Help Us Save Our Small Farm
Donation protected
Summary
Because of a slight misunderstanding that lead to an extremely productive first 2 years, Erin and I are beginning farmers finally ready and able to start purchasing our land and take our operation to the next level, but we need your help in order to stay on the land to continue our progress. The landowner seems open to continuing the existing land contract should it include plans for making payments that can and will get larger over time. We need $3200 for 2015’s property TAXES, $1400 for a down payment on the principal balance of the land, and another $1400 for upgrading and expanding our existing off-grid infrastructure. The last step will help us better support additional co-owners or tenant occupants on our land. We need a total of $6000 by the end of March. If we were able to raise these funds right now, it would be just the boost we need to get us over the hump of reconfiguring finances just as the growing season is beginning. An alternate use of the money may be to transplant our operation to a different parcel of land so that our progress can continue.
Anyone who cares to see photos of our farm before reading our full story can click the links below:
https://www.facebook.com/Looktravision/media_set?set=a.10153895191125440.1073741826.588960439&type=3
https://www.facebook.com/squeakyduckfarmstead/?ref=hl
When my girlfriend Erin and I finished interning on a farm in North Carolina, we decided that we were ready to start a farming business of our own. Erin loves animals more than anything, and I have a taste for innovation, self-sufficiency, & off-grid living. Anyone looking into doing this will discover, with great disappointment that just the process of buying land alone is a monumental order. If we do it, we thought to ourselves, we would certainly be renting at first because neither of us had the luck of inheriting land from our families by timing or chance. That route, in foresight, would undoubtedly tie us to time-wasting day jobs working for other people on unfulfilling tasks that would no doubt steal energy and focus from our dream, as most people with noses to the grindstone have discovered.
Erin’s father has been trying for years to set up a parcel of land for the sole purpose of being jointly owned by several small family farmers, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, and artisans so they can pool their resources in an intentional community rallied behind sustainable living and joint ownership. In our current world of overconsumption and unstoppable income inequality, many people already practicing some form of collaborative consumption are gravitating toward off-grid joint land ownership as the obvious next step. As the phrase goes, “Sharing is the new Black” Like moths to the proverbial flame, many try for this, and only some prevail.
With that aside, Erin’s father became inspired by many other successfully deployed intentional communities, so to him, it didn’t seem impossible either. His first victory came when a kind and generous OU engineering professor bought his targeted 72 acre plot for him outright and the primary initial requirement was for him to pay the property taxes each year. Actual payments on the land were only scheduled to start when more people arrived. It was an interest free loan that would be paid back with eventual ballooning payments from several occupants. The combined buying power of around 6 families, should they arrive, would surely be able to send off regular payments large enough to pay down the gift donated by this amazing friend. Like crowdfunding itself, the power of MANY has no limitations.
The conditions were quite simple, but overwhelming to any one family: $185,000 principal balance, and $3200 per year for property taxes. This whole plan was to execute itself over the course of a 5 year land contract. The extremely sad part? Erin and I arrived with absolutely no knowledge of this arrangement nor the time limit. Our expectations were made very clear from the beginning: It seemed that Erin and I were free to create our business with no limitations or interruptions. We were under the impression that the taxes, land payments, and location of other people to co-pay on the land were easily within reach for Erin’s father. Unfortunately, a fixed Social Security income of $1100 per month does not allow for much wiggle room. So, the most productive 2 years of our lives found their way at the last 2 years of a 5 year contract between 2 other people.
When I say productive, I mean it. This cannot be overstated. With this tremendous cushion of help from two individuals, Erin and I had formed Squeaky Duck Farmstead, a 21st century homesteading experiment geared up toward full-on self-sufficiency. We have integrated factions of small livestock with a highly productive market garden that immediately began to burgeon with enough food to eat, donate, store and sell. As our skills honed further, our jokingly small plot of worked ground brought forth EVEN more abundance. Below is an exhaustive text-based account of our accomplishments. Further Chronicles can be seen in photos by clicking the links below (They are the same 2 links from above):
https://www.facebook.com/Looktravision/media_set?set=a.10153895191125440.1073741826.588960439&type=3
https://www.facebook.com/squeakyduckfarmstead/?ref=hl
Cleanup
Since we arrived, it has been very important to us to fully utilize existing resources. Materials collected for community use, but disarrayed by nature, we cleaned up, salvaged, used and organized. We set up itemized recycle bins for inside the house and on the porch, making quick work of our trips to the local recycling center. While there, we reclaim a multitude of goodies for upcycling, including aluminum cans for our solar food dehydrator’s solar collector, and discarded water heater tanks for our own solar water heating. Existing infrastructure was put to good use, and upgraded for our creative needs. We pressed apples with our friend’s homemade apple press using apples that fell from previously planted trees here on the land. We fixed things, decommissioned things, re-commissioned others, and spent considerable time in our first year taking unusable junk to the recycling center. Things were a cluttered mess!
