I`m curious about something and didn`t read through every page here but if this is truly off the grid you have to remember that electricity/gasoline won`t be available.
Not only will you have to grow crops for your own consumption and animals but they will have to be such as can easily save seeds from to plant another year.
You don`t call up a seed company and order them.
If you want animals you obviously need 2 for that to replenish itself.
Keep in mind all male farm animals are nasty and ornery with a male bovine of any breed being one of the most dangerous animals in the country.
They will kill you for no other reason except you are there.
I would opt for potatoes to grow as any that are not consumed will sprout from the eyes and can be replanted.
Squash and pumpkins the same.
Corn will provide fodder for animals to eat as well as human consumption plus ears can be dried to replant.
For animals chickens will be a natural and can eat the corn.
Pigs will eat almost anything so spoiled tomatoes and other vegetables can be used for food.
They will farrow yearly with 4-8 piglets/litter so they reproduce well.
A note from past experience in real life...if you move your hog yard around it is quite likely that you will have tomatoes and other vegetables fit for transplanting growing in the previous years hog yard.
On that note pig and chicken manure are high in nitrogen and will make a good compost for fertilizer.
Two cows would consume quite a bit of feed and need large quantities of water daily.
Only one calf will be produced in a year and if something happened to it the cycle is thrown off.
It takes 13 months for a calf to mature to breed if it is a heifer and then 9 months gestation.
Too much of a gamble to rely on for a sustaining food source.
Just a few thoughts...grew up on a dairy farm so am familiar with the process.
I am thinking about the Irish Potato Famine. What went wrong there, storeys of whole family's starving to death. May not hurt to read as much as possible about that tragedy.
Russia and the Famine they had 100 years ago, why, how did it start.
We have to look backward in time to learn the lessons of what to avoid.
As much as the climate changes year to year, the new crop diseases and the bug problem farmers will have a problem planting crops and protecting them with all organic growing.
Critter control -----In a box my mom found these weird whale bone thingamajigs that had been carved and were about 3 inches long. The contraption was so old had yellowed through the ages to look like the teeth of an old man that smokes every day.
We were naturally very curious as the item was too big to be used as earrings. Mom went on the hunt and found out what this item was used for.
Finally after a few months we found out we had an 18 century flee catcher. Seems that men and woman would place a few drops of blood inside and the flees on their body's would run into the device for supper.
These absolutely beautiful carved flee catchers were hung from belts and both sexes placed them in their hats.---------Strange that these catchers we had had Asian carvings on them---someone in the family had brought them home on a sailing ship, I have never seen anything like them and the pair now live at the Peabody Museum in Mass.
I have an old bright red well pump I bought for the garden, but I know how to use one and if I needed water from a well all I would need is a pipe attached and one cup of water to prime the sucker and all the water one needs.
Keep the old gray cells working, first know your capabilities what can you actually do, what is laying about the house that could be put to some valuable use-----like cast iron cook ware.
Just remember the food source if animal, it has to be fed and cared for. With the snow up to our Butts if we have chickens and nothing to feed them------
How does one make bread withour Yeast or fat.?
Refrigeration is a huge problem, this is a very very new invention----Smoking, jerking, salting and other forms of perserving food, can you do any of the above .?
Light on the inside of whereever you live, where is that coming from.?
You can have 40 acres of wheat but with no knowledge into how to turn it into flour what now.?
I hate to say this but from reading old medical texts, the big killer was back then WORMS. Oh Yuck. Kids today still get pin Worms's memory here ----Woman in the late 1900 actually swallowed tape worm eggs for weight control.
Read everything you can about the things that bedeviled humans in the past because these things will be there to make you miserable in what ever age you are in.
