41 Homestead Tools We'd Buy Again in a Heartbeat

What are the best tools to invest in for a homestead? If we were starting over today, which purchases would we make again without hesitation?

In this episode of Handmade Happiness, Jessica and Thomas share the homestead tools, equipment, and practical investments that have made the biggest difference in our daily lives. From gardening and food preservation to sewing, cooking, and raising animals, we're talking about the purchases that continue to save us time, reduce waste, and help us live a more self-sufficient lifestyle.

These aren't necessarily the most expensive items we own, but they're the ones that have provided the greatest return through years of regular use.

Whether you're just beginning your homesteading journey or looking to invest wisely in tools that truly make a difference, we hope this conversation helps you prioritize what matters most.

Visit The Lark Life for more resources on homesteading, gardening, quilting, food preservation, and practical family skills.

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What's one homestead tool or investment you couldn't live without?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Handmade Happiness Podcast. I'm Jessica.

SPEAKER_02 0:03

I'm Thomas.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

And welcome in for today's episode of Yeah, we're gonna be talking about um like our top homestead investments, things that we would absolutely 100% buy again that have been super useful and helpful for us and all the things that we're doing with the gardening and raising animals and all the things.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

So yeah, there's there are certain key pieces of machinery, technology, whatever you want to call it, that have made our life way easier, better. I mean most of them make it easier, right? Or more productive. Um there are some I think that probably just are make it more comfortable or you know more simple, uh help us reach our goals, right? Of of uh not being minimalists, but essentialists, yeah, sort of, right? That's yeah anyway. Um I think you and I probably have very different lists.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yes, just because the things that we're doing are very different. And I will start the episode by saying there's a lot of things that we haven't purchased. Um that we plan to, or that we chose not to or that yeah, either both both sides that we chose not to specifically, or that we just haven't quite gotten there yet. Um we may touch on a few of those things just so you know, like this list isn't some all-inclusive list of like these are the things you need and don't worry about anything else.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yeah, no, for sure. Um again, and some of that too is just adapted to who we are and the way we do things. Some people might need things that we don't need or not need things that we use every day. It just depends on on how you're running your your life and your house.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah, so I guess let's start with you first. You can tell us something.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Um, so I do a lot of outdoor manual labor type tasks, right? Yeah, um, having a good chainsaw is indispensable. You can cut trees down, you can trim limbs, you can cut roots on stumps, you can cut in a pinch, you could cut lumber with it. I mean, there's just a million different things that you can do. And if you don't have a chainsaw, for example, our neighbor lost a tree during a storm. We needed free firewood. I went to the neighbor and I said, Hey, why don't you skid that trailer, skid that tree down here with your truck to my house and I'll cut it up and dispose it for you? And he's like, Great, that's a good idea. So he drug it to my yard and I lopped it up and we chopped it into firewood, and it's been great, right? Um, but trying to do that without a chainsaw would be insanity. We wouldn't have because you make hundreds of cuts, right? And each one of those cuts represents minutes of your life without a chainsaw.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Um, it's it's I think it's self-explanatory, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

But well, and especially now with our us having a fireplace, that was one of our sources of heat in the wintertime, you having your barbecue pit smoker, us doing fires in the fire pits with the kids outside, like we are using wood, burning wood regularly, constantly. And so us being able to easily deal with that, us being able to deal with our own trees and limbs that come down. I mean, the we have storms come through, we have trees on the property. We love having the trees for the shade, but inevitably you end up with things that need to be cleaned up, and a chainsaw is the best.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

If you don't have that, then your dead limbs basically end up in a giant pile somewhere on your property because you can't break them down into manageable pieces. So, anyway, for me, that's been a game changer, is just having a good chainsaw, fire it up, run through the wood, massive time saving and back breaking labor. So that's that's probably my number one on the outside of the things.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Okay. Um I am my first one is not just one thing, but it's kind of encompassing a whole area of our life, which is for food preservation. Um there's a few tools that we do have that I use all the especially this time of year in harvest season, I use them all the time. So we have a dehydrator that I picked up from the thrift store and I paid like five bucks for it at the thrift store, and that thing runs all the time.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