Season Extension
With stock panels, we constructed a small, inexpensive greenhouse for salad greens. Last summer, Erin grew ginger in it (it usually only grows in places like Jamaica!) Erin’s dad has been working on an innovative greenhouse with double layers for soap bubble insulation that is 90% complete. The same OU professor who owns the land had his engineering students make a miniature version of that same greenhouse. It also needs completion. Erin oversaw the construction of an Elliot Coleman-inspired cold frame for miner’s lettuce, radishes and early salad crops. We further our season head start with an insulated grow tent in the crawl space for starting tomatoes, peppers, and onions.
Upcycling
With salvaged pallet wood, we have made everything from gates to raised beds for cucumbers, to even furniture for the house. With local bamboo we have kept the deer at bay, using them to extend our 4 foot fence. We also made chicken house roosts, an idea that I credit to our previous employers in North Carolina. Using scrap materials, we built a fully functional solar food dehydrator for herbs and tomatoes. We trellised existing concord grapes into a chicken shading arbor. We used log timbers from the land and fixed them together employing the old-fashioned method of using wooden pins instead of lag screws. Even more salvaged materials quickly became our highly valued stainless steel vegetable washing station as well as our new butchering station complete with rocket stove for scalding off meat bird feathers. Using more pallets, we made a potting station for an early start on the growing season. Here, plant starts from the tent get hardened off outside at the right time.
Our New Diet
Our diet now consists of 80% local food products, so aside from raising much of what we eat in season, our food budget goes as much to other local food producers as we can possibly manage. Since our lettuce crops have been astounding, they are now the staple of our now exponentially healthier Paleo diet. We cut out Wheat, some grains, and Dairy and feel the best, strongest, and most vital we have ever felt.
Lots of Rain
Since it rains all the time here, it only makes sense to put it to good use. Rain capture for irrigation, sprouting, washing dishes, and drinking water for every single animal we raise has been mastered. The previously installed twin cisterns and cattle tank combined gives us unmatched water security for several purposes. We’re almost ready for NO water bill!
Resourceful & Innovative
Using the powerful ideas from others like us on the internet, we have emulated the best homesteaders and preppers from across the globe. We made a pulley-operated self-locking raccoon-proof door for our chicken house. The pulleys came from scrapped ‘Bow Flex’ pulleys. With pallet wood, I made a Jefferson Chair that transforms from a chair, to an ironing board, and then to a step stool. Transforming furniture helps us save space in the small basement that we live in. We keep our chicken nest boxes clean with shredded paper; a feature most welcome as we grow our flock. We shred our own AND get large bags of it from the Recycling Center. Other innovations include WeMo- and cell phone-controlled grow lights, feeding bins complete with level gauge, rain barrels complete with rain gauge, and self-closing rat-proof feeder bins that conquer unwanted waste.
Renewable Energy (Current Sunlight)
360 Watts of Solar Photovoltaic capturing capacity is in place powering our lights, drills, mower, weed eater, phones, and the very laptop on which I’m typing this. An added battery bank storage capacity of 2.1 Kilowatt Hours allows us to continue our domestic activities into the evening, which is not a rare occurrence. In the summer, chickens enjoy pasture and are kept from wandering by 200 feet of electronetting powered by a Solar Fence Charger. Wood stoves were installed in both the upstairs and basement, one of which utilized a cheap barrel stove kit. Soon to happen are our plans for a thermo-siphoning hybrid system that combines solar water heating for the summer with wood stove-heated water in the winter. We cook occasional meals with our GoSun solar oven. Erin has a successful solar-powered sewing business that upcycles burlap coffee bags into tote bags. We pump cistern rain water for animals with solar energy even in the freezing winter. In the summer, we make good use of Erin’s dad’s outdoor solar shower, which will be going even further off the grid this year. All light bulbs used on the farm including in the house are LED, cutting light wattage use in half.
