A dozen homestead mistakes (and how you can avoid them)

Last Updated on June 20, 2024 by Michelle

Yep, I’m an expert at homesteading mistakes. Turns out it’s my mistakes that seem to interest my readers the most. I just looked back at my old posts, and these 12 are the ones you all have been reading and finding the most helpful recently.

But first, I gotta tell you a big excitement around here this week! Temperatures are finally just right and the sap is just now starting to truly flow. We did have 2 days of sap flow back in January, which yielded one jar of syrup, but this week our syrup production will (hopefully) really get started.

I shared a facebook live video today about the big excitement… it was actually the sound we heard all day that I wanted to share…  check out my video to see what I mean…

 

Oh, and before I share my dozen errors, I should preface this post with this youtube video I just recorded this week, highlighting the 3 secrets you really gotta know if you somehow have a notion that this homesteading life is glamorous easy. (Ha–no one would think it was glamorous would they?)

 

Chicken escapades, errors, and elation

Turns out that one of my biggest homestead heartaches ever was enriching and helpful to a lot of readers last year. For that, I am truly thankful.

#1: Read here about my BIG FAT MISTAKE that killed many young, beautiful hens.

One of the hardest efforts we’ve taken on—and completed successfully!—not only paid off beautifully for us, but the lessons we learned have helped tens of thousands of readers.

#2 was that we came really close to giving up when WE TRAINED OUR DOG TO BE CHICKEN FRIENDLY.

Most people I know personally who own chicken don’t incubate their own. They’d rather just go to Tractor Supply in the spring and pick out a box of chicks. But there must be a lot of readers out there who feel the same way I do—that hatching your own little fluffy chirping bundles is a highlight of spring—because my post about errors I made with incubation was very popular last year.

#3: Read about A HUGE MISTAKE I MADE WHEN INCUBATING CHICKS.

And then, in spite of all my mishaps and sad lessons learned, last spring I was blessed with one of the most rewarding things I’ve witnessed in our few short years of homesteading. Apparently lots of readers found my story just as heartwarming as I did.

#4: Read about HOW TO successfully ENCOURAGE A BROODY HEN to adopt chicks.

Secrets revealed

Seems my readers like to be “in the know.” And, like my country boy daddy, I never saw a reason to not share what I know with my friends. So this year I dished out the info on the realities of homesteading and living in an old farmhouse.

#5: Read here for the 3 Secrets Legit Homesteaders might not tell you. (This is the topic of the video that I shared at the top of this post.)

#6: Then there were those other secrets I revealed: 3 secrets that Old-Farmhouse Owners might not tell you.

#7: And I spilled the beans about the 8 Things Wanna-be Homesteaders Should Know.

If you’re thinking about getting a family dairy cow, one thing you need to know if how to cream your milk and what to do with all that glorious cream, am I right? Join me in my kitchen for this little YouTube live video:

Gardening

#8: I’ve tried my share of seedling planters and shared in this post which planters seemed to fail for me and why.

#9: I also explained why I knew nothing about trying to grow a garden from seeds, why I needed to learn, and the 5 steps I could share on this topic, in this post about how to grow a garden from seed, after I learned myself the hard way.

Cleaning

#10: I had no idea how to clean my wool rugs… especially my treasured antique rug that my husband’s grandma braided when she was first married. Needless to say, I was elated when I learned the right way to clean a braided wool rug.

Making Maple Syrup

#11: My long list of mistakes trying to make backyard maple syrup can’t be summed up in 10 posts, but if you’re just gonna read one thing I’ve ever written about backyard maple syrup, this list of the 8 steps we go through with every batch of syrup is the best place to start.

#12: I learned the hard way–the expensive way–that I needed to save money with our backyard syrup production. Readers seem to love my solution that saved us hundreds a year.

If you’ve been wondering if you should try your hand at making maple syrup this year, trust me, if I can do this YOU can do this. Plus, you don’t have to make all the same mistakes I made my first few years of sugarmaking, cause I’ve written about all of them here on the blog, hoping you can learn from my mistakes and avoid repeating them. You can even pursue all my posts about our maple experiences right here.

Or read on for how to buy my 218-page book, Sweet Maple, that I think you’ll love.

Even if you don’t live in New England or have maple trees in your yard, trust me you may still be able to do this! Check out my numerous resources in my Resource Library for lots of information that will help you. You’ll find a long list of many varieties of trees you can tap for syrup as well as two eBooks about maple syrup that you can download for free. One answers the 8 questions you should ask before you tap and helps you decide if you might live in an area of the country where your tapping would be productive.

Or just skip right to the chase and grab a copy of Sweet Maple (aff link there), where I itemize and write in depth about everything you’d ever want to know about backyard sugarmaking (oh, and how to bake with maple, including more than 30 recipes my family loves.) Read more about the book, including what others are saying about it, and get a peek inside, right here.

Have a great week, and for next week, watch for a wonderfully exciting announcement, as well as my post that will explain why I was elated to find this chunk of ice in my sap buckets today. (UPDATE: Read about the ice in my bucket right here.)

Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links.

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He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart. Ecclesiastes 3:11a

Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. Micah 7:8