MODIFIED FREE RANGE

I sell my eggs every Tuesday. To be able to do that my chickens must be cooped up during the day. But right now in North Texas, it is grass hopper season. Free flying yummy food for my girls. Plus fresh green grass.

So I am letting my girls out each evening at 5pm and closing the gates at 9pm. You should have heard them last night when I first let them out. Happy Hen sounds.

It is time to plant for Fall. I will be planting kale, chard, and maybe arugula. I am planting in Raised beds.
I will also be planting red carrots. I was amazed at how well they did in the spring planting.

I am fighting grass competition with small trees right now. I am finding out that it is just too hard on very small trees. I am going to invest in larger trees.

However I am also going to invest in small trees that I put into root pots to grow for several years.

With all of this garbage mental sadness I have been dealing with I am realizing something. What do I want? What is my dream?

Answer: To create a productive small farm

How: Help and planning. Don't give up on the plan. Get debt free again and then budget in an amount per month toward that dream.

What will I accomplish: I will have a farm worth selling at the very least.

What I am doing today: My grand son is coming to help me gain control over the grass out growing my little fruit trees. I bought 50 more feet of hose to reach all the little trees and irrigation begins due to the slow down of rain here.
I have a handy man coming tomorrow to review the work that needs to be done on the house. I am going to start him replacing rotten trim wood and fascia. In short, getting the house sale ready if it comes to that. Hopefully it will not.
Replace the door and gates on the winter chicken coop...I plan to use that coop to brood meat chickens
Order 30 meat chickens and pre-sell them. If they do not sell then they will be mine.

Refill and plant one raised bed garden with winter greens, carrots, etc.

Spray my barn for spiders....yes I am an arachnophobe. But my barn is full of black widow spiders. I want that area back!

Spray the driveway with round up...yes the evil stuff. But I spent thousands on my new driveway and I want to protect it from being taken over. Again a selling point.

Long term...do dirt work to level a spot for two high tunnels with which to raise trees to sell and for planting here.

So in short? I REFUSE TO GIVE UP OR GIVE IN...NOT YET

FAMILY VACATION

I love my family. 10 of us drove to the beach and spent almost a week there. Good food. Love being with my family.

The bad thing was the 12 hour drive there and back. This was very painful with my knees and health issues. This was the first time I knew I would not be able to do that again.

While I was away I had a farm sitter coming twice a day to pick up eggs and feed and water all the animals.

While away my aged livestock guardian dog passed away. This made me sad while on vacation and made all my grand kids very sad. It also made coming home more sad.

As I sit here after getting home all I can do is cry. You should not be depressed and sad after a family vacation. But I am because I could not enjoy my family like I wanted to! I had to be left out of evenings sitting out on the beach with everyone.

Anyway I am going to drink some coffee and cook some dinner and try to get my self together.

LIVING FARM LIFE WITH A DISABILITY

My story really started on the day I packed my bags and left my husband of 20 years. It was an amiable break up compared to others. We tried very hard to make it as easy as possible on our teen aged children. I had the poverty level income and did not try to rake my husband over the court room coals by making him poor as well. So the kids stayed with him on what had been our farm so that they could graduate with out much disruption.


Apartment life after living on a farm was a horror. He kept the bills because he had the money. He also kept his retirement. I didn’t know I had earned half of that. Year 2 when the apartment lease was up sent me to a rental home on half an acre. Still living on a poverty level income it was hard just to survive.


A friend of a friend suggested that I apply for a job at her company. It was a very good solid company and I would have a future with them. I did and got a job as an admin. Entry level was double what I was making before. This was going to help a lot.


With the new job, I was able to save money. Year 3 found me looking for a tiny home in a city where there were still small old homes in peaceful neighborhoods. A mortgage loan officer took pity on me and took a chance. I bought a 700 square foot home on a very large city lot. I grew a garden and started teaching myself skills such as how to tan hides, can and preserve food from the garden. I was gifted a horse (of all things) and had to find a place to board her.


In exchange for board at a local farm, I took care of the goats on the farm. The farm owners were retired and wanted to travel so it saved me money. My dream was always to own a real farm of my own. But I could not figure out how to do that and have a mortgage payment.

Finally I decided to rent my home and live in a camper on the goat farm to save money for a significant down payment. I did that for 3 years. And finally I found my farm.


I had dated after the divorce but only one relationship had been serious only to have it end tragically. It was enough to make me decide that I needed to focus on me and my family. So alone I bought a 3 acre farm in North Texas. It had a 1200 square foot home, a run down shed in the back, a pond and a poor quality fence.


But it was mine.


I had some plans but not a game plan. I wanted fruit trees, nut trees, chickens and a garden. But I didn’t know how to do any of that. Not really. I didn’t know how bad weeds could be to deal with and how hard everything was alone.


I had not been taught to use power tools. And on top of that my father had not taught me how to build things with just one person. The tricks I am just coming to see that a person can use as a second set of hands.


I didn’t know how hard grass was to contend with alone. My farm takes 3 hours to mow on a riding lawn mower end to end.


I didn’t know that investing in a good quality gas weed eater at the beginning would have saved me much money and heart ache. Now I know.


After 9 years on the farm and not much to show for it, I was beginning to read about permaculture, and small farms. I realized that I really needed a plan for my farm. And I needed to plan how to achieve those plans.


I loved the hard work, I love building things, planting things and caring for my few animals. But I loved my job too and it was a 1 hour commute each way, 5 days a week minimum. That drive makes a person want to do little when they get home.


The stress of the commute, stress of planning, getting in debt and then trying to get out of debt, and being lonely, finally took its tole on me. I stood up from my desk at work late one night to go home and I could not open my hands! I pulled my fingers open and flexed them and thought “How weird”…and then drove home.


The next morning I tried to get out of bed and almost could not. Pain raced through my body. Joints screamed, muscles screamed, my hands would not work. I could not dress. I almost could not get off of the toilet. Finally in tears I called my manager and told her I could not come in to work.


After hours I was finally able to dress. I pulled myself from my home and to my truck. I drove myself to my doctors office and sat in the parking lot and cried until they opened. My hope was that this was something simple. Surly my doctor would be able to fix this.


Instead I was treated like a psychopath by her staff. She would not fit me in. Finally after hours I was able to see the nurse practitioner who did treat me with compassion. But all she could do was begin the diagnostic process. I didn’t realize it would be 2 years before I had the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia.


That is where I am right now. For the past year, although I am still moving forward with my farm plan, I am moving at a tired snails pace. As my joints deteriorate, I am able to do less and less. My hopes become hopeless ness. And I don’t know if I will even be able to stay on my farm.

My doctor finally has developed a plan to treat me. But how I will respond is anyone’s guess.  

So how do you farm with a disability? Here are some suggestions.


Number one….be out of debt! If you are in debt get out of it asap. Including your mortgage. There is a reason for this. When you have a disability, you must hire someone to help you on the farm. Even just a handyman. But if you are alone, and if you have a disability, you can’t do this on your own.

Farm help is not cheap and you can count on it not being very reliable either if it is part time. There are some intern options out there however don’t count on that. It is helpful having apps such as Nextdoor to find locally recommended handy men.


Man or woman, living with a disability is very hard. Even without a farm. The very hardest thing to live with, when your disability is not visible, is dealing with the disproving looks from others when you park in a handy cap spot and have all of your arms and legs and are walking when you get out of your vehicle.


I have learned that pain is mostly invisible. And I try to ignore or forgive others for treating me this way.


Even my own family as loving as they are, do not understand. They have their own lives and don’t live close and are not willing to go out of their way to help me for the most part. My grandsons are the most helpful but again, I must pay them for their hard work.


So where do I go from here? Here being: I am again back in debt, my truck is aging, and I am looking at double knee replacement surgery soon in my future. My medical costs are mounting. And handyman costs are increasing.


How is my farm producing? Well I have 35 egg layers who are aging and 20 new egg layers who will be producing this fall. I have 5 egg laying ducks as well. I sell over 11 dozen eggs a week and always sell out.


Last year I used 3 chicken tractors to raise a years worth of pasture raised organic meat chickens, I took them and had them processed because I finally admitted that I am unable physically to do that by myself and never could get anyone to help me.


Just the process of taking 30 meat chickens to the processor is a huge job when you have a disability. Each bird weighs about 7-8 pounds each and has to be picked up and walked to where the transport box is. Then the box must be lifted into the transport vehicle and all must be strapped down.


Then before the sun comes up you must make the drive and get to the processor before the sun comes up. Then you must go back on the same day and pick up the processed chickens. After getting home, 150 pounds of cold chickens must be moved from the truck up the porch and into the house to be stored in the freezer.


For a healthy person this sounds easy. But not for a person in a large amount of pain.


Before processing day, 50 pound bags of feed must be purchased, loaded in the truck weekly and off loaded at home. Up to 500 pounds of feed per 30 birds must be purchased and unloaded.

That is just the meat birds. The egg layers go through 200 pounds of feed every 2 weeks. I have a large auto feeder so I can fill this just once every two weeks.


I have 10 meat ducks right now in a movable tractor. That must be moved once a day, their water dumped and refilled and their food filled. I do have help for that upcoming processing day. But as of right now I am out of home raised chickens. The freezer is almost bare.


The way I deal with unloading feed is to use a wheel barrow. Right now I can put 3 bags in at a time and move them. Some days are easier than others. Some days I only do one bag at a time but then I must make the trip from the truck to the chicken pen 3 times. Both are hard.


I use leverage picking up the bags and getting the feed into the auto feeder. I have to be careful in the chicken pen because the bored girls love digging holes that I could possibly fall in.


My garden was taken over last year by johnson grass. A well meaning neighbor gifted me with manure from her horse farm and did not know the hay she fed her animals was filled with seeds. I lost my whole garden because I was unable to keep up. Johnson grass roots can travel hundreds of feet from the mother plant. Each root has a razor sharp point that can poke through any weed barrier. And by the time it makes it’s appearance above the dirt line the entire bed has been over taken underneath.


Due to health costs, I have been unable to start over. If I ever am able to make a new garden, I will hire a man with a bulldozer to take off the top 6 inches of soil and remove it from my farm. Then I will build raised beds and a solid greenhouse.


With these I possibly could raise at least some of my own vegetable that are very important for me to eat. And could possibly try to grow plants and trees that I could sell to make extra money.


I would love to sell meat birds ready for people to butcher on their own, and trees for others to plant. I would love to raise and sell egg layers but right now don’t have the infrastructure to do that. I stay hopeful… however when I have a day like today, my hopes blow away. Depression kicks in, and I don’t feel that I will be able to keep the farm and build it into my dream farm.

So if you dream of a farm but have a disability and don’t think you can, all I say is maybe you can. Plan on help. Get help from your doctor, from others, from persons you hire. But don’t go into it blind. Make a game plan for your farm and then take time to write out the steps you think you must take to achieve it.  It will cost more because you must hire help. If your financial plan is solid, you can homestead and farm on your own even disabled.





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