I think it's been running every day for the last two or three weeks at least.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Well, because when I come home and this is my herbs and my calendula, my calendula, yeah, I pick a whole tray of calendula every morning. And I go back out at night, and there's a whole like it's full again.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

It's just constantly producing flowers, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Um, so that goes nonstop. Um, we use our vacuum sealer constantly, whether it's uh vacuum sealing and preserving fruits and vegetables or the meat that we're raising on our property, things that we're doing, vacuum sealing to keep those good in the freezer.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

And that I think also kind of lands on our future purchase list is um like more commercial level Oh yeah, uh vacuum sealer because it slows us down right now. Yeah, right now it's a little bit of a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Um and then I guess rounding out that food preservation, so the dehydrator, the vacuum sealer, and then my canning equipment, our pressure canner, water bath canner, those things we would not be able to do what we do without them. And they save us so much money that I would 100% even we had these things even before even before we had gardens. We had acreage and a big garden and were raising tons of animals, and we constantly were using them, even if I would buy bulk produce, discounted stuff. Um that was how we were able to preserve those things and keep them lasting a really long time.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

If you haunt meat.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

So I definitely like those are important to have as a dehydrator, a vacuum sealer, and canning stuff.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

You have some personal tools also that I think you should talk about. Um, number one is your Duluth overalls. Um she lives in her Duluths. Um not a sponsor. Call us. Um, but you I mean your Duluths, they're comfy and they're cute, and you can get them in 47 different powers.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

And so I haven't been wearing them as much in the summertime because it's hot and I don't have the short ones yet. I just have the full, full long ones. But they are so comfortable, they let you move, they breathe well, they clean well, they have tons of pockets so I can have all my tools and stuffing produce and seeds and eggs and whatever it they've they hold a lot, they wash and wear really well. Yeah, they I that wasn't even thinking about that.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

I knew you weren't, that's why I brought it up because but but that matters, right? And because if you're gonna garden, it if you can be comfortable and do something you love, that's even better, right? So um I know how much joy you've gotten out of those, so that's why I'm putting a plug desk. Yeah, that's free, Duluth. You're welcome. So that's so funny. Um a couple of other things though are your um your knife.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Your was it hoary knife?

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

And uh your comma.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Best garden tools ever.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Your left-handed comma weeding tool.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Um, those are tools that I see you use all the time.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

All the time.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Super utilitarian.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Multiple, they're they're multitaskers, they're you know, they're kind of a Swiss armor.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

And my my little my pruning nippers, I use pruning nippers here. Those three tools are constantly like.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

There's nothing in our garden that you can't deal with with one of those three tools.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Um, and a tool that I don't have yet, but it's I know we're going to get it because I constantly I'm like, oh, I could have taken care of that if I just had this, is um a scythe. To deal with some of the bigger brush and pasture on the pond and some of the things all this overgrown stuff where we dug out the potatoes and it's kind of in between some rows of weed barrier that we have, and I can't just run the mower over it without destroying the weed barrier. And if I had one of those, it would take care of it.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

I didn't understand why you would want a scythe until we had property, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Because there's things like there's places on our garden back in the corner, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:47

We didn't need one.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Well, like back in the corner. It's a little tight, and what's growing there is a little much for me to just run the mower into.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Right?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

It's pretty viny, woody, I would say it's very thick, stucky stuff, so even your weed eater doesn't run the colour.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Yeah, the weed eater is not strong enough to cut, but that's the kind of place where it really is almost like a slash and burn kind of a situation. A scythe would make it through most of that stuff really well. Sometimes you got big, tall grasses, and you don't really want to run the mower down by the garden and shred it up and blow it all over the place. You just want to lay it down, scoop it up in a bundle, and move it, right? Um, yeah, so I definitely there's places where the mower can't get along our around our pond, the it's really rudded, right? Because it's kind of a rain catch, and you just can't run a power mower through there, it'll you'll get bogged. I've gotten stuck multiple times. But you can run a side through there. And yeah, yeah, so totally, totally 100% agree with that.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Um something else that we invested in that has been really nice. Having an automatic door on the chicken coop that opens and closes on its own. Yes. Um, our ducks and turkeys are in the barn. So I have to manually open and close that door, and that's something I'm working on addressing so that that is not anything.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Automation is on our list.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Um but having that knowing they go in, they put themselves to bed, and then that door closes and they're safe.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

