Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

The spreadsheet in isolation view does seem odd to farming types.

We have chickens, my father's still looking after them and he's had chooks since his birth in 1935 .. along with at least 10 fruit trees on any property we've had, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, herbs, pumpkins, and all the usual stuff that you can sow and that grows pretty well on its own (we've all had other jobs .. but this all stems from either growing acres of grain in some wings of the family or raising cattle in remote parts of Australia far from regular shops).

Point being, chickens do well on picking through big piles of rotting down compost from everything else so feed costs are low, return on having chicken shit turned into soil that can be used for the next garden bed is high, value of having bugs kept in check is saving on sprays, etc.

By all means keep a spreadsheet, I'm fond of them also, but having had chooks for decades we see them more as an integrated component of a bigger picture.

Your post got me thinking about where I am right now in my life. We’re planning how we want to retire and recently bought an old home that has a smattering of produce trees. Citrus, olives, figs, and walnuts. Learning how to deal with them (with help from the neighbors) has been stressful, but also very satisfying after mainly being in front of a computer for 20+ years.

The ideal flow is investing a lot of time in (say) the first two or three years (three full season cycles gives you a fair amount of exposure) getting the swing of watering, planting, sowing, gathering waste, etc.

With any luck you can then transition into barely spending an hour at most a day (on most days) keeping things ticking along .. bursts of weeding, pruning, turning soil as needed and letting the plants do the work.

It's good steady exercise keeping on top of a substantial but "small" home garden but it doesn't have to suck up all your time once you get the swing of it.

I'm fortunate the prior owners have most things setup. They were older so some of the maintenance around trimming is behind, but I am learning. My problem now is, I don't know what to do with all the oranges. I've been giving them to the local restaurants in town, but I don't think they even want any more. Good problem to have I guess :) Next up is learning how to make marmalade.

You should have a deep chest or big standing freezer away from the kitchen for long term storage .. somewhere cool that it can do fine in for six hours+ if you lose power.

Oranges, yep - marmalade (castor sugar + other stuff, and jars) OR skin | cut away peel and pulp, save juice and freeze for later in the year; drinking ot adding to cakes, etc.

Lazy cooking == slow cookers once every two weeks or so, make a lot of vegetable stir fry and pacage and freeze, chicken and vegetables ditto. If you use tomato stock | paste for these batch meal preps then always get a standard jar and save those in a jar cupboard for reuse for orange jam, fig jame (also look into glace figs, etc).

Keep that up and you'll be living like a 1930's off grid veteran in no time ;-)

I've learned that they are Seville oranges which are apparently great for marmalade/marmalata, ok for juicing, but can't really be eaten raw.

I also have to say how awesome it is when I'm cooking and need a lemon so I walk outside and pick one off the tree. Harvesting and pressing olive oil for the first time in the coming fall will be interesting.

> Keep that up and you'll be living like a 1930's off grid veteran in no time ;-)

The house is old enough and lacking enough modern features that it already feels a bit like 1930s haha

Thanks for the conversation!