Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Independence Homestead CLOSED

We have closed down the homestead to devote our time and energy elsewhere. The website will stay here as a resource for other homesteaders for now. Thanks to all we had the pleasure of working with as we operated Independence Homestead.

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Farm Store Open By Appointment & Leesburg DeliveryWe are changing the farm store setup in 2019. The farm store is now open by appointment, and we offer delivery to the town of Leesburg with a $40 minimum order.  To schedule a farm store visit, or place an order for delivery, just send us an email. Here […]

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October: Farm Store Open By Appointment The farm store will be open by appointment this month. This month’s sale is 20% off all candles! We offer a variety of aromatherapy candles scented with essential oils, as well as unscented beeswax candles. The farm store is also stocked with our organic soaps and bath products, household goods, fresh […]

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Goat doeling for sale for $150! Clover was born 5/28/2017 to Bunny, sired by Champ (see parents here). Clover is a mini-Alpine (Alpine/Nigerian Dwarf), and is registerable. This was Bunny’s second kidding for us, and both times she kidded with no assistance. Clover was a twin, too, so hopefully she has genetics to twin. We […]

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This week we received our latest order from Whispering Willow, our friends’ soap company in North Carolina. We are now fully stocked in all of the products we carry, including one new offering! We now offer a 64oz hand soap refill for $35 in all of the hand soap varieties: tea tree, peppermint, lemongrass, and […]

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In Part 1 of this series I posted the considerations we take into consideration in our pig housing. In Part 2 I detailed the first pig houses we made. Today in Part 3 I will detail our second pig house design, a hoophouse! Here are some prior posts about hoophouses for more tips and tricks: […]

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It’s been another wonderful week on the homestead! There’s been a good amount of mud and dirty clothes, yes, but also warm weather and sunshine. We are thankful for the rain we received as well as the sunshine. Some of us (pigs!) are more thankful for the rain than others. The Pigs Are Porking Up! […]

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It’s been another week of enjoying our blessed life here on the homestead. The winter season is a time where the pace slows a bit, we can actually complete everything on the “to do” list, and have a few minutes to savor it all. Here are some things we enjoyed this week. Delicious Pork We […]

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Farm Store Open This Saturday 12-4pm We are enjoying our new arrangement of having the farm store open the first Saturday of every month. It’s great to have this regular time to welcome customers and share our offerings with you! We work very hard to offer high quality products, and it’s a joy to see […]

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New Pigs We recently welcomed seven new pigs to the homestead. We acquired these pigs to provide you with more delicious, farm-raised pork in 2017. We take pride in offering our customers an alternative to the factory farmed meat in grocery stores that perpetuates a system that isn’t healthy for the animals or the people […]

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We look forward to selling many Silver Fox rabbits in 2017, and to facilitate that we have made some updates to our sales process. We now have pages on our website dedicated to communicating with our breeding stock and pet rabbit customers. Each page has a rabbit order form where customers can tell us what […]

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The farm store will be open this Saturday, December 17th, from 12-4pm so you can shop local and get great gifts for the holidays! Address and directions are here. We have many items available that would make great gifts, including several new offerings! Here are a few great gifts: Immunity Booster Tea: Handmade by us with […]

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The farm store will be open this Saturday from 12-4pm. Address and directions are here. Shop local this holiday season, and get your gifts here! This Saturday only we’re offering 5% off all purchases of $50 or more. Our offerings include organic soaps and bath products made with essentials oils, rabbit hides, beeswax candles, handmade magnets, […]

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In Part 1 I gave an overview of our rabbit grow out practices in the growing season, and profiled a rabbit breeder’s choices for growing out rabbits in winter. Here I will detail the grow out method we are using this winter. This winter we are using our portable rabbit tractors as grow out pens […]

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In anticipation of Loudoun’s Fall Farm Tour, we’re updating the farm store with some new products. Today I’ll highlight the farm-themed magnets we’ve made! These magnets were made ourselves from wood we had leftover from various projects. We cut the wood into squares, stamped them with fun farm stamps, sprayed a sealant, and attached magnets. […]

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It’s been so busy recently, I haven’t had the time to post about all the amazing things we’re doing! The posts will come, I promise. Still, I wanted to spend a few minutes sharing some homestead things I love right now. Roll Out Nesting Boxes If I could go back in time, I would have […]

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Today we continue our piglets series with some insights on feeding and watering growing pigs. Pigs grow so fast that any missteps in feeding and watering can have dramatic consequences. Too little feed can permanently damage a pig, while too much can lead to plenty of issues, too. That being the case, there’s a lot […]

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With so many animals and only two farmers, we are constantly looking for ways to be more efficient with our farm tasks. Efficiencies in daily tasks such as feeding and watering pay huge dividends. A customer recently shared a poultry feeder design that we’ve implemented with great success! Here are a couple links (Link 1, […]

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We continue our piglet series where we highlight the care of piglets. Today we’re talking about ear tagging piglets. Why Why would you want to tag a piglet? Because you don’t want to tag a full-grown pig! If you think you may ever want a pig tagged, tag the pig as a piglet. Trying to hold and […]

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This is the second post in our piglets series where we detail how to care for piglets.  Today’s topic: castration! One tough thing about raising pigs is the meat from males may get boar taint if the male isn’t castrated. There’s mixed information as to whether or not American Guinea Hogs develop boar taint. Even if you […]

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If you currently cook bacon in a skillet on the stove, I am about to rock your world. Are you ready for a new way to cook bacon that’s easier and cleaner? Where the entire package of bacon cooks while you prepare the rest of breakfast? Here is the secret to tomorrow’s breakfast success: cook the […]

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Today’s Weathering the Winter series post details our winter management for ducks. This winter we have a flock of 16 Khaki Campbell ducks, which we use for egg laying purposes. The ducks are one of our hardiest animals, and seem to do just fine in cold, snowy weather. There’s a reason humans take their feathers to insulate […]

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Crazy Barn Cats!

We love our barn cats! I thought I’d give you an update on the cats, highlighting their recent antics. As you can see from the pictures, they get into/under/on just about everything around here! They keep us from getting too serious on the homestead, showing that there’s always time to climb up on something or snuggle in […]

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Here’s an overview of the livestock carrier we made for our truck bed. It works very well for transporting goats and pigs. Retail livestock carriers for truck beds cost several hundred dollars, and take up storage space when not in use. Our carrier was constructed for about $100 in supplies, and folds flat for storage. […]

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