I'm new to the forum, but with all the pranksters lately I thought I'd introduce myself. I've been receiving C.S. since 1985 and befor that blasted fire had all the issues back to 1970, plus a lot of other good old classics. My husband and I lived wthout electric for awhile refurbishing an old amish house, and his fathr is a retired carpenter. We've had goats for 7 years, also chickens, rabbits, we dabble in horses, cows, ducks, geese,etc. We have huge gardens each year, bake mostly from scratch. Our Five boys enjoy 4-h, and if my comments seem a bit blonde at times its from sleep depreviation from our five month old daughter. Anyhow we plan to farm our 40 acres with horse power and have a good start in that direction, like most homesteaders we know a lot (or a little) about just about everything! Sherrie & John of Clifton's Kids

-- Sherrie R. Clifton (Bryrpatch35@aol.com), November 24, 2001

Answers

Sounds like you have a great start!! I am so looking forward to doing the 4H thing with youngest son. Oldest wasn't interested...second son did FFA and third son not interested. The little one is only 5 but already shows alot of interest.......YAY! What sort of horses do you have? Do you already have draft horses? or plan to use reg size horses? I have always been very interested in draft horses, and would love to farm with them someday. Anyway....welcome!!!!!

-- Jenny (auntjenny6@aol.com), November 24, 2001.

Our Amish neighbor down the road is currently farming all our tillable, and he has talked about letting us borrow his aging team of grade drafts,(chunks)We hve a good sharing relationship with his family in this way we all profit from shared work, and land. We have a baby mule, and will rebreed her dam for a team. We got the mare for free as she has a bad bowed tendon shes and old contest horse AQHA, best temperent, and we made sure to imprint her jenny when it was born. Once we are more sure of what implements we will need we would like to get drafts I love Suffolks, We've been reading small farmers journal for fifteen years.

-- Sherrie R. Clifton (Bryrpatch35@aol.com), November 24, 2001.

where do you live?

-- (magpie@fsi.net), November 24, 2001.

Where do we live? northern indiana

-- Sherrie R. Clifton (Bryrpatch35@aol.com), November 24, 2001.

Cool.I was in Amish Country in August.Went to the Flea Market WOW was that fun.What town are you in?I have a cousin that lives in Nappanee.We were in Michigan for a week and drove down to Elkhart for the day. Well,my name is Lisa and I live in Zion,IL.I have been married for 11 yrs and am 29 yrs old.No kids yet. Are you on ICQ or intstant messenger?

-- (magpie@fsi.net), November 24, 2001.

welcome from a hoosier homesteader from the southerm end of the state (down here with the rest of the Amish)

-- grant (organicgrange@yahoo.com), November 24, 2001.

Welcome! We spend a lot of time in Northern Indiana around the Berne area. We live in NW Ohio. What animals do you think your youngest will want to show? My children show hogs and wool sheep and my daughter wants to show a horse nexy year. We have 4 Belgians that we farm 15 acres with. Would like to find more land, but it just isn't for sale yet. Good luck.

-- Joanie (ber-gust@prodigy.net), November 24, 2001.

Hi Sherrie. I'm a northern Hoosier too. I live near Lakeville (10 miles south of South Bend). Having a good relationship with Amish neighbors really helped my brother when he started out with draft horses in Wisconsin a few years ago.

-- Deb Foster (DFoster987@aol.com), November 24, 2001.

We live in North eastern Indiana as n and as e as you can go. My Kids hav shown rabbits, Chickens, Ducks, and Dairy goats, wth a reserve grandchampion one year in poultry. They would like to show startercattle too.

-- Sherrie R. Clifton (Bryrpatch35@aol.com), November 24, 2001.

Welcome Sherrie,

Sounds like we are pretty close neighbors. We live in NW Ohio, "almost" as far North and West as you can get.

We are still working on our old farmhouse. We have three young men (no girls), chickens, rabbits, gardens (veggetable and herb), plan on getting our first pigs this year and I am hoping for goats too. We only have two acres.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), November 25, 2001.