I mentioned in the previous blog post that my husband and I have been talking about downsizing the farm. Not because we don't love this homesteading lifestyle or all that we've accomplished over the past three-four years, but because... well, it's nice to have a little bit of a buffer; space to breathe, and not be running from task to task and taking that minute to step back and ENJOY the life we've made. Also because as of today, I am 32 weeks pregnant with our fifth child, and I am really starting to FEEL it.
My previous blog post kind of goes over what it's like to be pregnant/have a newborn and homesteading, and it continues to be a running theme throughout my head. I don't know about you, but once I've reached a level of productivity, anything short of that makes me feel antsy, irritated, disgruntled, and other synonyms that describe the unhappiness I feel at living under my "potential." That's not really a rational way to live or think because there are times in your life when you need to breathe, need to rest, need to pause or slow down and that isn't a measure of your success as a human (I know this... but the reality of how my emotions play out is different). It's not healthy, and it's one of the things I struggle with. I consider myself a person with Type A goals, but Type ZZZZ energy and motivation.
Initial disclaimer: this post is going to be a bit rambly, and long-winded, and really just a stream of consciousness because it's my platform, but not apologizing. Just warning. :)
This past road trip was an eye-opener. Granted, we had already discussed down-sizing prior to my brother-in-law's wedding, but the trip itself kind of cemented it in my heart. It was the first "vacation" type trip that we had taken as a family since we moved to the farm about six years ago. And while we hadn't really started homesteading in earnest until 2020, because of finances, life-situations (2 pregnancies and 2 babies) and then throw in the animals and the gardens and all those responsibilities, we were tied down to our home base. Happily, but still limited to our traveling opportunities. This isn't to say that our "vacation" (I keep putting it in quotes for a reason) was some relaxing adventure. It wasn't. It was chaos in the form of four children stuffed into a mini-van for multiple days of driving and rushing around cramming family time and wedding preparation events into a handful of days.... so anything but, but it was also something that was completely different from our normal day-to-day. Chaotic. But different. And that difference was a pleasant experience for us.
How does one get to the decision of downsizing? and how does one go about down-sizing your farm? You've worked so hard over the course of many years in order to get it to where it is now... how do you slow things down? I hate to think of it as back-tracking because that feels like an admission of defeat or retreat, and that's hardly what I would consider this to be, but it most definitely is an acceptance that we don't have to be running from one fire to another, trying to keep things from burning down around us (metaphorically, but we are entering into wildfire season so it could become literal).
There are a few times in the year when I will look out at the farm and completely ignore the to-do list posted on the fridge because I can't stomach it. It's during those moments when this ball of anxiety sits heavily in my stomach, and I feel my shoulders creep up to my ears and think, "Oh no. What have we done?" because there is just too much to do. Everything has piled up, even if we're chipping away at our regularly scheduled tasks; some things just erupt and disrupt everything or just pile on and make small progress seem like no progress. This feeling of panic (thankfully) is not mirrored by my husband, who almost never feels this way. He is steadfast and even-keeled and mild-tempered in everything. I can't recall him ever being anything close to the levels of anxiety I can reach when I start to feel overwhelmed.
When I do get to this point, my response is to buckle down. I put my head down and assume no-nonsense, maximum efficiency overdrive. I will cut off anything unnecessary and focus on the projects that need to get done.
"No joy. Just work." I have said many times in this homesteading journey. Partly in jest. Partly in truth.
I will make schedules and lists and mentally hash out a tasks to get. things. done.
It helps that my husband also makes lists, so when he sees me going into my stony-faced warrior mode, he will sit down with a piece of paper (usually some scratch page from the trash that will inevitably get lost or thrown away because no one looks on the backs of things) and start writing. I can feel the tension between my eyes ease and my jaw unclench because I know he's taking on some of this emotional burden. He is a great comfort for me, but this cycle of behavior isn't the best for us. The last, almost-panic moment I had, was when at the beginning of the year, we had 20 pigs running around our farm. The piglets were incorrigible and not trained to the fence, and it was just too much. I had this moment of relief when we had processed or given away the lot of them but then our sows farrowed AGAIN, and we were right back where we had started. Ah! We couldn't maintain these many animals. It wasn't great for them; it wasn't great for us; it was definitely not going well for our finances.
Every now and then we hear, "It must be so much cheaper to raise your own animals for eggs, milk and meat. It's all basically right there for them ... and cows and chickens eat grass, right?" The reality is, it doesn't really add up the same way you would think, at least where we live. In late winter and through spring, the pasture is available and pretty lush for the animals. But I think cow math recommends one acre of pasture per bovine per year under the assumption that your grass is highly nutritious. If it's mixed foliage, if it's lesser quality grass, if it's just not as thick (or in our case dry, crispy, and dead for the majority of the year), they're going to need more space.
