Home on the Range: Freedom Acres Farm

June 14, 2012 · 7 comments

Pin It
Post image for Home on the Range: Freedom Acres Farm

This Home on the Range series celebrates all kinds of homesteaders, from urban rooftop gardeners to rural ranches and farms, from beekeepers to goat herders, from container gardeners to egg gatherers. Come and visit with us today.

This week’s feature is from the folks at Freedom Acres Farm. Check out their blog at www.freedomacresfarm.blogspot.com. Here is a short synopsis about their motivations and goals exactly as told to me.

We have been on 6 acres in East Central Minnesota for 8 years and next Friday we are buying the 8 acres next to us so we are very excited to use all 14 acres!!

We have 6 children, 4 of which are still at home. One will be married at the end of the month. We have 3 little ones and 1 adult child still at home.

Our garden is 90 X 70. And I can over 500 jars of food each year. We just bought a tractor this week with a sickle mower and a baler. My hubby works out of the home full time but we still do a LOT on our homestead. We are trying to be as self sufficient as possible. We LOVE our agrarian lifestyle!! Our whole family gets excited when a whole meal has been supplied by our own land!! And we make note often of things that we could do ourselves and those items quickly become either goals or our habits are changed to eliminate the item.

We homeschool and I try to sew as many of our clothing needs as possible too. We do not buy any meat (except a very occasional beef hotdog) or dairy products at all. I make all our cheese, yogurt, sour cream, kefir, etc.. and we raise meat chickens, layers, our dairy cow gives a beef cow each year, and our guys hunt venison. In the future we want to add turkeys and sheep for our daughter to spin the wool from and for meat.

Don’t they sound awesome? Wait until you see these photos!

What led you to become a traditional, urban or suburban homesteader?

A  huge freeway went in across the street from our suburban home and my husband and I looked at each other and said, “now is the time to go for our dream.”

What do you love about your homestead?

Everything. I love not having to deal with people on a constant basis.

What would you change?

I’d do it completely debt free!!!!

What new skills have you learned and how have you applied them?

Too many to list!! From milking a cow to living on solar power, from hand wringing our laundry to making cheese, from butchering a chicken to planting a pasture………..

What skills would you like to learn?

To become self sufficient for lye, yeast, pectin, and dairy cultures.

What animals or plants do you have?

We have cows, chickens, cats, dog, rabbits, a 70 X 100 garden, apple trees.

What makes you happy with your life as a homesteader?

The fulfillment I get from not having to rely on others for hardly anything.

Thank you Freedom Acres Farm! Your rural homestead is awesome! Here are some photos!

Cow on pasture

Cow on pasture

She looks very comfortable!

Freedom Rangers

Freedom Rangers

They look busy searching for bugs and things!

Chicks

Chicks!

So cute!

haystack

Haystack

That’s a lot of hay!

cow face

Kiss me!

Adorable! She needs a big kiss!

Thank you Freedom Acres Farm!

What is a Real Food Homesteader?

A Real Food Homesteader is someone who cares about the earth, the soil and the animals that give us food. You don’t have to have acres of prairie land to be a homesteader. You can be an urban or suburban homesteader with a tiny plot of land, a rooftop garden in a city, or a community garden. You could also be a more traditional homesteader who is concerned about organic, sustainable methods of farming or gardening, who supports pasture raised animals.

Real Food Homesteaders don’t use genetically modified seeds. They don’t use poisons on the plants and soil. They don’t feed poisoned grains to their animals.

They cook traditionally with raw dairy from grassfed animals and eggs from chickens on pasture. They shun processed vegetable oils like margarine and other processed foods. They try to buy as little packaged food as possible — growing and preserving their own instead.

Are you a person like this? Do you have an urban, suburban or rural homestead? Please share it with us.

Here are the questions:

  1. What led you to become a traditional, urban or suburban homesteader?
  2. What do you love about your homestead?
  3. What would you change?
  4. What new skills have you learned and how have you applied them?
  5. What skills would you like to learn?
  6. What animals or plants do you have?
  7. What makes you happy with your life as a homesteader?

Send your answers to Jill at Real Food Forager dot com and 5 – 6 of your best photos sized 450 – 550 with captions.

Previous Featured Homesteads

The next could be yours!

This post is shared at: Country Homemaker Hop, Fresh Bites Friday, Seasonal Celebration, Monday Mania, Barnyard Hop, Traditional Tuesday, Hearth & Soul Hop, Sustainable Ways, Allergy Free Wednesday, Whole Food Wednesday, Healthy 2Day, Simple Lives Thursday, Pennywise Platter, LHITS

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

In order for me to support my blogging activities, I may receive monetary compensation or other types of remuneration for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog.

The owner of this website is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon properties including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com. Disclaimer

Tropical Traditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil

1 Gallon Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil

Tropical Traditions Gold Label Coconut Oil is a product I use every day.
Pin It

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Diane June 14, 2012 at 9:43 pm

I love the painting at the beginning of this post. Who painted it?
Thanks
Diane

Reply

2 Rebecca @ Natural Mothers Network June 20, 2012 at 5:47 am

Well done Freedom Acres Farm, it sounds like you have organised your lives beautifully living among your acres of productive land. 500 cans a year from your garden, now I’m impressed! I just love the photos, especially the cow kiss! I loved that you linked this up at Seasonal Celebration Sunday!- thank you! Rebecca@Natural Mothers Network x

Reply

3 April @ The 21st Century Housewife June 25, 2012 at 8:47 am

Wonderful feature, and such lovely photographs. I’m in awe of canning 500 cans a year from the garden – wow! It was lovely to learn more about Freedom Acres Farm. Wishing them all the best with their additional acreage!

Reply

4 Anne @ Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy June 26, 2012 at 8:00 pm

Sounds amazing! Thanks for linking up at Healthy 2Day Wednesday and come back tomorrow to see if you were featured!

Reply

Leave a Comment

{ 3 trackbacks }

Previous post:

Next post: