Nova Scotia...Cheap land but is it worth it?

We've been looking at places for sale in and around Nova Scotia. Why? Well for several reasons the most obvious being that we are still looking at moving out of town and homesteading somewhere we can actually afford to buy the land and work on our goals. But there are so many things to consider. Availability of work. Cost of Living. Access to social groups, church, school programs etc. Weather. Availability of arable land and water. The list is very long and complicated as most lists tend to become as you study and research. 

So I don't know what's going to happen. Here we can work and save and try to buy a place in a few years hopefully. We'll be past divorces, bankruptcy, have our business established and hopefully have a sizable down payment in the bank. That's if land prices don't keep rising so fast that we can never catch up. 

One of our main considerations is that we love our children and want to be close to them. Part of homesteading is the social aspect of developing the relationships with the people you live and work with and that's never more important than with your own family. So how does that work if you move out of town? My idea of a perfect homestead is one big enough for all of us. Multiple generations living and working side by side towards a common goal. With family meals once a week and celebrations as they come up. Now this doesn't mean we all live like sardines in a can, No, it means that we all make decisions that are right for our own family units first, and for the family as a whole second. And adjustments will have to be made of course, we're humans living in proximity with each other and that always means making allowances and being kind and patient. But we have a common goal and that's a better quality of life for ourselves and for our children. We want them to learn that it's not buying things to make you happy, it's about being happy with what you've got and feeling good about doing something yourself and doing a good job.

So here's how things are on our urban homestead this week. 

We're going to be over run with kids. Current head count will be 6 on Monday, 8 Tuesday and 10 for the rest of the week. Bring on the craft supplies! It's going to be fun but busy! Linda and the boys will be here sometime tomorrow or Monday so we have to get the house tidied up a little more and start thinking about getting the garage sale stuff sorted out. Heaven knows we need the room! Go figure, we get a big house and manage to fill it. Well, time to prioritize and downsize. We have a lot of junk and stuff we no longer need, and there are some things we don't have that would be really helpful, garage sale here we come. We might even be able to afford to get to dad and Janet's wedding in August. Or buy some more chickens, or food storage.

Speaking of food storage, we've been doing alot of reading about Peak Oil. There is SO much info out there it's not even worth putting on this blog. Now this isn't something unknown to me. My Dad has told me and educated me about this for years. So talking with Steve about it has been really interesting. He stays up a lot later than I do so he reads a lot on the net and tells me about it the next day. There seems to be basically 2 camps. The Doomsday people who think we'll be back to growing our own food and living by our wits and have roving bands of bandits and anarchy, and those who say it's all a bunch of boloney and that nothing bad is going to happen. Now I could spend the next hour telling you why someone would be alarmed, or how it inspires investor confidence to hear that the Oil and Gas is profitable and increasing production etc. but I won't. You can certainly do that yourself if you feel so inclined. It has helped put some things into perspective for us though.

What do we really need for food storage? Well, the first steps are these: 

1. determine what we already have.

2. determine what we need and how we will store it, especially considering we know we have to move again in a year and food storage is HEAVY!!!

3. store water. We don't have a well, we're on municipal water so we're going to need to store some. We already have a few bottle but it's estimated you need a gallon per person per day minimum and that doesn't include cooking and hygiene, so more would be good. I did find some 55 gallon barrels online for about $700 for 4 barrels. That should do our family for about a month, and longer if we ration water and use non potable water ie. ocean, fish pond etc for washing our hair. We'll see. We have some of those 18l jugs right now that need to be cleaned and sterilized and we should just use them and store them in the dark. They will keep for a year that way with no extra preservation needed since we already have chlorinated water. If it wasn't, I'd add a tsp. of plain household bleach to them. I know it sounds gross to drink bleach but if you take out the water you need and then pour it back and forth between 2 glasses to sort of aerate it, the chlorine disperses and it tastes much better. Trust me it helps! It's like powdered milk, if you add a very small amount of vanilla to it once you've mixed up your jug it really improves the flavour and makes it taste more like fresh milk.

The chickens continue to lay. We had one hen inexplicably die a few weeks ago but the others seem just fine. Infact one of ours lays twins about 5 times a week. We get a huge egg and it has a double yolk. Very nice! The other girls I've got coming up are 2 dark brahmas and 1 buff orpington. We also have 3 dark brahma roosters so one or two of them will have to go pretty soon to the local poultry swap. I was thinking today that turkeys would be nice but our basement is full of stuff so I have nowhere to brood them. Maybe in a few weeks I'll pick up a few. I do love turkeys. 

I took several dozen grape cuttings last week and put half in water and half in the tomato planters on my back deck. We'll see which do better. I am also going to take some kiwi cuttings this week and mark the various colours of foxglove so I can  collect the seeds once they're dry.

I'm going to do a bunch more research but have figured out that to be sustainable, our family needs the following acreages:

2 acres of established woodlot for furniture and firewood.

2 acres of pasture/orchard. This for a cow, horses, and other livestock such as chickens and turkeys to free range on. The one acre to be rotated and the other in permanent orchard

1 acre for the farm buildings and driveways 

1 acre for the kitchen garden

2 acres for staple crops and grains. ie. potatoes, corn, turnips, barley, wheat, carrots

So there you have it. In an ideal world I'd like 8+ acres with at least one good brook or stream running through it and room for my grape vines, animals, a nice little house, orchard and gardens. I'm taking donations if you're interested!

I've had some experience Homesteading already and also worked out on a dairy farm in Alberta so i have limited experience with cows. I mostly just milked and tended the calves. I've raised sheep, goats, poultry and children in BC and would like to keep doing the same for years to come. I have a willing partner who is handy and inventive, both excellent skills for a homesteader as you have to often think on your feet and fashion a solution out of available materials. Now all we need is the right piece of land and the money to buy it. 

It's almost 1 am and I have church in the morning then cleaning all afternoon so I should go. I could keep talking for hours but I won't keep you any longer. Good night!