Road Trip
11/26/07 - 2nd Day - After Breakfast. We had a good community Thanksgiving. Larry drove up from Austin to spend the day with us, then on Friday morning several of us loaded up and drove down to Elm Mott Texas (outside of Waco) to visit Homestead Heritage for their annual Craft and Children's Fair.
(***What follows is a review of our day at Homestead Heritage and is NOT an endorsement of their means, methods, doctrine, society, or community***)
We tried to head out early because we figured it for a 2 1/2 hour drive, and we wanted to be there for the draft horse harnessing at 10 a.m. Well, best intentions aside and things as they are, and after allowing for the slowpokes and last minute this and that from people that plan and execute painfully poorly, we headed out at about 7:30 instead of 7 a.m. The drive took a little longer than we planned as well, and we showed up at the horse harnessing display in time for the "plowing with draft horses" exhibition at about 10:40. It was a very interesting exhibition, and I learned that draft horses is really the way to go for a small homestead. Draft horses do not compact the earth, they eat what you grow, they manure the land, and they are just really, really, cool. We saw a pair of Belgians that were about 6' 5" at the BACK, so I couldn't even see over them. They were very gentle and handled with ease and plowed up the ground like it was nothing. After the draft horses, a few of us went over to the woodworking exhibition and saw the seminar on working with handtools, which was awesome. I think, if the Lord wills, Larry and I will be taking their foundational woodworking course in late January. I'll tell you more about that in the future.
We walked around a bit and we saw the grist mill and we saw many exhibits of homestead and pioneer skills. We saw some girls processing wool all the way from the raw wool to thread and yarn. Then we saw some girls taking the thread and making stuff out of it on a loom. We saw a lady demonstrate cooking on a wood stove, and we saw an exhibit where they make rope. They had folks making everything from guitars (by hand) to pottery to the forging and casting of steel and aluminum tools, utensiles, and other metal parts.
We toured the model homestead where they took three acres and showed you how much you could do on such a small acreage. They had a garden that was (I would guess) about 200 x 80 and it had 42 4x25 small intensively planted (for a fall garden right now) beds. The garden was a "double-dug" garden and it was irrigated by catchwater which was very neatly handled from off of a 40 x 30 barn (more on that later). They had a small animal area, and they had chickens in portable chicken tractors that worked the garden. They had a couple of small pastures for their larger animals, and it was in one of these pastures where they exhibited the trained sheep dogs who worked Boer goats for the audience. They had a greenhouse as well and were growing food in this cold November weather very successfully. The plowing and "green crop" rotation exhibits were in one of the other pastures of this model homestead. Their purpose was to show how you really would only need 3-5 acres to have a really nice and productive homestead.
The Catchwater system or "water catchment system" (which is how the new, fancy, eco-friendly folks say it) was very nice and a good education. The underground water in that area is 1200 feet down, so wells are not really an affordable option. Like I said, they had a 40 x 30 barn with gutters on both sides being funneled into a 10,000 gallon above ground cistern. This cistern flowed about 30 feet downhill to a small underground cistern which had a windmill pumping unit on top of it. The windmill pumped the water uphill about 100 feet to an above ground 1600 gallon cistern which was built on top of a 20 foot tower. The water then was fed by gravity fall to the garden where it now had the pressure to operate the drip system that provided 1" of water per week to each of the 42 beds in the model garden.
I would be very interested in building a catchwater system similar to this one someday, and this seems to me to be the best solution to the water problem for most folks who do not have grid water or electricity.
The Homestead Heritage folks teach a whole bunch of classes on everything from organic gardening and beekeeping, to blacksmithing, timber frame construction, and woodworking. We here at the ranch hope to be partaking of their knowledge and skills as we move forward in our own community. I will update you more about my plans to attend the woodworking class as more information becomes available.
We have had quite a cold spell, but we received over 2 inches of rain this weekend, which was much needed and which was an answer to prayer, and it provided much needed water for our own catchwater system.
Today it is supposed to be warmer (mid 50's), and it is supposed to get warmer this week, which will be nice.
I have to go to work... sermon tonight (DV).
Michael
(***What follows is a review of our day at Homestead Heritage and is NOT an endorsement of their means, methods, doctrine, society, or community***)
We tried to head out early because we figured it for a 2 1/2 hour drive, and we wanted to be there for the draft horse harnessing at 10 a.m. Well, best intentions aside and things as they are, and after allowing for the slowpokes and last minute this and that from people that plan and execute painfully poorly, we headed out at about 7:30 instead of 7 a.m. The drive took a little longer than we planned as well, and we showed up at the horse harnessing display in time for the "plowing with draft horses" exhibition at about 10:40. It was a very interesting exhibition, and I learned that draft horses is really the way to go for a small homestead. Draft horses do not compact the earth, they eat what you grow, they manure the land, and they are just really, really, cool. We saw a pair of Belgians that were about 6' 5" at the BACK, so I couldn't even see over them. They were very gentle and handled with ease and plowed up the ground like it was nothing. After the draft horses, a few of us went over to the woodworking exhibition and saw the seminar on working with handtools, which was awesome. I think, if the Lord wills, Larry and I will be taking their foundational woodworking course in late January. I'll tell you more about that in the future.
We walked around a bit and we saw the grist mill and we saw many exhibits of homestead and pioneer skills. We saw some girls processing wool all the way from the raw wool to thread and yarn. Then we saw some girls taking the thread and making stuff out of it on a loom. We saw a lady demonstrate cooking on a wood stove, and we saw an exhibit where they make rope. They had folks making everything from guitars (by hand) to pottery to the forging and casting of steel and aluminum tools, utensiles, and other metal parts.
We toured the model homestead where they took three acres and showed you how much you could do on such a small acreage. They had a garden that was (I would guess) about 200 x 80 and it had 42 4x25 small intensively planted (for a fall garden right now) beds. The garden was a "double-dug" garden and it was irrigated by catchwater which was very neatly handled from off of a 40 x 30 barn (more on that later). They had a small animal area, and they had chickens in portable chicken tractors that worked the garden. They had a couple of small pastures for their larger animals, and it was in one of these pastures where they exhibited the trained sheep dogs who worked Boer goats for the audience. They had a greenhouse as well and were growing food in this cold November weather very successfully. The plowing and "green crop" rotation exhibits were in one of the other pastures of this model homestead. Their purpose was to show how you really would only need 3-5 acres to have a really nice and productive homestead.
The Catchwater system or "water catchment system" (which is how the new, fancy, eco-friendly folks say it) was very nice and a good education. The underground water in that area is 1200 feet down, so wells are not really an affordable option. Like I said, they had a 40 x 30 barn with gutters on both sides being funneled into a 10,000 gallon above ground cistern. This cistern flowed about 30 feet downhill to a small underground cistern which had a windmill pumping unit on top of it. The windmill pumped the water uphill about 100 feet to an above ground 1600 gallon cistern which was built on top of a 20 foot tower. The water then was fed by gravity fall to the garden where it now had the pressure to operate the drip system that provided 1" of water per week to each of the 42 beds in the model garden.
I would be very interested in building a catchwater system similar to this one someday, and this seems to me to be the best solution to the water problem for most folks who do not have grid water or electricity.
The Homestead Heritage folks teach a whole bunch of classes on everything from organic gardening and beekeeping, to blacksmithing, timber frame construction, and woodworking. We here at the ranch hope to be partaking of their knowledge and skills as we move forward in our own community. I will update you more about my plans to attend the woodworking class as more information becomes available.
We have had quite a cold spell, but we received over 2 inches of rain this weekend, which was much needed and which was an answer to prayer, and it provided much needed water for our own catchwater system.
Today it is supposed to be warmer (mid 50's), and it is supposed to get warmer this week, which will be nice.
I have to go to work... sermon tonight (DV).
Michael
posted by Michael Bunker at 11/26/2007 05:49:00 AM
3 Comments:
"They had a small animal area, and they had chickens in portable chicken tractors that worked the garden."
Impressive! :-)
Thanks for the update Michael, sounds like it was a profitable trip.
Bill
Never judge a book by it's cover.
"never judge a book by it's cover"..
Brilliant but trite sayings aside, the entire discussion of Homestead Heritage was prefaced by a disclaimer in order to make sure people knew that I was not endorsing Homestead Heritage at all. Now a cryptic admonition that insinuates that I (or someone else here) has "judged the book by its cover" ought to be explained if it isn't to come across as self-righteous and stupid. My comments were limited to the homestead practices and what could be learned from them... "never judge a book by it's cover" could mean anything then, since the disclaimer disallowed any other interpretation. If there is something we ought to know in order to save us from ourselves, then a Christian would be obliged to say it. If this is just using up bandwidth to expound sayings...
In short, give me a break, or say what you mean.
Michael
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