And then in the morning it opens up and I don't I don't have to go let them out. We have oversized feeders and waterers so that I can have extra food and water, so they're not like waiting on me to go do all of those things.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Yeah, if you have something you have to leave in the morning, if things get busy in the morning, the chickens are fine.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

But I have to make sure that I have time to go open the barn for the others because they won't. I mean, they would be okay, but it's not ideal for them to be in there for the case.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Another thing that's on our future list, your big ticket future list item is a freeze dryer.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Um that is like the the dream, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Um because if we're gonna get one, we're gonna spend the money and get the the one that's gonna meet our needs. Because we are in sort of a quasi-commercial. We're making money from it, right? And so it's not just our in-home food preservation. It potentially we're gonna sell some of those things, so we need to be able to produce reasonable volume. Um, we're not just gonna get the cheapest one. We're just not there yet. Yeah. Um, but that's definitely on our in our future because it's versatile, because there's so many things you can do with a freeze-dryer. You can freeze dry just about anything.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

But honestly, a lot of the things like my herbs that I'm dehydrating right now. We would freeze dry them. I would freeze dry them. You're gonna find it. Because you preserve the color and the flavor so much better than with dehydration. And it's um again, for right now, dehydrating is working, it's it's meeting our needs, but it's not optimal. It would be better to have, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Um, so another tool that we have that I can't imagine ever not having this again. Like it was worth every penny, and I will say this till the cows come home. To everyone I know.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Let's say it at the same time, see if we say the same thing. Okay, ready? One, two, three, three. Ice maker.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

No! Well, okay, my green mill. I mean, the ice maker, I that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

She uses the ice maker more than the grain mill, but I'll not not true.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

I use that grain mill all the time. So being able to grind our own flour.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yeah, no, that's been that's been we would never get an electric grain mill.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

We have a hand one, um, and it takes forever to mill just enough for one loaf of bread.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

It's about breaking.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

But with this electric one in a couple minutes, I have I think I talked to a lady at work today into getting a grain mill. There it's the best.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

I told her that's like one of the that and raw milk are like the two hills we will die on.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

They change our life. Life. Yeah. Um, the flavor, the nutrition, the just the convenience of we've got buckets with pounds and pounds and pounds of these grains that we'll store indefinitely down in those buckets and can turn it into something super flavorful and nutritious.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Just like that. Um, it worth every penny, and I would absolutely spend that money again if given the choice chance.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Well, and not only aside from the the food quality and the taste of it, like you said, the the nutrition and the fiber, because you're not stripping out all the bran and all the hull and all the you know, all the parts of the wheat that your body actually kind of needs. We're not you know nuking it basically. It's not dead when we're the flour that you're making is not you know fried.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

So um another big one on my list, and most of my tools are things that like have made life easier or have saved us a lot of money.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Um, all of my seed starting stuff.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Oh, your trays and lights and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Having the garden the size that we have, it was an investment to buy the trays and to buy the grow lights so that they would thrive and be healthy. We already had the shelf from a previous you know thing that we needed. So, but getting that fixed up with grow lights and having all of the trays with all the drainage and all the proper whatever. Um, being able to do that has saved us so much money. Oh, um God, yeah. Not not just saved us money, it's made us money because for one packet of seeds that I paid three dollars for, I was able to plant the tomatoes we wanted to plant, and I had started plants that I was able to take to the markets with me and sell to other people. Those plants that I planted are making us hundreds of pounds of food.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Way more food than we need.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

And I already way more than covered my expenses for even the starting equipment just from the extras that I sold.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Well, and then the surplus of what that's growing that will sell that too.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

So yeah, I mean we're gonna just way in the black grounding.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

And now all of those seeds that again, we grew all that bok choy, I let it go to seed. So I paid for one packet of seeds, I started those seeds, I planted the plants, I let them do their thing. We ate on them, and then I let them go to seed, I saved those seeds, I'm gonna replant those seeds, and I'm gonna have more food to plant, and I'll be able to have more to sell in the fall, and I'll be able to let those go to seed and save them again. And it's just this whole thing. So not being dependent on the nursery having the varieties I want, them having them in stock, not having to pay for every individual plant.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

So like for me, how much was a pack of seeds? Just pick up.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Like three, four. If it's a really nice heirloom something, maybe four bucks.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Four bucks for a pack of seeds, right? Yeah. How much do you sell a plant start for?

