’s discuss clothing. Natural clothing is made from cotton, flax, wool, hair and animal skins. Some non-edible field crops I want to grow in bulk are cotton and flax.
To make clothing you have to have thread to weave on a loom. Cotton and wool must be picked or sheared, cleaned, carded and spun before it can be woven. In the frontier times this was done in the winter.
Cotton clothing is almost an essential because most folks can’t stand wool against their skin. I suppose you could get used to it if that is all you have. Wool clothing will keep you warm in the winter when it is soaking wet.
To make clothing from flax it must be beaten, separated, spun and woven. The most valuable part of flax is the seeds. The seeds can be pressed for linseed oil.
Animal Skins are an overlooked material for clothing. It takes much skill and time to produce a wearable animal pelt or skin. The animal has to be killed, skinned and the pelt fleshed, dried, tanned, cut and sewed.
All of the above sounds like a lot of work doesn’t it? I hope to have time to start slowly and build up to what I described. I think a place like that would be as close to self-sufficient as possible.