Spring on a farm can be stressful as you try to fit everything that needs attention into the time you have available, and it’s often equally stressful to look at your bank account. It sometimes seems that all you have are expenses, with very little income before crops are ready. One way we diversify our […]

We have a roadside farm stand here on our 50-acre family farm, and each year our season runs from Memorial Day weekend through the last Saturday of November. We choose to have hours just two days per week- Saturdays from 10-4 and Tuesdays from 12-6. This allows me to run the stand without hired help […]

How to Use Skill-Teaching as an Income on the Homestead Teaching classes on your homestead can be a lot of fun and quite rewarding. Over the years, my husband and I have taught many classes at our farm; everything from how to milk a goat, blacksmithing, basket weaving and yarn spinning. Classes can serve: – […]

Selling a Lifestyle My husband is a blacksmith. His talent and strength astound me at times. He takes a bit of modest metal, heats it, bangs on it with a hammer and shapes it brutally into something beautiful. Blacksmithing is a work of passion. It can be physically demanding. Years of standing over an anvil […]

Lots of Little Incomes; 8 Tips to Help You Do a Lot with a Little. Sometimes on a homestead it can be difficult to find one source of income that will sustain you for the whole year. Unless you have a large piece of property and can devote acres and acres to a mono crop […]

When I first heard the word blog, I thought…what the heck is that? I thought it was a weird name for what I later learned was an online journal/collection of articles. It sounded like a combination of “blob” and “grog”.   I’m sort of resistant to new technology and always about a decade behind when […]

Tractors are just cool, plain and simple. Nothing quite embodies the spirit of the American farm like a jolly, rumbling tractor. The puttery, “flap, flap” of the smokestack, the larger than life tires…the bright colors; Farmall Red, Allis Chalmers Orange, John Deer Green…a tractor is the perfect combination of whimsy, nostalgia and power.   For […]

Hi! I’m Susi of Soozeezbeez and my bee farm is located in the heart of the beautiful Missouri Ozarks. I’m blessed to love what I do and am so excited to take you along on my journey.My bee farm actually began because of my love of gardening and canning. I read an article about a […]

Profit as a Homesteader Shared with permission from MOTHER EARTH NEWS and Friends Download this episode (right click and save) From being open-minded but honest about what you can and can’t provide to consumers, to finding and keeping customers, to looking at your homestead as a place for new, potential resources, the urban homesteading business can […]