Eye For Detail
Erin’s creative eye lent a hand at our market table arrangements that were loud with taste and mastery. With experience in freelance graphic design, I designed our logo and all signs, package labels, and promotional materials.
Perennial Plants & Animals (perpetual roots that are here to stay)
Since we arrived, we wasted no time planting things that would ONLY produce fruit in a distant future, but would do so perennially. We planted goji berries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, wineberries, elderberries, mulberries, asparagus, lavender, strawberries, and bamboo. We hatch small batches of replacement chickens ourselves with our new 7 egg Brinsea Incubator. Our ducks and chickens all fit the typical rare-breed multi-purpose label, so meat AND eggs are always an option. All animals have males for breeding.
Points Of Sale
Since we are located right on the highway, the utilization of the farm itself as a point of sale was obvious. We’re still formulating a possible roadside farm stand, but in the meantime, we have the choice of 3 farmer’s markets in the area. Although we cannot yet afford the Athens Farmer’s Market, The Nelsonville Farmer’s Market is inexpensive and close by. In addition to produce, we sell ranch dressing mix at the farmer’s market and to local restaurants. Our solar food dehydrator is being partially employed to dry some herbs for the ranch dressing mix.
Removing Off-Farm Expenses
We have 2 mobile rabbit pasture pens in construction and one each complete for quail, chickens, rabbits and ducks. We are putting the finishing touches on our single bale hay press. We just completed our fodder sprouting system that cuts chicken feeding costs down to next to nothing. This year, we’ll be growing Black Soldier Fly Larvae for our chickens, ducks, and hopefully fish. We grow duckweed on the roof of the duck house for ducks to eat and they LOVE IT! They love it almost as much as they love the small pond we built for them. Our rabbits pasture just fine and love the freedom, and in the winter they go to a hutch with tube infrastructure leading to underground burrows that we built out of upcycled barrels. One barrel has a Hobbit-Style door for frontal access. We use vermicomposting to create worm tea, a vital boost to our soil fertility.
Double Use (permaculture laws obeyed)
The fence around our main garden is a double fence to keep out deer and the space in between doubles as a bird patrol run around the garden for ducks or chickens. We use gravity rain water drip irrigation for everything and it has really paid off on our time & water usage budget. Our pastured quail produce quality niche eggs and our rabbits taste lovely in my grandad’s electric smoker!
Friends & Community
The fire pit was reinvigorated to be maintenance free, so no weeds will sprout around it should it be left alone for too long. Regular potlucks and get-togethers make that impossible anyway.
Future Plans
We have ambitious plans this year to master the art of creating methane biogas for home cooking, create a Farm Stand at the end of the road, and to make an Aquaponics system to raise Tilapia and Shrimp, three tasks that I’m more than excited to tackle!
Without further explanation, it has become starkly clear to us that ANYONE ambitious and creative enough to get the opportunity and running room we have had can do amazing things with very little time, energy, and money. When I say running room, I also must include some gifts that helped us that plenty of people may not ever get, including the $5000 from selling my car, ALL of our time, no bills, no rent, a father on social security willing to pour his resources into our entrepreneurial freedom and advantage, a mother living with a friend willing to do the same, my family back home almost always willing to give to our cause, Medicaid to pay for our good health and vitality, food stamps to buy the foods we cannot YET produce or barter for, free building materials from a community that highly values resource reclamation, and yes, the occasional dumpster dive in town that uncovers huge supplements to our spoiled chickens diets. It’s probably easy to see most people with this much wind at their backs succeeding with no trouble, but unfortunately that hasn’t been the case. The head winds are still much too great.
Without being the resourceful, creative people that Erin and I are, we probably would be reporting a complete failure. By no stretch of the imagination would I concede to that being true. To settle the debate of how productive people actually are when they have a “free ride”, please add our account to the list of people who use every opportunity they get very wisely and to the fullest. People aren’t lazy and entitled when they get help from all sides. Let our story be proof that if everyone had the fair shake that we’ve had, plenty of us would undoubtedly shine and be full participants in making the world a better place.
