Everything we do at the Florida House is a chance to experiment with techniques without the consequences of self sufficient living. Here if we try something and it’s not successful we have the resources around us that we can have food from another source. The goal of self sufficient living is that eventually everything we…
We celebrated Thanksgiving early with Eric Kowalski and Jess Tidwell, Philip’s son and daughter-in-law as well as our neighbors the Duvalls. We brought a very special Thanksgiving guest. Westin wasn’t sure of what to think of the turkey. he liked him much better in the cage rather than when Philip held the bird. The whole…
Butchering day finally arrived for our parent’s pigs. We told them what we were up to so they would be prepared to put a pig in their freezers and they wanted to help with butchering. We worked together to load the pigs nto the trailer to give these piggies a wagon ride to the butchering…
The thing about incubators full of fuzzy chicks is they don’t stay that way long! See them hatching here. Our laying hens and turkeys are growing so fast, they left us scrambling to provide larger runs to house so many birds. The young poults outgrew the brooder quite quickly and began the transition to living…
One of the perks of living a homesteading lifestyle is that you often get calls to rehome unwanted farm animals. Roosters are probably the most frequently rehomed animal, sometimes we take them, as Philip rarely passes up a free meal. We have had a few animals that were quite a bargain. A turkey who kept…
The 2019 garden was the most successful garden we’ve had… We used a three sisters approach to planting the corn, green beans and squash. While our garden was amazing, it’s really crowded and hard to get to the plants in the corn. Here at the Florida House we’re still learning and enjoying the journey… heres…
The animals on our farm all need a purpose, some are breeding stock and will enjoy a long life on the homestead. Others are raised specifically for food. The faster they mature and reach the desired size, the better, to reduce the costs in raising those animals. Part of the process we are learning at…
Preserving summer’s bounty is an important part of a homesteading lifestyle. Canning is one of the ways we preserve our food. After toiling in the garden, the vision of jars lined on the pantry shelf are a sweet reward for the season’s work. Of course, we don’t grow everything we preserve, some of the bounty…
I may be a tad biased but I felt that our 2019 garden was the most successful one we’d tended yet. Flipping through the pictures gives a perspective that is missed in day to day observation. Take a trip with me to see the time warp garden view. Here’s a glimpse of how quickly the…
Philip and I decided that we would get more bang for our buck to raise turkeys as a replacement for chicken, so we purchased a trio of birds to get the ball rolling. An Incubator Full of Turkeys Our birds flourished and we soon had enough eggs to fill the incubator. The incubator is such…