And we've got 5 cows. On less than 5 acres (because there's time, energy, and resources required to containing animals on said pasture). They do a great job clipping the grass short, and our hillside looks like a golf course right now, but when they can't get a satisfying mouthful of pasture, we supplement with hay, and we've discussed previously what that all amounts to... it adds up to more than what we as people eat per week to feed them.
Now on top of that throw in chicken feed (because chickens are omnivorous, and yes, they love the fresh grass and scratching through bugs, but they also need to be contained or else they will destroy your garden and poop where you don't want them to, and if they're contained or not being rotated on plentiful land, you will have to supplement); pig food -- because even though our pigs are pasture-raised breeds, again issues with supply and time, energy, and resources to keep them from turning their pastures into moonscapes... all of that makes the dollar signs pile up.
Plus, they keep reproducing.
Initially, we'd gotten a breeding pair of pigs because there was a need both for us, and our friend and family, to source meat. Now that multiple families are raising their own pigs (homesteading is addictive and contagious), we don't have to keep multiple sows and a boar because there isn't a demand for the supply. We also live in an area where a lot of people raise their own meat, and it's illegal to sell processed meat outside of a USDA facility. You can only sell live animals, "on the hoof," as they say, and depending on the time of the year... that's not always a guaranteed way of reducing your numbers.
There's always the option of processing all of the animals we aren't able to maintain, but then there's the issue of freezer space, and that's an entirely first world problem, but a necessary consideration.
I suppose there's an option of putting a bit more time and energy into marketing and selling the animals we have in excess and perhaps investing that into the animal side of operations. But there's no part of me that enjoys the idea of turning the farm into a business, at least not if I have to be at the helm. (My husband might enjoy it because he loves numbers and business-type projects, but in order for him to do this well, it would have to be his full-time job, and he already has one of those, which is far more dependable). I think of the burden of placing our entire livelihood on the success of whatever it is we produce on the farm, so different than the stability of a traditional paycheck and its benefits, and that's a panic attack on an entirely different level.
How do we downsize? I guess we start by decreasing the parts of it that have the most unscheduled work. The animals are a source of a lot of emergencies that throw our task list off balance. We no longer have a mature boar which will help reduce the number of times our sows throw litters. We've sold off the remainder of our weaned piglets. We still have that last litter to contend with, but since we're not trying to make a profit on our downsizing, selling them is easier when we aren't trying to get the best price for them. Ideally, we would have 1-2 sows for litters only. Two pigs at a minimum to keep each other company.
We will be processing two cows very soon which will reduce our herd to one milk cow, one bull for breeding (at least just for the next breeding cycle) and one meat cow who appears to be pregnant. Ideally, we would have two cows only: our milk cow and her calf to keep her company, but I'd settle for 3 cows over a 5 cow herd any day, especially because the remaining three are the smallest, and therefore the lightest eaters.
For chickens, natural selection has helped us reduce their numbers. In the time frame of making their permanent yard and coop, the ones that refused to sleep in their house were picked off by a nighttime predator, so the flock is down to a manageable 10 chickens plus rooster total. This gives us enough laying hens for our family to have eggs (and a little extra to share) and a rooster for if we want to hatch out our own chicks because we've really been enjoying this current breed of layers.
My husband and I are pretty excited about the prospect of having fewer animals on the farm. We enjoy their presence and the gifts they provide for us, and we'll still have the same timeframe of daily chores in their care, but less opportunities for our weekend plans to be derailed by an escaping herd of piglets or too attracting predators, or some other emergency. My husband has also said he'd like to take that extra time to help in the garden more and really develop that part of our farm, since I'll be pretty busy in a few months with a newborn.
We also agree that while downsizing for the present is good for us, it doesn't mean that we lose the skills to ramp up the animal side of the farm either. We'll retain those skills and the knowledge of our successes and failures in their care and be able to get to a similar level of function as we have now (or more) if we needed to with little difficulty. We'd still have the skillset to take on a small herd of cows and multiple litters of pigs and flocks of chickens, but just because you know how to do something doesn't mean you have to do it to the maximum all the time.
I'm pretty excited about slowing things down, and what this will look like for our farm. Maybe we'll actually have time to make things...pretty? I highly doubt we'd be going on more vacations or anything of that nature, but a change of pace is always intriguing. Hope you all will stick along for the ride.
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