I was motivated to build 2 outhouses because I’m a Hipcamp host and a couple of years ago they required us all to have some kind of waste disposal system. Hipcamp is like AirBnB for campers.

We LOVE Hipcampers! They will settle for as little as a place to pitch a tent but some have massive RVs with generators (you get to choose what you want to host). We offer 4 private “primitive” sites along a river, a firepit, a picnic bench and a load of wood for each stay on our 73 acres. It’s an easy revenue stream, plus they are just so appreciative.

So it was worth it to build outhouses. I was stressed out about it until I walked by some fencing at Lowe’s one day and realized that could be my walls and roof. The boards provide enough privacy and the spaces between them plenty of air flow.

After that, it was just a matter of installing a floor - treated lumber - and a plywood bench for a toilet seat. Plus cutting out the bottom of a bucket and attaching said bucket to the plywood to help guide the waste. That was a little tricky.

The metal bucket contains woodchips and a metal soup can. I have a sign that says “One scoop per poop” over it so guests help with the composting. I store TP and some baggies for feminine products in the Tupperware to keep them dry.

I didn’t want to frame a whole door and hinges are high maintenance. But Hipcamp hosts on Facebook gave me the idea of a shower curtain that looks like a barn door. It’s OK so long as the outhouse is aimed away from most foot traffic. Later we added corrugated plastic over the roof to keep rain and leaves out better.

I dug 2-3 foot pits and my neighbors helped me move the outhouses to the sites. I knew the pits would fill up, so I built skids on the bottom. This year was my first chance to use them and I was thrilled with how well they worked.

You can see there’s some wear and tear on the outhouse. A locally-owned hardware store (yes, a few still exist) recommended an environmentally-friendly soy product to waterpoof the outhouses. NOT a good idea. The wildlife loved it! The wooden toilet seats plus the front piece that hides the bucket with the bottom cut out were nibbled badly. We’ve replaced the seats with plastic ones and will be putting up new plywood before next season to improve the look.

Hope you find this useful! If you’d like to know more about our take on living in rural America check out Postcards from The Heartland.

Hit the heart if you like this, thanks.

This post first appeared on Smallholder Journal - I’m sharing it as a kind of introduction to this space, with a big thank you to Gretchen for the invite.

Two weeks of May have flown by, and we still have had no rain. Apart from a few overnight showers, I’m struggling to remember when it last rained properly. No doubt I shall live to regret saying that, as June and July turn into the grey drizzle zone.

Here’s a miscellany of thoughts from the home acres.

Why do Weeds Thrive in Drought?

This has caused me to wonder, as I struggle to keep new sowings of vegetables alive, why weeds thrive so well in drought. Of course, the truth is, it’s only some of the weeds. The drought tolerant ones.

Somewhat after the fashion of herbal leys or population wheat, weeds are present in massive diversity, so that whatever the weather, expected or freakish, record-breakingly hot, cold, wet, or dry - some of them will thrive. This is the very definition of the permaculture principle ‘Use and Value Diversity’ whose proverb is ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’

The spectre of climate chaos, however it presents, has brought this to the forefront, but in reality, it’s always been true. Specialisation, monoculture, and intensification are modern trends, and our forebears held this wisdom intuitively. I currently have garlic and onions which are thriving, but leeks which are deeply unhappy. I can do my best to ensure all three survive, but this year may not feature spectacular leeks. Another year will present us with prolific leeks, and wash out the garlic.

Learning to cook with the seasons within your locality is all about learning to adapt to just this kind of uncertainty.

Life and Death on the Farm

After last month’s surprise lamb from Gertie, I wondered if I had just lost it in the lambing dates department. I use an online gestation calendar, because I can’t keep my head straight around 31 day months and suchlike, but maybe I just didn’t put the right information into the calculator. GIGO as they say.

The only other two we have due to lamb after selling the rest of the flock earlier in the year, were due a week after Gertie’s due date, so two weeks after she presented us with Mini Frankie. However, so far - nothing.

They were definitely covered, their little backsides were as blue as a bluebird who’s been at the blueberries, but absolutely nothing is showing. Neither of them has an udder. They either didn’t take, or returned at the next cycle without us realising.

I decided to take the bull by the horns and risk precious (and non-existent) capital (i.e. stretch the overdraft) to buy a tiny Brinsea incubator. The plan was to share my incubation adventures, here, in the Resource Files, and also to add a small side hustle selling a few rare breed hens, eventually. Little acorns and all that. The beginnings of what Alex Langlands, in Edwardian Farm, so endearingly referred to as a ‘poultry concern.’

I purchased six hatching eggs from an ebay seller with a good enough score - Light Sussex were the choice for the first hatch - and took delivery of them with great excitement. One of them had been cracked in the post, so to my 7 egg incubator, I added two of our own eggs.

I followed the instructions to the letter and 21 days later, we waited with great excitement. We’ve had rotten luck with incubators before, but this one was brand new, automatic, the top brand. We waited. We waited until day 23 and then performed the post mortem. A total of three late deaths (one of ours, and two of the bought in ones,) and four infertile, empty eggs.

I’ve talked this over with my buddy Geof, at Brimwood Farm, an experienced hatcher, and he assures me he now hatches completely dry - no water added to the incubator at all, completely contrary to the instructions. So, we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down, and we go again.

About Public Speaking

I’m told that if my book ever makes it to publication, I’m going to need to do a lot of public speaking, talking to pretty much anyone who’ll have me in the pursuit of book marketing. So imagine my surprise when the Care Home on our estate contacted me to ask if I would talk about the farm at their horticultural open day!

I explained that the farm is somewhat in transition at the moment, but I’d happily chat about growing, gardening, smallholding, and being on the land as we get older, since that’s what I talk about here. They agreed and so at the end of the month I get my first practice run out!

