The Careful Planning of a Tiny House...or...The Size of My Shoe

Dear Farmer promised to build the Wife a tiny house in lieu of tent camping this year out at the garden.  The Wife has always loved tiny houses, we first started in one(see article: The Movement We Never Abandoned 2/23/2016 ) and the thought of being able to go back into one is a dream come to reality.
But exactly how to build a tiny house for a family of...ahem...thirteen?
Start by checking out the regulations for building a tiny house on wheels.  For a family of thirteen to live in the tiny house for an entire summer and fall...that size is SO not happening. He would need to build three tiny houses...but as we do not have three trailers, three vehicles to pull trailers, or three drivers. We quickly eliminate the wheels and trailer.
Now we are looking at building tiny house on skids.  This way house can be moved from location to location on site which makes the house an option for more uses.  If no one is residing in it, the house can become a storage shed, a studio, or even a chicken coop.
The tiny house will have two doors, two windows(actual double hung windows) and sleeping spots enough for thirteen.

But what happens to all the stuff you need?
Let's talk needs:
Food
Water
Clothing
Shelter

Those are all our basic human needs. Past that it's all luxuries.

The Wife has every intention of giving each child the luxury of electricity, internet, plumbing, fans, heat, and a small space for individual trinkets/toys.
Clothing will be kept in a mobile trailer that we will need to power-wash to get the stink of animals out of(the goats had lived there for a time) and Dear Farmer has plans to make it into a "family closet".
So far as washing those clothes go...a Laundromat isn't so bad, and if the Wife gets desperate to have her arms get a good workout, there's the clothing plunger and wringer secured on a tub.  Old Fashioned has a time and a place.
Now Dear Farmer is in the process of drawing up the plan for the tiny house for the Wife.  He estimates the size to be 10 x 20.
I guess for the summer the Wife will be the "...little old lady who lived in a shoe, she had so many children she didn't know what to do...".  Perhaps, like the Gilbreth Family (Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank and Ernistine Gilbreth) we will have to name the tiny house "THE SHOE".

Winterizing Water

Dear Farmer has been preparing for winter.  It seems it will come without our opinion on when or how much...So, Dear Farmer has placed the mobile coop in it's winter location(it can't move through snow) and placed hay bales around it so the cold wind doesn't blow so much through the floor.  And he's set up feeders for the hay to be dropped in, so it stays off the ground and snow.  Now he's making level ground for the water-tanks to sit on, installing heat-tape on hoses and heaters in tanks, so in the freezing temperatures, all the animals have water. The cows will lay out in the field, nibble on hay and lick snow, but they really enjoy a long drink of water!  The chickens will cuddle in the coop and peck the scratch and water nipples.  The goats keep us entertained with their antics and the children prefer to not have to bring them cups of water when they look thirsty. All the creatures need water all year long.
Have you ever thought to winterize your water?  Many people live in houses where pipes don't freeze in the super-cold northern winters.  But the animals don't have that luxury.  So, Dear Farmer is caring for them, doing what they cannot, and spending a week leveling ground and insulating water systems.  Farmers don't just twidle their thumbs and look at the sky when the weather turns cold.  There's still bunches of work to do.  Like figuring out how to get a drink of water to an animal in the middle of a freezing cold winter.

