As you might have guessed by now, we are in our “Golden Years”. Wayne and I are both over 50 years old and we have already raised our kids. We have grandkids galore, which is so great! And our kids are still building their families, so we anticipate a few more grandchildren before long! Hooray!!
So, we aren’t spring chickens and we are only a couple of years into our homesteading journey. There are definitely some challenges for us as beginners. Both of us basically grew up in town, rather than on farms where we learned about animal husbandry, gardening, and other country activities.
I have always canned food and had a small garden, but a 4′ x 8′ garden is a far cry from what we want to create here on the farm! This year I did a 20′ x 20′ garden and a 4′ x 8′ raised bed. We didn’t have a lot in there, just some beets, tomatoes, carrots, and onions. Oh, and a few green bean plants and jalapenos and marigolds and a stray watermelon vine that actually popped up on the other side of the yard!
We have a few chickens, only about 30. I asked Wayne to pick up 4 hens and a roo from someone who advertised on a local barter site and he came home with 2 roosters and 9 hens! Two of those hens have been broody since the day we got them, so we now have 30 birds. That’s called chicken math, by the way.
Our biggest challenge is actually not our age, but our fitness levels. I was sick last year, so I don’t have as much stamina as I did have. The month before I got sick, I packed and cleaned a 3 bedroom apartment, plus worked a full time job. Now I’m lucky if I have enough energy to get through all my chores before I am ready for couch potato time. However, I have been regaining strength and stamina by making myself work through the chores, so that’s good.
Daily chores including feeding animals, gathering eggs, checking the garden for produce because some things are still producing even though it’s a super hot July here in Central Florida, and the normal cooking and cleaning. I also try to mow at least one section of the yard daily, which means either an early morning or late afternoon stent outside in the Florida heat.
Wayne has a full time job still, plus a long commute, so he has to do his chores at double-speed. Thankfully, he is stronger, because he deals with fences and big animals, plus he hauls around the feed bags and barrels. You should see his biceps! 😉
The biggest challenge we see, so far, is that there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything. Thankfully we communicate well because everything is a domino. We have to plan things out well in advance in order to make sure we meet our goals. We want to fill the freezer this fall with beef and pork, which means we had to make sure we had a cow and a pig. Then we have to feed those animals until it’s time and we are researching which butcher we want to use.
I know that I want to can at least 40 pints of green beans this fall, so I need to plant enough green beans to yield the green beans to fill the jars. I plan to start green bean seeds August 1st and every two weeks afterward to hopefully raise enough green beans to can without making it so I’m picking and canning a bushel of green beans at a time.
Another challenge is running the homestead while still saving for our retirement. We don’t want to move back to town after retirement, so we need to make sure that we can support ourselves here on the farm. Our expenses should be fairly low, and we did that deliberately. It’s much easier to find work to cover electricity, taxes, and some groceries than it would be to pay a house payment, all utilities, extra vehicles, etc. We even drive older vehicles just to make sure we don’t end up with payments. Wayne has always been a decent mechanic, and now he’s teaching himself more of that skill.
Actually, when one homesteads, one must have a lot of skills that you never thought you would need. I’m an expert at making milk bottles for cows and making sure the right one drinks the bottle. I’m also pretty good at moving a broody hen and her eggs after dark because ours always like to go broody in some spot that isn’t safe for them. Wayne is learning how to give shots to animals that are way bigger than him and to do some crazy carpentry so that we can reuse things like old cattle feeding stations as chicken coops.
Overall, homesteading after 50 can be more rewarding than trying to do it while one has kids at home, though. We don’t have to worry as much about a small child getting hurt on the farm, and we can devote all of our attention to the crops and animals. That doesn’t mean that this Granny is against the idea of having the grandbabies out here making cookies with her, or learning how to snap beans and gather eggs.