I’ve no doubt I’ll be green with nerves and talk all kinds of rubbish, but we all have to start somewhere. I might just put out a plea for help on Notes! I wonder if I have any ace public speakers in my tribe?

Let’s Not Talk About Trade Deals

Farmers in the UK are generally not happy at all about recent trade deals, post-Brexit, and here’s why.

In the UK our animal welfare standards are some of the highest in the world. Farmers are bound by those regulations and, by and large, happy to be so. The higher the welfare, the better the food, and most farmers are proud of feeding their nation. We also have strict rules about traceability and food safety.

Regulations in other parts of the world are less strict, and so, if imports are allowed from those countries, our farmers will be up against unfair competition. Unfortunately, many consumers either don’t understand, don’t care, or can’t afford to make choices in favour of our farmers. They will buy the cheapest, or whatever is put in front of them in the soul-stealing supermarket.

That is simply not a level playing field.

The Landworkers Alliance - of which we are proud and longstanding members recently staged the ‘Food in Our Hands’ march demanding healthy, affordable, sustainable food for us all, and I think that’s a reasonable ask, don’t you?

A Passion For the Land

I’m a bit behind in all directions, the ground is like concrete which means we have to move animals more, and also means the garden is a nightmare. Meanwhile, I’d fully intended to have more resources up here.

I’m behind sharing the outcomes of the great Nettle Beer explosion (oh yes, those bottles had some serious bang for your buck!) and the details behind the incubator debacle. The fact that neither has gone well was a bit disheartening until I realised that’s exactly what I want to do - learn and teach, teach and learn. That’s part of the pattern. I can make some mistakes so that you don’t (always!) have to.

I’m behind planting extra crops so that I can offer some for sale as well as feed us, and that was a really important part of this year’s plan.

Most importantly, I am not finding the time or the words to share why we do this as fully as I might. The reason I want to find a way to engage other women in talking, sharing, and passing on the knowledge they hold.

Our goal is to own land which we can then protect forever as a landworker’s refuge. A place where traditional methods of husbandry survive, hedges are laid, animals pasture fed, crops grown organically and people work at peace with the landscape and the wildlife. A place where water sits in the landscape and travels slowly and benignly. Where local, sustainable, nutritionally dense food, can be available to some, but almost more importantly, the chance to learn and experience its production can be available to many, and they in turn can create their own sanctuaries of sanity.

We don’t have any idea how that’s going to happen. We trust God and ask His direction, but other than that, we just keep doing what we’re doing on this piece of rented land, and I put heart and soul into making all of that happen right here, and right now, for whomsoever I can reach at this moment in the last third of my time here.

The doors are open wide and I urge you to come on into the Common Room and say hello. Share your wisdom, or ask questions. I value your support and your shared vision so much.

Come with me on a journey to hold onto one sane space.

I was inspired by the work of Grange Hall and others to create the Homestead Collective.

Goal of the Homestead Collective

To promote, share, and build our homesteading-related sites together. This newsletter and site will focus on homestead related topics and will NOT be monetized. The goal is to drive eyes back to each writer’s work.

Topics at the Homestead Collective

Here are some of the topics that fall under homesteading.

• Gardening – From seed starting to composting and soil health, fruit trees

• Raising Livestock – Chickens, goats, rabbits, bees, and more

• Food Preservation – Canning, fermenting, dehydrating, freezing

• Cooking from Scratch – Bread, broth, dairy, pantry-based meals

• DIY Projects – Building coops, raised beds, compost bins, and fences

• Off-Grid Skills – Fire-making, solar basics, water collection

• Permaculture, urban gardening, living off grid, etc

• Sustainable Living – Waste reduction, repurposing, eco-choices

• Seasonal Living – Planning, harvesting, and working with nature's cycles

• General Reflections on Homesteading and how it fits into the modern world.

General Guidelines for Editors

This site is meant to promote everyone’s work and works best if everyone is actively participating. To get started, we will try to walk to line of getting everyone to actively participate but not monopolize the newsletter.

You may not contribute AI written article to this site. Your final article should be written by you.

Ideally, each writer should:

• Write or cross-post at least 1 article every other month - you can simply cross-post your favorite articles or write new articles. (No one should post more than once a week).

• Re-stack something from the Homestead Collective or another writer from the collective at least once a month to your own notes (once a week is even better!)

• Engage in the chat as you wish.

How to Join as a Homestead Collective writer:

• DM me directly if you are interested in contributing as a writer

• I will do a quick review of your site to make sure it falls in the Homestead Category

• I will add you as an editor to the Homestead Collective (you must accept this) and add your publication as a recommendation.

• Add the Homestead Collective as a recommendation

• Share a note with your community letting them know you’re part of the collective

• Once we have a few contributors I’ll create a page with the collective members.

Guidelines to posting

• We want to avoid sending more than one email to subscribers/day. When you create a new post, please schedule it for at least one day in the future on a day that there are no other scheduled posts.

• Please keep topics here focused on Homestead related topics and do not post anything political/religious/etc directly on the Homestead Collective.

• Posting Ideas: Of course new article that link back to your own site are great. But you can also cross post your already written work - this is a great way to post without any extra work. You can also create a short round up posts of your articles from the last month.

Final thoughts - I would love to have a way to communicate with the other editors all together but can’t decide the best way to do this. Ideally we do it right on Substack, but there isn’t a group message feature that I know of. We could always try emails, but I truly hate group emails. I’ve used Facebook groups before but am trying to move away from Facebook. If you have any ideas let me know.

This is an evolving project so let me know if you have ideas, concerns/ questions, etc send me a DM.

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