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Oh gosh, at least three dollars a plant.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Okay, so if you sell two plant starts, you're in the black.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Right? That's after we grow it, eat it, and have more to replant. And the other thing is Right, like that's that math does itself. It's it's crazy efficient.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Where I would have been really upset if I had put a plant in the like I put a couple tomatoes or peppers out in the garden. Oh yeah, and they just didn't survive the stress of being transplanted. They died. If I had paid, if I had paid for those plants individually, I would have been upset. Yeah. But because I just had a tray of starch that I could just I just went and grabbed another one and stuck it in the ground. And so we had our whole garden full. I didn't have any empty holes, um, have all the things growing, all the things are doing well, sold the leftovers, absolutely 100% worth the investment and the time spent to start seeds.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

And something that that brings to mind now, when you plant starts, right? You can buy good-looking plants, but um if you start your own seeds, you get like 30 options to choose from.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Oh yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_02 17:09

So you're making sure that what you're planting is the best of the of the best, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:13

For your growing zone and for your own.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

So you can weed through and go, uh, this one's scrawny and this one looks weird, I don't know, you know, and you can kind of pick and choose.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Oh, I think you're saying the biggest, strongest, right? So you're starts.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

You're already getting the the cream of the crop, so to speak, on your starts. Right. So that when they go in the ground, you already know that they're strong and healthy and and resilient.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Right. Um, you're not having to worry about little scrawny plants or the well, and I'm not worried about you know, the soil from the nursery having some sort of bacteria or fungus in it that's gonna disease your garden. And I'm not worried about whether it's been sprayed with chemicals and stuff before I got you know where it's before I got it. I know exactly where it came from, how it's been taken care of, put it in the ground, know that it does great, and it's that's been huge. Yeah, okay. So, what else would you say is worth the money and the investment?

SPEAKER_02 18:03

Water hoses.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

Don't buy friends, don't let friends buy crappy water hoses. Buy long, big water hoses, right? You're never gonna look at that water hose and be like, gosh, I wish this had less water pressure, right? Like, you're always gonna end up three feet short, and it's gonna like I get whatever, but the point is if you have plenty of water hose, it's better to have ten feet too much than ten feet not enough. Right? Get the big, well, the three-quarter inch ones or one inch if you've got the connections at your house. That's on our wish list for next time around. But um that's gonna be something that is gonna pay off. Having good water hoses, you're gonna make yourself really happy. The other thing I would say is cattle panels are gold. They are gold. If you garden, if you animal, if you whatever, you have anything that's alive, cattle panels are money. So if you have a friend who's getting rid of a bunch of cattle panels, call me. Because they're, I mean, they're not cheap, right? But they're not exorbitant either. You you kind of build your inventory, right? As you add a couple here and a couple there, but they make awesome trellises. You put a couple of T-posts and tie a cattle panel to it, boom, you trellis the whole 20-foot bed of tomatoes. They're great for animal fencing, they're super strong, they're just they're super versatile. You can train berries up them, all kind of squashes and beans and tomatoes, and they're just so much better than tomato cages and all these other things.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Yeah, and we we got a few.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

They can be shaped, you can turn them into arches with great success.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

There's a lot of people that are we got a few for this year, yeah. Um, but I will definitely be getting more for future.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Yeah, that's something uh we'll have tons of those before it's all said and done.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Um for lots of reasons. So, like our vining, vining squashes. We have some bush squashes, those just grow on the ground, but the ones that send out vines everywhere, yeah, um, being able to have them upright so that I'm not having to wade through this sea of squashes to try to find the plants.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

It's a jungle out there.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Trying to manage all the bugs, the squash bugs, when they're all on the ground and it's hard to even get to the base of the plant.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

You get a lot less exposure to some of those.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

If I can access the base of the plant and make sure that it's protected from vine bores and other things, and I can see the fruit hanging there and take those things, and it just makes a lot of sense to have this.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Well, and again, it's it's pretty rigid animal housing.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Um, and they come in different flavors. You can get ones with more wires towards the bottom for like fencing for small animals.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

