by Julie Helms

Created on: November 20, 2008   Last Updated: December 17, 2008

Armed with a copy of the classic "Five Acres and Independence" and a recently purchased small fixer-upper farm property, my husband and I prepared for our break from civilization. Our dream was to become as self-sufficient as possible.

Our new home, a late 1600s Pennsylvania Dutch built fieldstone farmhouse, required extensive renovation. We had the opportunity to learn new skills involving plumbing, heating and electric wiring. We bought sheep, chickens, rabbits, and tilled up half an acre for a vegetable garden. The goal was to produce all of the meat and most of the vegetables our family consumed.

We started with a dual-purpose breed of sheep to be used for wool and meat production. The fleeces we sold to hand-spinners. Some we gave away in exchange for blankets, scarves, hats and sweaters made from our own animals. Lamb filled our freezer, a humanely, organically grown meat.

Our chickens were also dual-purpose, kept for meat and eggs. The egg quality of farm-fresh free range hens is superior to the supermarket variety. We supplied ourselves, family and neighbors with eggs and still had more to sell straight off the farm. The market for these eggs far exceeded what we could supply as shown by our waiting list of customers. The egg sales covered our costs for the chickens plus we had all the fresh eggs we could eat. The extra roosters were slaughtered and put in the freezer as fryers or roasters.

Several times a week my husband goes to a neighboring homestead to help them milk their Jersey cow and we are permitted to keep all that he can milk! I enjoy making butter and occasionally fresh whipped cream. My next aspiration in life is to learn cheese-making. We are also currently researching goat husbandry for their milk producing qualities.

Our initial vegetable garden was half an acre. We grew the early cool spring crops of lettuce, spinach, asparagus and sugar-snap peas, sun-drenched summer crops of tomatoes, peppers and beans, early fall crops of melons, squash and pumpkins, and finally, the root crops for winter storage to include onions and potatoes. All of this produce we canned, froze, dried or lodged in the root cellar.

We planted a variety of fruit trees that began to bear within three to four years. We grew apple, peach, plum and pear trees. Our pride and joy is a very old quince tree that is heavy laden every spring with fruit. An elderly woman comes to our farm each year to collect the fruit and then returns in a few weeks overloaded with jelly for us

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