Join us online!

You may have noticed that we did not have the homesteading conference this year. We know it's tough for homesteaders to travel because they have to find a farm sitter, so we've decided to focus our efforts on online education. In March, the Thrifty Homesteader Academy opened with its first course, Goats 101, which includes more than seven hours of videos that cover the basics of owning goats, from purchasing and housing to health, nutrition, and parasite information.

Because copper deficiency is a serious problem for so many goat owners, there is a FREE course on Copper Deficiency in Goats, which includes three videos, articles, and handouts that can be printed out for easy reference. Each lesson includes a discussion board where you can ask questions, which will be answered by me, Deborah, based upon solid research on goat nutrition.

In June, we launched a course in soapmaking called Coming Clean: How to Make Toxin-Free Soap Without Breaking the Bank. Although you could easily spend hundreds of dollars when you get started making soap, this course will provide a road map for spending far less. You won't need to buy soap molds or a $300 soap slicer, and you'll learn how to scent your soap with essential oils without spending a fortune.

We are currently beta testing a course on parasites for sheep and goat owners, which includes interviews with the top parasite researchers in the country. And we will also be adding a course on homestead businesses in the near future.

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Goat workshops & cheese & soap making classes

Antiquity Oaks Farm near Cornell, IL, will be hosting Goats 101 from 9 a.m. to noon and Goat Breeding & Birthing from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 26. Goats 101 will include information about housing, fencing, nutrition, mineral deficiencies, parasites, FAMACHA, deworming, dewormer resistance, hoof trimming, and how to give medication to a goat.

In the afternoon, Goat Breeding and Birthing will cover signs of heat, pen breeding vs. hand breeding, pregnancy, signs of labor, birthing difficulties, feeding kids, dam raising vs bottle raising, and special challenges with kids regarding parasites and nutrition. Because much of the afternoon's information is dependent upon knowing what was covered in the morning, anyone who wants to attend the afternoon class must have attended the morning class or must have read Raising Goats Naturally.

Cheesemaking

Stretching mozzarella

Cheesemaking Basics will be held Sunday morning, March 27, from 9:30 a.m. to noon. You will see a demonstration of how to make mozzarella and queso blanco, and we'll discuss how these cheesemaking processes are similar or different from other types of cheeses. You will also learn what type of equipment you'll need to make more complicated cheeses.

Soapmaking

Learn to make cold process soap in the afternoon from 1 to 3 p.m. We will be making goat milk soap, but we will also explain how you can do it with water. You will see every step of the soapmaking process from beginning to end. You will also receive a bar of soap to take home and use.

You can attend classes individually or all four. Click here for more information about the classes and to register.

We're ready! Are you?

Here are the last minute details for this weekend ...

Walk-in registrations will be accepted for the conference on Saturday, but Sunday's Goat Workshop is full.

We've had a lot of rain today, so be sure to bring waterproof shoes or boots because we will be walking around the farm for several sessions. Also, do NOT park on the grass because you will get stuck. We will have someone available to tell you where to park, but the important thing is to stay on the gravel driveway.

Remember that GPS cannot find the farm, so you need to use Mapquest to find us. We will also have signs on the corners of our road, so you'll know when you're getting close. And there will be signs at the end of our driveway also.

Learn about mobile poultry housing

This past spring, we purchased a 20-year-old construction trailer and turned it into a mobile hen house. Being a construction trailer, it had essentially been an office in the past, so it was just an empty room -- or two, actually. So, we removed the wall that had separated the trailer into two rooms, and we replaced one of the outer walls that had rotting wood. 

We added roll-out nest boxes, so we could collect eggs from outside, and we added roosts. After this picture was taken, we also added a hanging feeder in the middle of the hen-mobile, and we put a metal garbage can in the corner to hold the chicken feed so that we don't have to carry it outside for every feeding. We keep the waterer outside so that the inside stays cleaner.

If you attend the conference on Saturday, you will be able to get up close and personal with the new hen-mobile during the "Mobile Chicken Housing" session at 10:15.

You will also be able to see the chicken tractors that we use for raising younger chickens and turkeys, and you will even have the opportunity to move one. It took us four models to get it right, and most people are surprised at how easy this type is to move. In fact, children were moving it this summer during Nature's Farm Camp.

Click here to register for this year's conference.

Early bird discount ends tonight!

Today is the last day to receive the early bird discount on your registration. If you register by midnight, you'll receive $10 off the regular price.

This year's conference is being held at Antiquity Oaks Farm. Most of the sessions are live demos or hands-on. We will be walking around the farm to learn more about fencing and mobile poultry housing options. You'll see how to make tinctures and salves, and you'll walk around and discover what weeds are edible and which ones can be used medicinally. You'll even see the canning and wine making process from beginning to end. Click on the "Schedule" link to learn more.

If you are coming from out of town, you can camp on the farm Friday or Saturday night at no additional charge, but reservations are required. Just contact us to let us know which nights you'll be staying and when we can expect you. There is parking for two RVs and plenty of room for tents.

Schedule and speakers posted for 2016

This year's conference will be held at Antiquity Oaks Farm, and we're breaking away from most of the PowerPoints and lectures and doing more demonstrations and experiential sessions.

That means we'll be walking through the pastures to see and handle the fencing while we talk about which fences work best for which livestock and which ones should be avoided. We'll actually pick up, move, and re-install portable electric fencing.

You'll get up close and personal with four different types of mobile poultry housing, including a new hen-mobile.

We'll be canning seasonal produce, walking through the woods to learn about edible weeds, and making tinctures and salves. We'll even be making wine, so you can see and experience what it means to "rack" the wine or degas it.

