We recently took to Instagram to see what kind of questions our followers had for us, and there were so many that we decided to answer all of them in an entirely separate vlog! It was so great to hear from all of you, and it really allowed us to reflect on our journey building, maintaining, and growing our homestead. So here’s a few of our favorite questions, answered for all of you!

---

Q: How many acres is your land and how are you able to maintain it?

A: Our family lives on a 30 acre compound, it sounds huge, but we share it with Trevor’s parents on one side of the property, as well as his sister and nephew on the other side. Maintenance of the property is full-time job, but with family close by it’s so much easier. Everyone knows how to care for the animals, and thanks to them we’re able to take vacations when we need one!

Our daily routine includes a lot of homestead maintenance, Frankie and Trevor are usually the first ones awake in the morning, and after they have breakfast they start daily farm chores. After everyone is awake we’ll spend nearly all day caring for animals, gardening, planting, building, maintaining, and juggling housework on top of that. After the kids are in bed, we like to spend even more time on homestead chores as a couple, and at times that’s like our date night! Plus, we get things done a little quicker when we aren’t chasing after our kids. A lot of our followers asked how we manage to make time for both housework and farm work, but the truth is that usually when one is busy, the other suffers a bit. Time-saving practices are absolutely imperative, but a busy farm is a good thing!

One thing that has helped us maintain our homestead our animals! When we first started our homestead there was so much poison ivy on the property, and the most efficient way to do it was to get donkeys and goats to eat away the brush. Our first donkey helped clear the brush so we added more donkeys and goats to help keep the poison ivy at bay.

Q: Can you share details about the construction process of your homestead?

A: The full answer to this question would deserve it’s own blog series! However we’ve gotten a lot of questions about this topic so here’s the rundown:

Our home is being built in three phases, the first phase was 800 sq. ft. The second phase, which we built when we had our first child Frankie, included about 900 sq. ft. The third and final phase will be about 1200 sq ft for a larger kitchen and living area, an extra bedroom or office space, a dedicated dining room, and a garage! Since we were building our own home, we took extra care in obtaining permits, staying in line with building codes, and hiring professionals where necessary. Trevor is a grading contractor, so his industry connections helped us tremendously!

As for drinking water, we use a well connected to the house, but when it comes to irrigating our garden and using water for agriculture, we buy water from local storage centers. For us, there’s plenty of water to go around but there will likely be restrictions in late summer due to California droughts, so we’re hoping for rain.

We’ve also been asked if we had to move away from family and childhood communities to be able to afford our land. I grew up in the Bay area of California, whereas Trevor grew up only a few miles away from our homestead. I always knew I didn’t want to settle in the Bay area, so we’ve made an effort to make our home a good place to frequently host family for visits and holidays.

Q: Do you have any advice for people who want to buy their own land and build a home on a budget?

A: If it’s your dream to build your own home on your own land, do it.

Seriously. It can be scary, there will be times where you doubt yourself, but you CAN do it! We knew in order to have our dream home on a budget, we’d have to do it ourselves. There are sacrifices to be made in the process, and you need to be willing to learn a lot, but we’re living our dream debt-free!

See more of your questions answered & our brand new baby goats in our YouTube video!

---