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rice paddy daddy
02-07-2014, 03:25 PM
For many years my wife and I lived in the concrete, high rise, over populated, South Florida area.
We would sit at home in a cookie cutter house on a postage stamp sized lot, listening to the police car and fire truck sirens, and dream of moving to a place that had more churches than bars.
And so it happened, that we were presented with an opportunity from my job to relocate to a choice of several areas.
And that's how we ended up in the N.E. Fla /S.E. Ga. area.
We have a little 4 acre homestead in a rural area that used to be timberland. It took many years of hard work carving it out of planted pines, fencing it all in, building barns and stables, putting in a vegetable garden.
My wife has been riding horses since she was a little girl, and now we have three horses.
We have been keeping chickens for almost twenty years now, right now we've got some out back laying eggs and others processed and in the freezer. Along with a deer's worth of meat.
We have always had dogs, and even though we have had neighbors in the area burgled, we never have been. Those dogs are priceless.
There are deer in the back yard, a family of red fox too (we've got the chickens behind several layers of 6 foot chainlink).
And best of all, at night instead of city noise, all we can hear is the lonesome train horn at the grade crossing 2 miles away. And our neighbors cows.

So, how about y'all?

RWalls
02-07-2014, 06:58 PM
I live in the Roswell, GA area. I recently purchased 10 acres in North GA, The foothills.

It was overgrown farmland that had a christmas tree farm on it. I have spent lots of time turning into a workable homestead. Ive got a barn, well, creek, two cleared acres and my Kubota up there. I hope to build a house there in the next few years and get the heck out of this area.

Your homestead is exactly what I dream of achieving. I added a pic of the work I did recently.

75

rice paddy daddy
02-07-2014, 10:16 PM
Very nice.
A number of years ago (almost 30, my how time flies) i spent several vacations in Rabun County. What a beautiful part of the state.

RWalls
02-07-2014, 10:25 PM
Very nice.
A number of years ago (almost 30, my how time flies) i spent several vacations in Rabun County. What a beautiful part of the state.

I have done work on the high school there several years ago, great view from the roof.

BugMan
02-07-2014, 10:58 PM
Yep, both of you are doing exactly what I am working towards as well. I have 17 about three hours away towards Blairsville, but its a little too far for me to spend much time improving. So I am currently looking in the 1-1.5 hour range. Currently I am working a garden and have a 1/2 dozen chickens in the backyard. I have a tractor coop and and I am building a chicken fence for the chickens to have more room to roam. They aren't laying yet, but should be in the next month or so.

rice paddy daddy
02-08-2014, 11:09 AM
I fenced in an area 50 feet by 75 feet for the chickens to roam with 6 foot high 1" mesh poultry wire. Inside that were home made hootches they spent the night secured in.
Poultry wire will not stop all predators, and even though we were confining the chickens at night we were still losing hens.
The chicken area is about 50 feet away from many hundreds of acres of interconnected woods full of woodland creatures always eager for the all you can eat chicken buffet.
So I went to our present system and in almost ten years have only lost two little ones, to a hawk.
I replaced the poulty wire with 6 foot chainlink. Inside that area are DIY dog kennels I got at Home Depot and Lowes, also 6 foot chain link. These have a peaked roof (tarp) for rain protection and the girls also have igloo dog houses to go into at night or in bad weather.
At one time we had more than 50 birds, now we have 18 hens divided into three flocks, each with a rooster.
Man, there is nothing finer than frying up a half dozen eggs that are still warm from the hen.
After you have had real eggs, the production line substitutes from the store pale in comparison.