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Catching Up
Sunday, July 26, 2009
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It's been a while since anyone has posted to the website. Our apologies. With the way things operate in life, other things have demanded our attention.
We have posted one new article recently on making rope halters for sheep and goats as a follow up to our article on making rope halters for horses.
One of our generous readers contributed the article. You can find Marna Jean Davis' article on Making Rope Halters located at http://www.creativehomesteading.com/livestock/how_to_tie_a_rope_halter_for_sheep.htm and you can visit Marna and her daughters website at http://www.goodharedaze.com. Marna has some wonderful things going on there!
The rabbit project here is going well. We're currently got about 30 rabbits that we are working with, and are expecting new kits any day.
The pigs were doing great, but the neighbors are starting to complain as the babes find their way out of holes in the fencing that ONLY a baby pig could make it out of. In spite of the fact that the nieghbors are 10 acres away, our little farm is becoming the neighborhood eyesore as more and more 'conventional' types move into the neighborhood.
We and our unconventional way of living are proving to be a problem for everyone near here. More and more the city is pushing into our territory and things are starting to get a little uncomfortable on our farm. The neighbors we had, are slowly being replaced by younger city types who THINK they want 'country' life and to escape the city.
We've downsized quite a bit, sticking to animals that live only in captivity/cages and are compliant with fencing. The pigs now reside inside a 4 foot tall solid wooden fencing - in order to keep the local Society for the Protection of Animals and the Humane Society from visiting. We've gotten rid of the larger breeds in exchange for smaller version and we've reduced the numbers.
The world has changed. Drastically - In the last year or so at that, and we're having to change with it.
The garden has been a nightmare this year. First month it drowned, and it's not rained since. So to go with what I call the minature animals we have a minature garden! :)
Barns are having to be moved. (We sold off half the property) and are having to relocated the chickens. And we've had to put the pigs in the BACK of the barn yard rather than the front.... so we're having to make all of this a reflection of "Martha Stewarts" living. The neighbors want Better Homes and Gardens in Rural Carolina now.
All the properties around me have been sold and covenants have been put in place that dictate how far off the road your house must be, how many bushes and trees are required to be in your front yard and that you must maintain a sidewalk to your front door. ROFLMAO... There are also covenants that eliminate being able to run a home business, or post any commercial signs in your yard.
We're grandfathered in due to the length of time we've had our property so are excempt from those conditions.
As many of you know I returned to college after 30 years this past fall. It has proven to be a successful venture, as far as grades go anyway. I just received notice yesterday that I made the Dean's List for the last year.
In light of all the changes in the last year locally, we're having to make new plans and rethink the way we're living and our future here on this peice of land. Not being able to sell products from the animals or the farm has greatly limited our ability to survive in this location using the farm as our primary source of income.
We've pulled the sale of our soaps, eggs, meats, animals from the internet and are having to rely on ad sales from the websites and the purchase of our books.
Amazon has pulled the affiliate program for NC and several other states based on legislation that would change how they pay these participants, and the tax reporting status of these individuals, so we're lost all our affiliate income as well. You can read more about that here... http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/17/amazon-associates-to-pull-out-of-north-carolina-due-to-unconstitutional-tax-collection-scheme/
For the moment, while we wait for the world to settle down, and now that we've done everything we can to comply with new laws and restrictions, we're focusing on the web content, wind and solar power projects, the recording studio, and waiting patiently for new things to come.
I hope you're surviving the changes and transistion to the new world order well.
As always, please visit the forums, get to know your neighbors and CONTRIBUTE! Let us know you visited. !!
Oh, the newsletters. Don't think we've forgotten you if you're not getting them. We've been sending them, but they are not getting thru.
Our IP was banned / mail was blocked from getting to you in a new trend in spam prevention. We lease 1 IP address, anything in a public block with 1 IP gets nuked by the incoming mail servers and won't get delivered. We're trying to come up with workarounds for this problem now.
The obvious answer is to rent a server for $200 a month with access to multiple IP's but..... $200 is almost half my mortgage payment and I'm not making enough online to warrant that expenditure. So bear with us while we find more economical ways to handle this situation. Keep signing up for the mailing list! If worst comes to worst, we're start sending it thru Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail.
Please - direct your homesteading questions to joni at creativehomesteading.com. I'll post your answers in the public forums.
Joni
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Good
Living. . . Comes Naturally!
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