I would say if you've got a few T-posts and cattle panels and a tarp, we've got housing for an animal to keep them shaded and out of the weather and yeah, they're just they're super versatile on the farm.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

There's a million uses for them.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

And when you need to move it or take it down, it's all of those things you can reclaim and reuse the tarp and reuse the t-post and reuse the cattle panel in a million different ways.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Well, depending on what you're making, I mean, if you need to, you can make a dog kennel out of four panels and some zip ties, and it'll keep a medium-sized dog where they're supposed to be, right? I'm not saying you should do that, I'm just saying, you know, it doesn't take a lot. Some use wire clips, whatever you want to use, but um kind of quick instant fencing, instant fence repairing, all kinds of garden uses. You can use them as a grid to lay out certain things on the ground. Like it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Get you some.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Good good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

Good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Um something else that has been worth our investment, and it's one of those things, kind of like the seed saving that just keeps paying us back.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Um, we very intentionally got some of our small animals. We have breeding pairs of them. So we have a male with our ducks. Um, so not only are we getting duck eggs, but then we were able to hatch out more ducklings and

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Ducks are between ten and fifteen dollars a piece.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Yeah, we've got a hundred and fifty dollars worth of free ducks. We were able to hatch up.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

We sell duck eggs. People love to buy them to use in baking and all kinds of things. How much you told me fertilized duck eggs are on the low end, on the low end, it's like five bucks an egg.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Because if that person was going to go to a hatchery and buy ten bucks a day old duckling, they're going to pay 10 to 15 bucks for a duck. So it's well worth it for somebody to pay five dollars for an egg, put it in an incubator, and a month later you have baby ducklings.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Speaking of, so yeah, so breeding pairs.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

So those are rabbits. We have breeding pair of rabbits. So they and rabbits are one of those things. If you're looking for a quick way to raise your own meat inexpensively, rabbits are very inexpensive. They breed not gamey. They um our our rabbit they breed like rabbits. Our rabbit had 10 in her litter.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

And that's not abnormal.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

And within eight weeks, they're full size. So if you needed to have a quick source of protein, that's very inexpensive. Um, that's a fact.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Can we talk about how great rabbit poop is as fertilizer? Oh gosh. I have never in my life seen better dirt than what came out of our pile of rabbit manure. Once it sits there and cools off a little bit, gets some of the ammonia out of it, that is black gold. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

When honestly, their pellets, if you have a way to keep it away from their urine, the urine is what burns your plants, not their not their.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

But I'm saying, like, we literally, when we lived in Mississippi, we literally just threw everything into a into a pile. And if you dug a scovel full of that pile, we I I'm not joking when I say this. We almost tried to figure out a way to bring it with us when we moved to Texas. Oh, yeah. Because it was that good. It was that good. It was that she was like, we could just buy a metal trash can and put it in there. But anyways, we didn't, but we kind of wish we had sometimes. But um, yeah, so breeding pairs of animals, and you said something earlier about incubators. We have an incubator, um, which is why we have $150 worth of free ducks.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Um, how much was that incubator?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Forty dollars.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

You can you could get it cheaper than it.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

It's not it's not an expensive one. Now, they do make fan, you can spend thousands of dollars on an incubator, but we just have a little one and it's got a thing to control the humidity. It turns the eggs, it does all the things.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

It looks like one of those 80s popcorn poppers. You remember those? It does. It was like a flat skillet thing with a dome lid over it, and it would just like pop. It's kind of that, but with a turntable.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

But absolutely, it has already paid for itself and then some because of all of the birds that we've hatched out in that thing.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

I can't tell you how many nights at two in the morning we wake up to peep, peep, peep, peep, peep, peep, peep, peep. There's some little duckies going round and round on the turntable, blow-drying inside there. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so we've got a bunch of free ducks now, and and then of course, because we still have our male, um, we'll let those breeding pairs just keep going. And we're selling duck eggs and selling ink fertilized duck eggs and hatching out ducks, and again, talking about things that pay for themselves, right? Been fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

So yeah, yeah. Uh, so are there any other like investments or things that you absolutely you're like, we could not live without those, and we would absolutely buy them again.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Um so I think one of the things that's on our wish list, it's kind of a big ticket item, but uh having a tractor would be phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

