The State of the Homestead Address

My fellow family members, laborers at Pure Water Hollow, and distinguished friends:

We are in the midst of somewhat of a homesteading revival at Pure Water Hollow! We have been learning more about how to live off the land by growing our own food as well as how to take advantage of what God has growing all around us naturally. Our chicken flock has prospered this past year giving us eggs and meat, and we have jumped into the adventure of raising our own pork. Many things are going well at our Pure Water Hollow Homestead. For these successes we give our thanks to God and pray that He has received the glory for all that we have done!

However, there are many things that need much improvement, and with His help, we shall improve. Our barn that is currently housing our pig operation is in dire need of repair. We definitely need to put a new roof on half of the barn, but I propose that we go ahead and replace the entire roof. There are some structural problems that may need to be addressed as well, and the replacement of some lumber. This will be an expensive and labor intensive venture, but we must act now if we wish to save our barn from ruin. This barn is not only functional, but it also deserves to be saved because of its intrinsic and historical value. It will be easier and less expensive to repair this piece of history, than to build a new barn from scratch.

We have a road that leads up to the barn. This road is also inadequate for our current needs. Due to some landslides and poorly placed culverts, the road is not draining properly and thereby creating a terrible mess of mud. This needs to be fixed, so we can access the barn with fewer problems. The road will need to be repaired before we start to bring in all the materials and equipment to fix the barn.

We also have a pond behind the barn that is not being utilized to it's proper potential. The pond needs to be turned into a steady supply of food for our homestead in the way of fish production! The years have watched it fill up with much sediment until it is now just a puddle of its former glory. I can see a day in the near future when the fish will multiply and provide our homestead with much nourishment!

I propose that we hire the proper equipment during this coming year to repair the road and the pond, as well as the barn. There are several culverts that will need to be purchased and installed and the dam shall be raised to get the pond back to its proper level. After the pond is repaired we will be able to stock it for future fishing. These will be expensive goals, but if we work together in cutting back on needless expenditures, we can and shall see these goals accomplished! In time, the food supply that will become available in the form of homegrown fish will help pay for the cost of the repairs. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Give a man a good-sized pond full of fish and you feed a homesteading family for a lifetime!

Another dire problem that must be faced at Pure Water Hollow is the dreadful menace of the Kudzu vine that continues to encroach upon our good land. It has no regard or respect for the boundaries of our land nor for our wishes to see our trees live without the fear that they will become covered and smothered by this insidious vine! When the Kudzu was high up on the ridge, we paid it little mind. We turned our collective heads and pretended that it was not there. Through the years our apathy and appeasement have only emboldened the Kudzu, until now it is threatening the very pond and barn that I have already mentioned!

I propose that drastic actions are required, and I have come up with a three-phase plan. When we have the road and pond repaired we will let the bulldozers do what ever they can against the Kudzu. The steepness of the hill will severely limit the bulldozers' impact, but they may be able to interrupt it some. For phase two, we must enlist the help of our local volunteer fire department, to see if our Kudzu hill would be a candidate for a controlled burn. If so, then God help those firefighters! Whatever part of the Kudzu that can be destroyed by fire, we must try it! The third phase of this plan is labor intensive on the part of our family. We need to fence the Kudzu-infected area and begin a goat herd on it, in an effort of containment. Whatever Kudzu remains must not be allowed to spread any farther, and perhaps a herd of goats will keep it at bay! Fencing this whole area will be difficult work, but we can no longer stand idly by and hope that the problem will go away. It will not.

Those productive goals are centered on our "back 40" if you will. I now wish to address the issues on our homefront. We have experienced some success and growth: We have successfully reestablished a good, hardy looking patch of strawberry plants; our four peach trees on the river bank have begun to bear several peaches each; we have successfully grown many peach trees from seed to use as root stock; we harvested a record number of cherries from our cherry tree; and we grew a corn patch in a new spot behind the school house for the first time which yielded many delicious ears of sweet corn. Again, to God be the glory for these blessings!

These accomplishments, however, were dimmed by many more disappointments. The crop from our two mature peach trees was ravaged by what seemed to be the brown rot fungus. Also, our four mature American Plum trees faced the same culprit. Our grapevines did not produce as many grapes as previous years, we missed most of the blackberry harvest, our apple trees did not yield the apples that it should have, and our garden faced a continuous onslaught by deer and raccoon. We missed the bulk of the pear tree harvest, the walnut trees did not produce at all, and our lone apricot tree was once again bare. Our effort at growing corn and pumpkins on the riverbank also failed.

