Acreage What Can You Do to Survive!
Ways of making your land pay for itself.
We live on less than 10 acres. Lately with all the problems with food, gas and money I have been wondering how we can live off the land or make money from the land.
I have a few ideas on what we could do with our acreage. My husband doesn't agree because he knows he will have to do most of the work. These are things we could do if we had to. What if we lost our salary for some reason or another, could we make it?
Night crawlers
We have tons of night crawlers. My idea is to make a worm container and sell the night crawlers to fishermen. The way we catch night crawlers, wet the lawn first and then after dark go out with a flashlight covered so it doesn't shine so bright. Shine the flashlight on the ground and the night crawlers will be laying on the ground, catch them as fast as you can. Night crawlers are very fast and they will take off. After a rain is a great time to catch them.
My Dad used to keep worms and sold worms when I was a kid.
They're also good for making compost. Just start a compost pile and add the night crawlers. It wouldn’t be too hard to make compost for our garden.
Compost can be sold to make more money. It will also help your own garden to grow.
Worms
Maple syrup
Maple syrup: We have land full of maple trees. We can always make maple syrup for our use and to sell. We just need to tap the trees in March. It takes 43 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup!!
We would have to do lots of reading to find out how to make syrup. I think we could ask around there are lots of people here make maple syrup. We've never done it before. Personally I don't like homemade syrup but I love Mrs. Buttersworth. There are people who love homemade syrup. It's often sold in our craft shows. I know people would buy the syrup.
We have a barn full of the containers to make the syrup. The people who owned the house before us use to make syrup. They left some of their equipment. They won awards for their good tasting syrup from this land. I guess we have the best maple trees here.
Fresh Free Range Eggs
We can always get chickens and have fresh eggs and we can sell eggs. People are really looking for everything fresh nowadays.
We love fresh eggs and have them all the time. We have two different farms around us sell them.
Fresh eggs have the best taste. You know how old they are and where they came from. Store bought eggs no one knows how old they are.
The egg in the picture is from our kitchen it had a huge egg yoke, sometimes we get double yolks. It's so beautiful in color than store bought eggs.
Araucana chickens lay blue eggs.
White Leghorn chickens lay white eggs.
Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire and Plymouth Rock chickens lay brown eggs.
There are many more chickens, but those are the chickens I know of.
I have been after my husband to let me get chickens, just three little hens. I would just get them, but I don't have a warm place to put them. Around here they have to have a coop even if we just put them in the barn they wouldn't be safe and warm.
My hubby is a good guy, but he hasn't had the time to get to this project. I think because I have too many projects for him.
We ended up with two little chicks when we lived in our other home. Our granddaughters brought them home from school and, of course, we ended up with them. I was so hoping hens, but we got two roosters. They tried to out crow each other. We ended up finding a home for Henry and kept Peter.
We also got Rosie from some friends and had we had some ducks. Rosie gave us plenty of eggs.
Eggs
Free Range Chicken
If we're going to have eggs, we could also have fresh home grown chickens. My only problem, I don't know if I could kill them.
We did at one time when our kids were little we had chickens. Some were for eating and the others we kept for eggs. People would buy free range chickens.
Jam and Farm Animals
We also have a large grapevine. We get lots of grapes from it and have made jam before. We have wild blackberries and raspberries.
This fall my sister-in-law took some of the grapes and made some jam from them. It was so good.
We have a barn so really we could put any kind of farm animal in it. We could rent part of the barn to people for horses or cows. This use to be an old pig farm so the barn is all set up inside for pigs.
If we have animals we could sell manure.
Cows or goats we could get our milk from and maybe extra to sell. People are often looking for goats milk because it's more digestible and less allergenic than cow's milk. I'm not sure if I could drink fresh milk.
Vegetables
Vegetables: We grow tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, peppers and cucumber, zucchini and onions. We can put in a larger garden very easily.
We can put up vegetables for ourselves and sell fresh vegetables at farmer's market or put a vegetable stand in front of our house.
We did canning every year when the kids were all home.
We could grow cabbage and make our own sauerkraut to sell. People here love sauerkraut. Our old neighbors use to make it every year and had no trouble selling it.
Why not sell canned fresh vegetables or fruit. People like buying homemade canned food.
Pumpkins
Growing pumpkins for Halloween. We have one large space without trees and lots of sun. We would like to put in a pumpkin patch and sell the pumpkins.
We plan on doing this for next year.
We could also can pumpkins for ourselves.
Any canning items can also be sold.
More ideas bees, apples,wood, hunting
Bee Keeping:
There is also bee keeping. We have lots of flowers for the bees. Honey for ourselves and to sell.
Flowers:
Selling flowers and plants at farmer’s market.
Young Trees:
Maple, Oak and Pine trees for sale.
Apples:
We have 5 apple trees good for canning and selling for deer feed.
Sell Wood:
Selling wood: We have so many dead trees.
Turkeys:
We also have room for turkeys to sell and eat.
Lease Land For Hunting:
Hunting, we can hunt deer on our land and eat Vinson all winter.
Pine Greenery:
Gather pine greenery for Christmas wreaths and garlands.
Pine Cones:
Gather pine cones to sell.
Pine Plantation:
Put in a Pine plantation for selling Christmas trees.
Antique Store:
We could turn the barn into an antique store.
Rent Land:
Another idea would be to rent our land for garden growers. Many people now days want to have gardens but if you live in the cities it's hard to do. My aunt and uncle use to rent a plot of land for their garden.
Camping:
The land could also be rented for camping. Our nephew came here with his family and put his camper on our land.
Grow Organic:
THINK ORGANIC. Use your land to grow organic vegetables. You can sell to farmer's market and to CSA customers.
This is my list I'm sure there's more I could come up with if I thought about it. I wonder what it's going to cost to just start all of the projects listed above. Most items you need for each project is pretty cheap. The most expensive would be the chickens and getting a chicken coop built.
Cell Towers
You can also rent your land to telephone companies for one of their towers. The man down the road from us did this and I think he makes $1500.00 a month. This is what I have heard. The phone companies have to want your land, but it doesn't hurt to offer it as a place for a tower.
Turbine Windmills
You could lease the land to place wind turbines, maybe your land is just right with enough wind for a turbine. I know we sure seem to have enough wind here. You would have to check with developers to find out.
How to build a chicken coop.
© 2008 moonlake