And I I feel like that's one of those things, you know, with five acres, we're not doing row crops, we're not growing, we're not growing acreage, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Well, the funny thing is now that we've been here a year, we talked about tractors even before we moved here.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

But the way we thought we would utilize a tractor is totally different than now that we've been here for a year.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

What I really need is like almost I could almost just get by with a skid steer, right? With a with a bobcat.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Right. And we don't need a tractor to work our fields, we don't need a tractor to do all of those things. Scoop and dump. We need a tractor to be able to move large piles of wood chips and compost and hay and wood.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

It's about being able to manipulate the earth, right? Yeah, like you can use a tractor to drive T-posts, you can use a tractor to string barbed wire fence, you can use a tractor to manipulate the dirt, right? So if we needed to drag a harrow or if we needed to drag uh, you know, a plow or whatever we could, but mostly for us it would just be about like being able to scoop and dump wood chips and hay and mulch and scraping, you know, blading uh manure out of animal pens and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

All these things that we're currently doing by hand with a shovel or a rake or something, and we could easily knock the job out in a fraction of the time with a lot less effort if we just had a tractor.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

But the the downside to that is even a used tractor, you're in a healthy four-figure number, a new tractor, you're in a five-figure number, right? And we're not at a point where we can justify that expense against the amount of labor.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

It would be nice, but it's not something where we've just got to have it and we can't proceed without it.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

So another thing that we don't have that we're doing fine just without it, and one day we probably will have it, but we don't have it at the moment, is um a truck or a trailer.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

And those are things that again, there have been times that we're like, man, if we just had a trailer, but we find other ways to make it work. Push comes to shove. We can find someone that we can borrow one from or we can rent one.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

Yeah. It's like my dad said, you don't want to have a boat, you want to have a friend with a boat, right? Because then you don't have to pay for it and take care of it, you just go to have fun with it. But yeah, for now we're getting by. We have friends with trailers and we can rent a trailer and we can pull a trailer with our vehicle, but it would be nice to have a pickup truck and but like eventually as we get into larger livestock that yeah, that's the next step up for us. That's a scale up situation.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

We can do animals and things.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

It's fine to do what we're doing and not have that.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Is there anything that we don't have that we don't have it on purpose? Like that you chose because either it's gimmicky or it's a waste of time. Is there anything that you can think of that is just like do not buy this, it's a scam. You don't need it.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

I'm trying to think.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Um there are, I will say this, there are many specialized like animal products, right? Special fancy waterers and fancy feeders, automated battery-powered stuff. Don't just be disciplined, right? Don't don't spend a lot of money on something that takes 6D batteries every 30 days so that you can be lazy and not feed your dog. Like, yeah, you know, and there's a lot of those products out there, and it's oh, it saves you all this time or whatever, and all the advertising. And what it really does is it gets you to buy a whole bunch of plastic that came from overseas so that you can put batteries in it, and they're just not good products, they break easily. Um we're getting away from even like plastic waterers and things. If you have four chickens, get the little plastic waterers.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

So Right, but if you got it we we have had plastic and we've had the galvanized, and honestly, we didn't we've gone through so many plastic waterers and feeders.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

The sun breaks them down, they break at the time.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

And for whatever reason, really, even in the last year since we've been here, and a part of it might just be the extreme of you have those crazy winter temperatures and then the crazy summer temperatures, um, they just don't last.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

They break down, they degrade. I mean, that's hopefully plastic is supposed to do that.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

The galvanized ones, you have to take care of them so they don't rust out, but for the most part, they work well and last well and they're so much more durable. They're right. So, yes, they cost a little bit more money than the plastic ones, but we could have had all the galvanized waterers.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Oh, binaries that we could have brought for all the plastic ones we broke.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

For all the plastic ones that we've had to replace.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Also, if your kids are anything like mine, they contribute to that breaking plastic process when they have a little attitude and don't really want to be out there watering something, throw it on the ground, slam it down, and oh I cracked. Oh, right. Yeah, um, that doesn't happen with galvanized.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Um there are now I am all about automation, right? Like you said, the the chicken automatic chicken door, worth it. Um, we have some feeders and waterers and things that are basically a five-gallon bucket with a hole drilled in it and some tubing and things. Absolutely advocate those things, right? They work really well. Um, they save you a lot of time. You can water one source once. And they're super cheap. I mean, literally, the rabbit feeders, there's these little clip-on nipple things, and there's plastic tubing. You drill a hole, put a put a uh, you mean it all comes in a little kit, little plastic pieces.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