Waiting and Hoping for Hay

When the Wife was a child she could not have thought that as an adult seeding a hay field would be something she would be concerned about.  But she is finding that seeding this particular hay field is an "angst" in her wonderful world of agriculture.  This hay field has lain fallow for a year, so it first had to be disc-d, rock picked, disc-d again, rock picked, seeded, and then dragged.  This is what the Wife has learned this year:
Disc-ing has nothing to do with dancing, mathematics, or an Olympic event.  Disc-ing is where a tractor hooks up to an implement that looks to have dozens of round metal discs on end.  This implement in lowered to the ground and run over the ground.  It is not plowing, it is taking the ground and breaking it up, pulverizing the dirt, and preparing the dirt for seed.
Disc-ing the ground brings rocks to the surface.  No seed grows on rocks.  Rocks damage farm equipment and possibly Dear Farmer.  Rocks need to be removed.  They are best removed by a rock picker of some-sort.  There are rock pickers that you connect to a tractor, another in a long line of farm implements, and rock pickers can be people.  Manual labor tends to be more thorough and more testy.  The question here has to be answered, "Do I want to deal with people whining while picking rocks, or spend the money on a rock picker?"
The ground must be disc-d so many times because after the rocks are removed(each time) new ground is uncovered that must be broken and pulverized for planting.
Seeding is the act of planting seed.  There is forty pounds of seed needed per acre...the seed must be present before you can begin seeding.  Mice like to eat the seeds, so do other rodents, birds, and deer. To order seed years in advance is not wise.  It's like storing ice-cream in your freezer the day your baby is born for their third birthday...not only is it tempting for someone to eat it, but it will be no good in three years.
Seed must be ordered and delivered in a timely manner to get the seed planted.  Planting can only happen when the conditions are perfect.  Dry, but not too dry.  Warm, but not too warm.  Sun-shining, but not too sunshiny. Not too early, and not too late in the year.  And the planting will take time.  One full day, nothing else will get done.
After planting the field will need to be "dragged".  This is not something that is done with drugs, and it does not mean the work is boring.  A "drag" is a massive angry looking farm implement that is flat with spikes poking out of the bottom and possibly chains.  It looks more like a medieval torture device, being pulled behind a tractor.  It's heavy and nasty to delicately push the seed into the ground and dust the top over with dirt.  Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it?  Once the dragging is done...the name of the game is "Wait and Hope".  Wait for nature to do what it will with the seed.  And Hope it comes up and the field can grow into an amazing and lush hay mix.
This is what has happened to cause this particular field to be an "angst" in the Wife's life:
Dear Farmer went to disc...the disc broke down.  Three different times this happened!  It consumed three days of fussing with a broken implement for it to accomplish next-to-nothing! FINALLY Dear Farmer fixed everything to disc, job finally done.  Dear Farmer has had to cut other fields, care for other chores, and bale hay...while that was happening someone was to have picked the field.  Someone didn't, and didn't and finally did, and did it badly.  So Dear Farmer went to disc again, and broke the disc on rocks, and had rocks pelted at him...and sent people back to do a better job.  When they were finally done, it was late in the year. The weather was not perfect...Dear Farmer waited...and waited....and then he disc-d as quickly as he could. Then he sent people out to pick rocks...and they did an okay job. And it rained.  And the rain destroyed the job Dear Farmer had done of discing...and he had to disc again.  The disc was tired, and it did not want to work.  But Dear Farmer pushed it, eventually-in October-the job got done.  October is too late for planting, but Dear Farmer really had no choice.  He cannot keep the seed, which was ordered early in the year, through the winter.  So he planted the seed.  Then he called the help to drag the field...but the help decided to go home early that day(ARGH!).  So Dear Farmer went to bed...wondering...will the seed get wet before the help comes tomorrow to drag???  The help came to drag the field...and it's late in the year...it's cold and dry, blowing and overcast, and Dear Farmer really doesn't want to have to plant this field again.  The Wife really doesn't want to have to live through another year of planting this same field.  So...we are Waiting and Hoping that next year we will have a hay field with hay growing in it.

Dear Farmer vs. Ground Bees

Dear Farmer has two allergies...broccoli (which he didn't know existed before he married the Wife) and bees.  Prior to Dear Farmer being a full-time farmer the whole bee-allergy wasn't too big a deal.  Stay away from landscaping in the spring and fall and you're pretty good.  Now, however, Dear Farmer is always in the landscaping.  So, in the past five years Dear Farmer has gotten stung once each year...this year was no different. Dear Farmer isn't just allergic...it can be deadly. So, each year we arm the arsenal cabinet with a couple more new and exciting wonders "just in case".  The other day the Wife was thinking of the arsenal cabinet, and wondering if it was up to snuff  when the Farmer's Daughter came in with a puffy lip.  She had been stung!  Quick as a wink, her dear older sister zoomed and retrieved a beautiful bottle of essential oil and before we could do anything else, the oil was on the Farmer's Daughter's face and the swelling and sting was gone.  The Wife made mental note of the oil, looked in the cabinet and also made note of several other things missing which we would get on our next shopping trip.  Apparently Dear Farmer did not get the memo...today he was stung while moving the manure pile.  He ran inside shouting "STUNG, STUNG!" and tearing off his clothing.  The family went into action: the Baby was passed to the House Frau(Farmer's Daughter No.2), the Pied Piper of the Farm-boy Trio ran to get the bath salts, Honorable Son No.1(on his way home) retrieved the antihistamines,  and the Wife grabbed the oil.  Dear Farmer swelled and hived, but he was anointed and bathed quicker than you could imagine!  Pizza was ordered for dinner and Dear Farmer was breathing just fine.  Whew!  Crisis averted!  We're not challenging the bees to a duel, but if it happens again, we feel pretty prepared.