With our time to ourselves and the freedom to act, we have risen to the occasion, and while we don’t have or make very much money, cutting our expenses down to a dull roar has never-the-less brought our talents to fruition and brought us untold riches that cannot be accounted for on a balance sheet. We are 30% off the grid after only 2 years, imagine what we could do in 5? We only ask for the further opportunity to give others the same gift. That is why we not only welcome donations, but also land occupants who might like to take this chance to do something similar should they have the fire in their belly’s to meet the challenge.
As we marinate in all of the upsides and take pride in our innovations, the only downside is that our grace period could be ending. Unless we get a down payment on the property taxes and principal balance of the land, Squeaky Duck Farmstead may have to find a new home. Actions that we are currently taking can be seen below:
Money Coming In Soon
We have several renters interested. Most are looking for a country home that aligns with their values. One person wants to rent space for bees, one renter wants to rent space for growing flowers, 2 CSA shares from regular customers have come in, which is the first time we’ve ever gotten that. Those customers will prepay for regular produce that will be picked up or delivered weekly. Several actual buyers want parcels for off-grid endeavors. To generate extra cash, we are selling lots of unused equipment like old run-down tractors, a motor cycle, and extra vehicles we don’t need. Living options for future occupants may include 2 (possibly 3) vacant bedrooms, 2 campers needing slight renovation, bathrooms with access to a common house with utilities, an incomplete cob cottage next to the pond that could be finished for rent or sale, and a school bus that could house a family of 3. Regular land payments from us will start at the end of April.
What We Need
We are asking our campaign to draw in a minimum of $6000 for the purposes of paying the property taxes for 2015, a slight kickstart toward the principal balance of the land, and a small budget for further off-grid infrastructure upgrades. Any help would be appreciated while we assume full rentership and eventual joint ownership of the land and accrue even more people to help us pay on the land. Any help above and beyond $6000 would make us profoundly, exceedingly, joyously thankful!
Because of a slight misunderstanding that lead to an extremely productive first 2 years, Erin and I are beginning farmers finally ready and able to start purchasing our land and take our operation to the next level, but we need your help in order to stay on the land to continue our progress. The landowner seems open to continuing the existing land contract should it include plans for making payments that can and will get larger over time. We need $3200 for 2015’s property TAXES, $1400 for a down payment on the principal balance of the land, and another $1400 for upgrading and expanding our existing off-grid infrastructure. The last step will help us better support additional co-owners or tenant occupants on our land. We need a total of $6000 by the end of March. If we were able to raise these funds right now, it would be just the boost we need to get us over the hump of reconfiguring finances just as the growing season is beginning. An alternate use of the money may be to transplant our operation to a different parcel of land so that our progress can continue.
Anyone who cares to see photos of our farm before reading our full story can click the links below:
https://www.facebook.com/Looktravision/media_set?set=a.10153895191125440.1073741826.588960439&type=3
https://www.facebook.com/squeakyduckfarmstead/?ref=hl
When my girlfriend Erin and I finished interning on a farm in North Carolina, we decided that we were ready to start a farming business of our own. Erin loves animals more than anything, and I have a taste for innovation, self-sufficiency, & off-grid living. Anyone looking into doing this will discover, with great disappointment that just the process of buying land alone is a monumental order. If we do it, we thought to ourselves, we would certainly be renting at first because neither of us had the luck of inheriting land from our families by timing or chance. That route, in foresight, would undoubtedly tie us to time-wasting day jobs working for other people on unfulfilling tasks that would no doubt steal energy and focus from our dream, as most people with noses to the grindstone have discovered.
Erin’s father has been trying for years to set up a parcel of land for the sole purpose of being jointly owned by several small family farmers, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, and artisans so they can pool their resources in an intentional community rallied behind sustainable living and joint ownership. In our current world of overconsumption and unstoppable income inequality, many people already practicing some form of collaborative consumption are gravitating toward off-grid joint land ownership as the obvious next step. As the phrase goes, “Sharing is the new Black” Like moths to the proverbial flame, many try for this, and only some prevail.
