Bruce and I are looking at barn plans. Barn may be a misnomer as this will be a combo workshop, food preservation center and storage area for bee keeping supplies more than a home for animals and hay. The cider room will be separate from the barn. Not to say we won’t put the chicken coop and a stall for a feeder calf in, just that these thing are secondary to our increasing need for space.
My kitchen is large but not large enough for a dehydrator, water bath canner, pressure canner, large stock pots, not to mention wine making equipment and all of the smaller stuff like grain grinders, squeezo, apple peelers and the list goes on. I would also use some of the space for long- term food storage. My goal is to have a place I can work and also give classes in. Ideally, I could also rent it out to people who want to preserve food but have no space or equipment. I think if I barter rather accept money I may be able to circumnavigate some the rules about commercial kitchens. The insurance is my big problem. I need to be sure my home is not at risk if someone uses my space and equipment and then gets sick from the food. If the problem is too big then I’ll have to deep-six the business part of the plan and just give classes.
Bruce needs a workshop as he is getting into woodworking in a big way. He also needs some dedicated space for all of the beekeeping equipment and a place to process honey and work with wax. We have too sheds but they are overflowing with tools and such. It’s amazing how much stuff accumulates when one is growing food.
My house will be so much easier to manage with all of the big stuff out-of-the-way. I keep most of it in the basement which means I have to wash it before each use not to mention that carting it up and down the stairs is a drag. I love the idea that I can “go to work” in a way by walking to the barn.
We are still working out things like septic and water. I can’t afford a new septic system so I’ll need some kind of composting toilet and a grey water system. Heat is question too. We are leaning towards a wood system with a stupendous amount of insulation even though it means remembering to fire up the stove when we want to work. I won’t be using my space in the dead of winter much anyway. I have my eye on a wood cookstove that is perfect.
I swear we are having as much fun designing this space as we’ll have using it.
We got 7 gallons of cider pressed last night. It was downright balmy. We actually worked in tee shirts. Bruce’s sister stopped by on her way home to Boston and found us knee-deep in apples. She was laughing at us but I think she was impressed too. As usual, I got the comment about where she plans to come to sit out the apocalypse. I feel like the apocalypse has happened for a lot of people. I watched a segment on 60 Minutes about the long-term unemployed. How different would life have been for those if they had a small piece of paid for property and a way to grow some food? What if they had been able to rent out a room for some extra cash and had a community to rally around? I do not mean to criticise. They had no way of knowing how things were going to turn out but that’s the point, isn’t it? We never know. Having to depend on someone else’s preparations isn’t really a plan. Knowing how to make do is.
October 27, 2010 at 8:16 am
Kathy, I have wondered where else to put my dehydrator/vacuum sealer equipment and my new grain mill. They need to be near the kitchen, so I can’t shove them into the basement. But the garage isn’t clean enough for food prep. I may have to turn my formal dining room into a homesteader’s command center! Donna
October 27, 2010 at 8:58 am
Your barn sounds like my grandma’s summer kitchen. It was just an ugly old building out behind the driveway, but that’s where 98% of the canning took place. It was built from cinder blocks and there were only a couple small windows, so it stayed cool and shady when it was sweltering in the house. We used to go out there early in the morning and have percolated coffee at an old kitchen table before we got started canning. OMG such good memories!
October 27, 2010 at 8:58 am
I both envy you and don’t the planning! lol I would think grey water would be the best for septic, but those composting toilets are almost as expensive as a septic system!
I did read that there are plans out there for making your own.
I’m looking forward to when my family room furniture can go out on the sun room so I can expand the kitchen. small spaces are not meant for food preservation!
October 27, 2010 at 10:22 am
Donna, I’ve thought of buying an older buffet for storing items like that in our apartment. Right now, the dehydrator and canner live in plain sight and I’ve no where else to store them. A buffet or perhaps a china cabinet with a deep base would work well, I think, and not be so obvious.
October 27, 2010 at 1:58 pm
if you have such a good thing, how is it that you have not been taxed off of it?
October 27, 2010 at 2:19 pm
How exciting for your family, sounds like a dream come true!!! I have a small home business, ladies come to our home for scrapbooking classes, I have a business policy that we purchased from our home owners insurance, it covers all equipment, supplies, furniture, tools and such. We were told personal injury would be covered by our homeowners policy. I am sure each state is diffrent and preparing food might add a monkey wrench to the mix but it would be worth a try to check with your insurance before getting to deep in the plans, they may have some tips that could save you some money in the long run.
