Homesteading in Tennessee II

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I'm going to build a new website with the above title. Up here in Tennessee the internet is so slow the old site takes forever to load. Too many pictures. I'll put a link to it under 'Year 4' at the top once it's ready.

The new site'll be simple so it's easy to load, with less pictures, and more day-to-day information. I'll keep a daily journal there so you get an idea of what our homesteading lifestyle is really like.

To fill in with news . . . got married February 12th, moved up to Sunbright March 1st to live permanently.

I'll post current photos of how everything looks now. My wife Rachel and I built a coop up in the old gazebo site under the white oaks, we put a roof over the barn, tilled all nine beds of the garden area, with a few outside the fence and planted just about everything. We put fascia and soffits and gutters on the cabin and harvest rainwater, put in a loft railing, more counter space, put in electricity, wired the building, have a fridge and freezer . . . weeded and mulched and fertilized the perennials and most have tripled in growth . . . have currently 25 birds - five chickens, 13 guineas, and 7 ducks - just trapped the bobcat and relocated him to Big South Fork National Rec Area so we can get back to free-ranging all the birds [he'd killed 11 guineas, 4 chickens and 1 duck]. We also have a rabbit out in the barn in a hutch I built, a cat who hopefully someday will make a good mouser to deal with the voles in the garden but is currently an out-of-control kitty in to everything. We'll soon get dairy goats, and at some point horses. Maybe a Jersey cow.

We just bought a used Ashland New Decade wood cookstove for $700 [new they're $2,500]. We're waiting for the stainless steel chimney to arrive to fire it up. This stove is Amish-made, and will heat the cabin, has a hot water reservoir, a large oven, firebox, and the top can be cooked on just like a range.

When I get a chance [homesteading is endless work] I'll take photos and post some information beneath them to fill in everything that's going on.
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