With that aside, Erin’s father became inspired by many other successfully deployed intentional communities, so to him, it didn’t seem impossible either. His first victory came when a kind and generous OU engineering professor bought his targeted 72 acre plot for him outright and the primary initial requirement was for him to pay the property taxes each year. Actual payments on the land were only scheduled to start when more people arrived. It was an interest free loan that would be paid back with eventual ballooning payments from several occupants. The combined buying power of around 6 families, should they arrive, would surely be able to send off regular payments large enough to pay down the gift donated by this amazing friend. Like crowdfunding itself, the power of MANY has no limitations.
The conditions were quite simple, but overwhelming to any one family: $185,000 principal balance, and $3200 per year for property taxes. This whole plan was to execute itself over the course of a 5 year land contract. The extremely sad part? Erin and I arrived with absolutely no knowledge of this arrangement nor the time limit. Our expectations were made very clear from the beginning: It seemed that Erin and I were free to create our business with no limitations or interruptions. We were under the impression that the taxes, land payments, and location of other people to co-pay on the land were easily within reach for Erin’s father. Unfortunately, a fixed Social Security income of $1100 per month does not allow for much wiggle room. So, the most productive 2 years of our lives found their way at the last 2 years of a 5 year contract between 2 other people.
When I say productive, I mean it. This cannot be overstated. With this tremendous cushion of help from two individuals, Erin and I had formed Squeaky Duck Farmstead, a 21st century homesteading experiment geared up toward full-on self-sufficiency. We have integrated factions of small livestock with a highly productive market garden that immediately began to burgeon with enough food to eat, donate, store and sell. As our skills honed further, our jokingly small plot of worked ground brought forth EVEN more abundance. Below is an exhaustive text-based account of our accomplishments. Further Chronicles can be seen in photos by clicking the links below (They are the same 2 links from above):
https://www.facebook.com/Looktravision/media_set?set=a.10153895191125440.1073741826.588960439&type=3
https://www.facebook.com/squeakyduckfarmstead/?ref=hl
Cleanup
Since we arrived, it has been very important to us to fully utilize existing resources. Materials collected for community use, but disarrayed by nature, we cleaned up, salvaged, used and organized. We set up itemized recycle bins for inside the house and on the porch, making quick work of our trips to the local recycling center. While there, we reclaim a multitude of goodies for upcycling, including aluminum cans for our solar food dehydrator’s solar collector, and discarded water heater tanks for our own solar water heating. Existing infrastructure was put to good use, and upgraded for our creative needs. We pressed apples with our friend’s homemade apple press using apples that fell from previously planted trees here on the land. We fixed things, decommissioned things, re-commissioned others, and spent considerable time in our first year taking unusable junk to the recycling center. Things were a cluttered mess!
Season Extension
With stock panels, we constructed a small, inexpensive greenhouse for salad greens. Last summer, Erin grew ginger in it (it usually only grows in places like Jamaica!) Erin’s dad has been working on an innovative greenhouse with double layers for soap bubble insulation that is 90% complete. The same OU professor who owns the land had his engineering students make a miniature version of that same greenhouse. It also needs completion. Erin oversaw the construction of an Elliot Coleman-inspired cold frame for miner’s lettuce, radishes and early salad crops. We further our season head start with an insulated grow tent in the crawl space for starting tomatoes, peppers, and onions.
Upcycling
With salvaged pallet wood, we have made everything from gates to raised beds for cucumbers, to even furniture for the house. With local bamboo we have kept the deer at bay, using them to extend our 4 foot fence. We also made chicken house roosts, an idea that I credit to our previous employers in North Carolina. Using scrap materials, we built a fully functional solar food dehydrator for herbs and tomatoes. We trellised existing concord grapes into a chicken shading arbor. We used log timbers from the land and fixed them together employing the old-fashioned method of using wooden pins instead of lag screws. Even more salvaged materials quickly became our highly valued stainless steel vegetable washing station as well as our new butchering station complete with rocket stove for scalding off meat bird feathers. Using more pallets, we made a potting station for an early start on the growing season. Here, plant starts from the tent get hardened off outside at the right time.
Our New Diet
Our diet now consists of 80% local food products, so aside from raising much of what we eat in season, our food budget goes as much to other local food producers as we can possibly manage. Since our lettuce crops have been astounding, they are now the staple of our now exponentially healthier Paleo diet. We cut out Wheat, some grains, and Dairy and feel the best, strongest, and most vital we have ever felt.
Lots of Rain
Since it rains all the time here, it only makes sense to put it to good use. Rain capture for irrigation, sprouting, washing dishes, and drinking water for every single animal we raise has been mastered. The previously installed twin cisterns and cattle tank combined gives us unmatched water security for several purposes. We’re almost ready for NO water bill!
Resourceful & Innovative
Using the powerful ideas from others like us on the internet, we have emulated the best homesteaders and preppers from across the globe. We made a pulley-operated self-locking raccoon-proof door for our chicken house. The pulleys came from scrapped ‘Bow Flex’ pulleys. With pallet wood, I made a Jefferson Chair that transforms from a chair, to an ironing board, and then to a step stool. Transforming furniture helps us save space in the small basement that we live in. We keep our chicken nest boxes clean with shredded paper; a feature most welcome as we grow our flock. We shred our own AND get large bags of it from the Recycling Center. Other innovations include WeMo- and cell phone-controlled grow lights, feeding bins complete with level gauge, rain barrels complete with rain gauge, and self-closing rat-proof feeder bins that conquer unwanted waste.
Renewable Energy (Current Sunlight)
360 Watts of Solar Photovoltaic capturing capacity is in place powering our lights, drills, mower, weed eater, phones, and the very laptop on which I’m typing this. An added battery bank storage capacity of 2.1 Kilowatt Hours allows us to continue our domestic activities into the evening, which is not a rare occurrence. In the summer, chickens enjoy pasture and are kept from wandering by 200 feet of electronetting powered by a Solar Fence Charger. Wood stoves were installed in both the upstairs and basement, one of which utilized a cheap barrel stove kit. Soon to happen are our plans for a thermo-siphoning hybrid system that combines solar water heating for the summer with wood stove-heated water in the winter. We cook occasional meals with our GoSun solar oven. Erin has a successful solar-powered sewing business that upcycles burlap coffee bags into tote bags. We pump cistern rain water for animals with solar energy even in the freezing winter. In the summer, we make good use of Erin’s dad’s outdoor solar shower, which will be going even further off the grid this year. All light bulbs used on the farm including in the house are LED, cutting light wattage use in half.
Eye For Detail
Erin’s creative eye lent a hand at our market table arrangements that were loud with taste and mastery. With experience in freelance graphic design, I designed our logo and all signs, package labels, and promotional materials.
Perennial Plants & Animals (perpetual roots that are here to stay)
Since we arrived, we wasted no time planting things that would ONLY produce fruit in a distant future, but would do so perennially. We planted goji berries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, wineberries, elderberries, mulberries, asparagus, lavender, strawberries, and bamboo. We hatch small batches of replacement chickens ourselves with our new 7 egg Brinsea Incubator. Our ducks and chickens all fit the typical rare-breed multi-purpose label, so meat AND eggs are always an option. All animals have males for breeding.
Points Of Sale
Since we are located right on the highway, the utilization of the farm itself as a point of sale was obvious. We’re still formulating a possible roadside farm stand, but in the meantime, we have the choice of 3 farmer’s markets in the area. Although we cannot yet afford the Athens Farmer’s Market, The Nelsonville Farmer’s Market is inexpensive and close by. In addition to produce, we sell ranch dressing mix at the farmer’s market and to local restaurants. Our solar food dehydrator is being partially employed to dry some herbs for the ranch dressing mix.
Removing Off-Farm Expenses
We have 2 mobile rabbit pasture pens in construction and one each complete for quail, chickens, rabbits and ducks. We are putting the finishing touches on our single bale hay press. We just completed our fodder sprouting system that cuts chicken feeding costs down to next to nothing. This year, we’ll be growing Black Soldier Fly Larvae for our chickens, ducks, and hopefully fish. We grow duckweed on the roof of the duck house for ducks to eat and they LOVE IT! They love it almost as much as they love the small pond we built for them. Our rabbits pasture just fine and love the freedom, and in the winter they go to a hutch with tube infrastructure leading to underground burrows that we built out of upcycled barrels. One barrel has a Hobbit-Style door for frontal access. We use vermicomposting to create worm tea, a vital boost to our soil fertility.