Much must be addressed in these areas and we thank the Lord for the lessons learned! In the coming weeks we must give diligence to learning the proper pruning techniques for grape vines, apple trees, and peach trees. And then we must put the pruning techniques into aggressive practice! We have four "apple towers" that are overgrown but have never produced which we need to prune back drastically and give them one more chance before they are cut down and thrown into the fire. We must purchase the proper treatments to prevent brown rot and apply it to the peach and plum trees. Some tall sycamore trees that must come down grossly shade the mature apple trees. A couple were cut last year, but it was not enough and we must take out the rest of these shade giants.

Shade was also a factor on the riverbank, and we (with the help of the RECC) have cleared much of that shade away already. We must plant earlier if we are to have any crops at all down there and we also will need to be more aggressive in the hoeing of this spot that is so far away from the house.

Our garden near the house will need to be cared for tenderly and diligently. We must stay closer to home this summer and tend to the garden every evening to keep the deer away. We have also come to understand that deer are repelled by morning glories, so we should allow them to grow instead of clearing them out the way we did last year. We will purchase more animal traps and put them in the garden and corn patches to catch the thieving coons. Yes, there is much work to be done to produce a successful harvest, and we all must work together if we are going to have a surplus to can and store up.

There are some proactive projects that we should initiate this coming year as well. We shall transplant our cherry tree grown from seed, and pray for its success. We shall build a trellis for the stand of raspberries that are near the schoolhouse and we will christen that part of the road as "Raspberry Lane". We shall try to graft good producing peach limbs onto some of the root stock peach trees that have been growing for a couple of years, and I propose we leave a couple of those baby peach trees to grow as they are and see what kind of a peach tree they will become. We shall explore the possibility of clearing new land for corn production in an attempt to counter the growing costs of feed corn. We will also purchase some new items to grow. We shall add blueberries for the first time to our repertoire of berry plants and we will add a pecan tree to our variety of nut trees.

I have a dream of our Pure Water Hollow Homestead becoming self-sufficient one day! Along with perfecting our food production in the way of nut and fruit trees, grapevines and gardens, wild and cultivated berries, chickens and pigs, we also can move toward more independence in our heating source for next year. We have the wood and the chimney, so I propose we strive to purchase and install a fireplace insert to supplement our current heat. We should be able to heat with wood and decrease our dependence on the foreign heating source of propane! This is the responsible thing to do! There are many other initiatives we will explore in the future concerning alternative forms of energy, but in the immediate we can at least make this small move toward wood heat.

Yes, I have a dream of a self-sufficient Pure Water Hollow Homestead. All of the proposals and plans I have outlined tonight will take much blood, sweat, tears, and financial backing! We can achieve our goals only with the good Lord's help and if we work together. We can make great strides in this coming year, and then the future will be ours to reach for.

Thank you, and may God continue to bless our homestead!


6 comments
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Purewater on January 23, 2007 at 7:34 am
What a way to celebrate my 50th post on Homesteadblogger! Today is also my 4 month anniversary of blogging on Homesteadblogger!

President Bush is in our prayers as he delivers the State of the Union Address tonight. He has an incredibly difficult job and I believe that it is my duty as a Christian to pray for him. May God grant him the wisdom and strength that he needs.

Eric
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MrsBurns on January 23, 2007 at 7:51 am
Clever idea, and you seem to have given much thought and prayer into how you'd steward your land. I'm just glad you didn't ask me for my "investment" in your goals! Self-sufficiency is a beautiful thing! DeniseB
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anonymous on January 23, 2007 at 8:29 am
Hello!
Great speech!
I pray that God gives you the finances to be able to do all that you dream about. I am sure that as you work hard and you are faithful he will fill your cup to over flowing!!

God Bless you!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HandsNHearts on January 23, 2007 at 9:19 am
I am never disappointed by a visit here! Such encouragement!!

Ok, confession time — I just stole your State of The Homestead post. Yes, I just copied it and pasted it to the word processor and printed it off. I most definitely need its inspiration to spur along our own State of the Homestead speech here.

Thank you so much for your sharings, and may the Lord continue to bless your family and its visions for Pure Water Hollow richly!

Deanna
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Livin'theMontanaDream on January 23, 2007 at 9:39 am
Thank you for the inspiration this morning. May this new year bring you much much success in your homesteading goals!

Darcy
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sheryl on January 23, 2007 at 11:37 am
I wish you great luck and success with the homestead plans. We to are faced with the challenges of repairing an old barn. I think dh is going to cut some timber and have his dad cut what we need as far as lumber, which will help us a lot saving money. I will keep you and your homestead in our prays. Yes, you are right, President Bush does need our prays and so does our country. I really hate to see the 2008 elections get here.