RE: Making junk useful at Bobblehead Homestead.
@bobbleheadstead I love your ideas. I have a couple of suggestions for you to consider. First, you need a safe place to stay both at night and during bad weather. In my opinion that should be your first concern. Closing off the bedroom in the old house if one possibility. The second one you mentioned was the RV thing. It could be used as your primary dwelling while you build what you want. Then you could add it to your "glamping" area as either extra storage, or rent it out along with the yurts. More income would be good as well. Second, you could try to "domesticate" those wild chickens. If they have been there, unattended, for a while they are capable of existing without supervision. Wonder how they make it in cold weather. You might be able to get them to become "your" chickens by building an easy and cheap coop, placing food inside in bad weather, or beside the entrance. They would probably go inside to escape the weather. Voila, Instant flock. Great post and I love the videos.
Thank you for your thoughts, it helps me sort through my own. I'd like to have a space to sleep and be in the front of the computer that is temperature controlled and bug free, I certainly agree that's my first choice. Where I put the money to do that is the question.
Once I get the junk out I'll see what it would take to do that with the smaller front bedroom. Window A/C and an electric heater should be good enough, and then seal off any places bugs can get in around the window or under the door. I'm hoping that won't be a big deal, but we'll see.
If I do that in the mobile, I will also have to worry about my cooking area and kitchenware and food storage and coffee maker having bugs. I'll need to keep stuff in plastic totes and put the coffee maker in my room. That stuff I wouldn't need to worry about in an RV.
For an RV I'd need to hook it up to electric and water and send the grey water where I want it to go, but that is taken care of in the mobile for now. I have to do a composting toilet no matter what. I'll also need to figure out a winter shower/bath in the mobile that I won't need to do in an RV. It's a hard choice.
One worry I have about an RV long-term, is that for the $3,000 price range I'd look at, they aren't in very good condition. I'm afraid it wouldn't be nice enough to rent out later without putting more money into. I did see a vintage AirStream for $2,500 that needed a complete renovation, I think something like that would be more appealing for glamping than an old regular camper. But maybe if the price is right, there are some who wouldn't mind an old regular camper. When I checked AirBnB there was only one listed within a few minutes of Blue Mountain Lake, and it was a whole house for $125/night.
If the chickens are still around I'll definitely start feeding them and making sure they have water. That will be before winter. Then I'm not sure what I will do with them, I'll have to get to know them. The winters down here aren't bad, there's rarely snow on the ground for more than couple days, but I'll probably build a coop for them to use.
I would like to pick a heritage breed and try my hand at continuing and making that breed better with selective breeding and hatching lots of eggs. A few of the best examples of the breed are kept, and I'll sell the pullets and the roosters nobody wants will go to the freezer. In theory, anyway. Picking the breed will be another fun choice.
I appreciate the support, thanks again.