October 27, 2010 at 4:47 pm
I know that feeling of where to put those big things like dehydrators, etc. As well as all the big stock pots and huge bowls. I do use all of this stuff when canning, and all that kind of stuff. Or when we butcher. But my kitchen is very tiny. So I have started storing a lot of it in the old moble home in our back yard. But it is not heated and right now we do not have power to it. But at least it is a place to store this stuff and all those million fruit jars that are empty.
October 27, 2010 at 8:55 pm
That’s a reasonable question Mike. Here’s my vision. I have this warm, homey place where people who have no other way to preserve local food can come to learn. I envision working outside of the formal economy and having money not play much of a role. Here’s my worry. I do this and get involved in taxes and paperwork and permits and and insurance all of the sudden it changes to something else, something not as warm and not as informal and I find myself with a job. I don’t want that. I pay all of my taxes without griping. I make good use of public education and cleared roads and a safety system for fire and ambulance. I am mighty glad to have them. I can’t imagine I would ever make more than a couple of hundred dollars a year and with my investment in the building I wouldn’t pay taxes anyway. It’s the paperwork I would hate.
October 27, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Kathy I saw that 60 minutes segment too. I liked what you had to say – it is so difficult (for me) to articulate what it is that bothers me about all these folks spending their savings, their retirements, and losing their houses while they wait (for 99+ weeks!) for jobs in their “fields.” I know what it is to be truly poor; and no poor person that I know would ever sit that long without doing SOMEthing about it. Folks who have been down to poverty know full well that the rules were not written for their benefit, and that you can die waiting for a miracle. I do understand the pain these “99ers” feel, but perhaps it is because they are/were “middle class” that they have trouble conceiving themselves as needing to Go Out NOW and Get ANY Kind Of Job. They talk of sending out resumes and waiting for answers, when what they needed to do at Week One was start knocking on doors, re-evaluating their expenses, and downsizing. Time really matters when you are on the edge – a well-timed $50 can save you hundreds later. I have trouble expressing how I feel about it without sounding judgmental. You did a much better job of that than I have.
October 28, 2010 at 6:34 am
You said it just fine Sara.
October 28, 2010 at 9:33 am
I think you guys are 100% right about this topic. But I also feel some sympathy for these folks. Not because what they are doing is right or realistic, but because they have been trained by our society to do what they are doing. Most Americans expect life to work a certain way and are completely unprepared for (real) hard times. The government is telling us that this is just a recession, and keeps assuring us that we’re in recovery. Friends and family complain if you stop going out for dinner or skip the holiday gift frenzy. The way that inflation is calculated has changed, and people have no idea that it’s skyrocketed again (nor that inflation isn’t just a fact of life). Most of us alive today don’t remember ever putting food by – a quaint and antiquated notion (right?). Our grandparents, who put money away in a sock, were naive to think a bank backed by the FDIC could possibly fail. There is enormous pressure to keep on keepin’ on. Enormous pressure to spend (that’s what the policymakers want us to do, to prop up the economy.
It’s not right, but I get it. We need to wake up and get with the program. We’ve had it soft. But it’s not like there are just a few people who are selfishly spending and ignoring what’s in front of them. It’s more that our entire society has been trained to do it. We have been trained to put our faith in “the system,” which “works” but will also “bail us out” on the odd chance that it “temporarily” lets us fall through the cracks. I think someone who commented on an earlier post here said she woke up when the oil spill happened – I get that. She must have realized that despite all assurances to the contrary, “they” aren’t all-powerful and often don’t have a clue as to what they are doing. Our protections are mostly illusion, and it’s time for us to step up and depend on ourselves for our survival. And have some fun stepping up to the challenge
October 28, 2010 at 11:33 am
HI Kathy,
Does your husband have an insurance policy for the bee products he sells? I looked into it and it would have cost more than beekeeping does! So I try to barter and sell to friends. Insurance seems like it will kill a lot of great ideas that really need to happen. Has anyone come up with a way to avoid insurance and not end up on the wrong end of a lawsuit?
October 28, 2010 at 12:57 pm
No insurance here but we feel as though honey is a pretty safe product.
October 28, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Thumbs up EK!
October 28, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Oh, but I should say that there is NO EXCUSE for all the folks who tell you that they plan to squat at your house if everything goes down. That’s just entitled and rude. It also means they don’t have the ignorance excuse – if they are thinking enough to decide to crash at your place, then they need to think about how they can take care of themselves. Not all of us will be able to take care of ourselves equally but to just decide “well, Kathy has got that squared away, so I don’t have to worry about it”… I’ll just say “ugh” and leave it at that.