And your animals are not gonna run out of water.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Yeah, and a five-gallon bucket now, instead of having a one-quart watering jug that you have to refill twice, three times a day. Um, things like that are are great. But if you're investing in infrastructure pieces, man, go ahead and spend the money and get the good stuff. Don't don't buy the cheap plastic crap, it's just not worth it. Um yeah, I mean, invest in quality, like we talked about, water hoses. Get good, big, thick water hoses that last. They don't get brittle, they don't kink and crack. Those kind of things.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

Cry once. Anything else for the kids?

SPEAKER_00 31:57

I don't know. I'm trying to think. I'm like, I know we're gonna end this episode and I'll be like, dang it, we should have talked about that. But then we'll just have to have another episode. So no, I don't I don't think so. I think we're I think we're good.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna go work on getting a tractor and a truck and trailer and a freeze dryer. You see, I told you that was I told you that was on big on her list, the freeze dryer. And another pair of Duluth coveralls, probably.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Oh yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

You can never have too many, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Never, never. So thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode, and we look forward to talking to you in the next one.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Oh, did you wanna did you wanna advertise something?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

So we are right at the edge of um the beginning of the foundations and quilting course. So we'll be starting that in just a couple weeks. Um you can access those classes online, work through that at your own pace. Uh the lessons are going to be released over a period of 16 weeks. But that does not mean that you have to complete the whole course in 16 weeks because you have a whole entire year, 12 months to access all of the materials.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Um, completely online. I walk you through step by step, but we're also there to support you along the way. So, you know, give feedback and get questions answered and all of that.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

If you're not somebody who sews already, the course is designed so that someone like me, I mean, I can make two pieces stick together, right? But I'm not a seamstress, well, for many reasons. But um, I I don't sew. Let's just put it that way. I don't sew. But the course is designed so that someone like me could start with this is my sewing machine and end at the end of 16 weeks with this is my quilt that I made.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

And my tote bag that I made and my tote bag.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Right, you get the tote bag and the slippers, it's all included in the class. So it's phenomenal. It's designed like a curriculum, yeah, but it's not designed for kids per se.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Right. Right. It's I'm I anybody who's interested in the case. I am a teacher and I teach it simply enough so that the kids in my class can pick it up. It's designed for homeschooling. But if you're a grown-up who wants to learn how to quilt, you're not gonna feel like ladies that show up to my classes that have never had any sort of instruction at all are able to take my instruction and walk away with a finished piece, and that is what I'm bringing to this class. So yeah, and I've had people asking me, um, like, do you have classes for adults? And so I do have a few classes for adults on the website, but also I've already had several moms, grandmas, adults sign up to do the online version of this foundations and quilting class because it's super flexible. They can work through it at their own schedule, they can learn all the skills that they've been wanting to learn, they can have that feedback and that help that they need.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Um, and it's on your it's on your schedule.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

And it's on their schedule and on their time. Yeah. So I love, love, love to have you join me. You can find all the information on our website at thelarklife.com. Click the foundations and quilting tab, and it'll take you to all of the informations, answer all of your questions, and take you to the link to sign up. And um you can use the code launch20 and get 20% off. Uh, we'll start in August. Uh, but again, you can pick up the course at any point just because you missed the first week's launch when you get access to it. That just means all of those weeks will already be there. And again, you'll have a whole 12 months to go through that.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

And if you're someone who needs a little extra help, like I would be if I was selling, um, there is an option for you to have some one-on-one instructional time, some Zoom calls, some some yeah, every other week we'll do some Zoom calls where you can kind of show and tell, get feedback, ask questions. So if you need a little more help than just the step-by-step instructions, there's an option for that as well. And you get to talk to the the lady herself.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Yeah, I'd love to have you join us.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

So that's all I have for the kids.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Okay. Well, thank you, and until next time. Subscribe now to Handmade Happiness so you never miss an episode. And let's find the joy in making one handmade moment at a time.