Double Use (permaculture laws obeyed)
The fence around our main garden is a double fence to keep out deer and the space in between doubles as a bird patrol run around the garden for ducks or chickens. We use gravity rain water drip irrigation for everything and it has really paid off on our time & water usage budget. Our pastured quail produce quality niche eggs and our rabbits taste lovely in my grandad’s electric smoker!
Friends & Community
The fire pit was reinvigorated to be maintenance free, so no weeds will sprout around it should it be left alone for too long. Regular potlucks and get-togethers make that impossible anyway.
Future Plans
We have ambitious plans this year to master the art of creating methane biogas for home cooking, create a Farm Stand at the end of the road, and to make an Aquaponics system to raise Tilapia and Shrimp, three tasks that I’m more than excited to tackle!
Without further explanation, it has become starkly clear to us that ANYONE ambitious and creative enough to get the opportunity and running room we have had can do amazing things with very little time, energy, and money. When I say running room, I also must include some gifts that helped us that plenty of people may not ever get, including the $5000 from selling my car, ALL of our time, no bills, no rent, a father on social security willing to pour his resources into our entrepreneurial freedom and advantage, a mother living with a friend willing to do the same, my family back home almost always willing to give to our cause, Medicaid to pay for our good health and vitality, food stamps to buy the foods we cannot YET produce or barter for, free building materials from a community that highly values resource reclamation, and yes, the occasional dumpster dive in town that uncovers huge supplements to our spoiled chickens diets. It’s probably easy to see most people with this much wind at their backs succeeding with no trouble, but unfortunately that hasn’t been the case. The head winds are still much too great.
Without being the resourceful, creative people that Erin and I are, we probably would be reporting a complete failure. By no stretch of the imagination would I concede to that being true. To settle the debate of how productive people actually are when they have a “free ride”, please add our account to the list of people who use every opportunity they get very wisely and to the fullest. People aren’t lazy and entitled when they get help from all sides. Let our story be proof that if everyone had the fair shake that we’ve had, plenty of us would undoubtedly shine and be full participants in making the world a better place.
With our time to ourselves and the freedom to act, we have risen to the occasion, and while we don’t have or make very much money, cutting our expenses down to a dull roar has never-the-less brought our talents to fruition and brought us untold riches that cannot be accounted for on a balance sheet. We are 30% off the grid after only 2 years, imagine what we could do in 5? We only ask for the further opportunity to give others the same gift. That is why we not only welcome donations, but also land occupants who might like to take this chance to do something similar should they have the fire in their belly’s to meet the challenge.
As we marinate in all of the upsides and take pride in our innovations, the only downside is that our grace period could be ending. Unless we get a down payment on the property taxes and principal balance of the land, Squeaky Duck Farmstead may have to find a new home. Actions that we are currently taking can be seen below:
Money Coming In Soon
We have several renters interested. Most are looking for a country home that aligns with their values. One person wants to rent space for bees, one renter wants to rent space for growing flowers, 2 CSA shares from regular customers have come in, which is the first time we’ve ever gotten that. Those customers will prepay for regular produce that will be picked up or delivered weekly. Several actual buyers want parcels for off-grid endeavors. To generate extra cash, we are selling lots of unused equipment like old run-down tractors, a motor cycle, and extra vehicles we don’t need. Living options for future occupants may include 2 (possibly 3) vacant bedrooms, 2 campers needing slight renovation, bathrooms with access to a common house with utilities, an incomplete cob cottage next to the pond that could be finished for rent or sale, and a school bus that could house a family of 3. Regular land payments from us will start at the end of April.
What We Need
We are asking our campaign to draw in a minimum of $6000 for the purposes of paying the property taxes for 2015, a slight kickstart toward the principal balance of the land, and a small budget for further off-grid infrastructure upgrades. Any help would be appreciated while we assume full rentership and eventual joint ownership of the land and accrue even more people to help us pay on the land. Any help above and beyond $6000 would make us profoundly, exceedingly, joyously thankful!
Organizer
Kyle Look
Organizer
New Marshfield, OH