You'll also get to see a cob oven and learn how it was built while firing it up and baking in it.

We are still working on the session descriptions, but registration is open. The early bird discount of $79 is available until July 31, but because we're holding the conference on the farm, we have to limit registration to only 30 people, so register early to be sure you'll be able to attend.

Click here to register today!

Mark your calendars for the 2016 conference!

This year's conference will be held the weekend after Labor Day -- Saturday, September 10 -- and we will have homesteading workshops on Sunday, September 11. Both days will be held on Antiquity Oaks Farm, northeast of Cornell, IL and west of Odell, IL, off I-55.

Many thanks to everyone who responded to our survey! We are now working on scheduling classes and workshops. If you have anything in particular you'd like to learn about, leave your suggestions in the comment section.

Opinions, please!

We are in the early stages of planning the Fifth Annual Mid-America Homesteading Conference, and we've decided to shake things up a little. The first four conferences were held at Joliet Junior College on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend with post-conference workshops on Sunday at Antiquity Oaks Farm. Each year we received messages from people who said they'd love to come, but they couldn't make it on Labor Day weekend. Others have suggested that we have the conference on an actual homestead. So, we're asking you ...

• When do you want us to hold the conference?
• Where?
• What do you want to learn?
• How much time do you want to spend learning about each topic?

Click here to take our short 6-question survey and let us know what you think!

Are you ready for the Homesteading Conference this weekend?

Yes, the conference is Saturday, which is less than three days away! If you haven't registered yet, you can do it online until 5 a.m. Saturday. You can also pay with cash or credit card at the conference.

Your conference registration fee includes a continental breakfast, buffet lunch, drinks, and snacks. Since we got such rave reviews for last year's lunch, which was catered by Chipotle, we're doing it again. There will be plenty of options for omnivores, vegetarians, gluten free eaters, and other dietary preferences. If you have questions about their food, visit their website for a full list of non-GMO ingredients.

Photo copyright Joliet Junior College

There will be signs, pictured above, starting on Houbolt Road to help you find the conference in T-building. When you walk in the doors, pictured here, you will see the conference center immediately on your left.

Need directions to the college? Click here!

Need a hotel? Click here!

Want to take another look at the schedule and start planning which sessions you want to attend? Click here!

And if you are considering one of our post-conference workshops, there is still space available in both of them, although only three spaces left in the goat workshop. Click here for more info.

Yes, the conference is happening!

Thank you to everyone who registered over the last few days! The conference will be happening. I guess a lot of people are just waiting a little longer to register this year.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be giving you more information about our sessions, our speakers, and the locally grown lunch we're planning, which will be better than ever!

Thinking of attending? Please read this!

When the early bird discount deadline passed on Friday, our registration numbers were less than half of what they normally are at that time. Historically we have not had that many registrations in August, so we are considering canceling the conference. We don't know why the registration numbers are so low this year, although we have a few theories. So, we have a couple of favors to ask of you.

1. If you are planning to come, please register now. If you wait, there may not be a conference because we can't risk the financial loss of moving forward with the current number of attendees. 
2. If you are not planning to attend, would you mind letting us know why? 

If we have to cancel this year's conference, we will probably not be doing it again in the future because we can't afford planning a conference that doesn't happen. If you have already registered, no worries! Hopefully, we'll get enough registrations to move forward. If not, we will refund everyone's fees 100% through Eventbrite.

What about the workshops? 
The Goat Workshop will continue as scheduled, although the Poultry Processing Workshop will have to be canceled because the speaker is coming from Virginia, and we won't be able to bring her out here just for the workshop.

We will be making a decision by Friday night, so if you were planning to attend, don't delay. Register now!

Early bird discount deadline is tonight!

Save $10 off the regular price of $89 if you register today!

Imagine yourself becoming more self-sufficient! At the fourth annual Mid-America Homesteading Conference, you can choose from 18 sessions throughout the day. Learn how to keep chickens, raise goats naturally, forage for mushrooms, vermicompost, and how to make things from scratch. You'll see live demos and learn to make mozzarella, soap, lip balm, and herbal tinctures.

You'll also get the opportunity to network with like-minded individuals who are already doing what you want to do.

As one of last year's attendees said, "Bring questions -- the friendly speakers are happy to answer them."

Click here to register!

Chicken whisperer Pat Foreman speaking this year

Author Pat Foreman will be presenting three sessions during the conference on Saturday at the college and a full-day workshop on Sunday at Antiquity Oaks Farm, thanks to a sponsorship by New Country Organics.

Pat is a sustainable agricultural author, local foods advocate and popular speaker. She graduated from Purdue University with degrees in Pharmacy and Agriculture (Animal Science, genetics and nutrition). She earned a Masters of Public Affairs (MPA) from Indiana University’s Graduate School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Pat has kept poultry for over 25 years, and has experience ranging from backyard homestead flocks to owning and operating a small-scale farm with free range, organic layers, broilers and turkeys. The commercial operation included keeping breeder flocks, incubating eggs, pasturing poultry and finished processing.

Pat is the author of the paradigm-shifting book, City Chicks: Keeping Micro-flocks of Chickens as Garden Helpers, Compost Makers, Bio-reyclers, and Local Food Producers.
She is co-author of three books:

• Chicken Tractor: The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil, Homestead (3rd) Edition 
• Day Range Poultry: Every Chicken Owner's Guide to Grazing Gardens and Improving Pastures
• Backyard Market Gardening

She is the developer of the Chickens and You Training Series leading to the Master Backyard Chicken Keeper Certification.

On Saturday, she'll be presenting:

Chicken Whispering: Discovering the Chicken You Never Knew
There are ways to handle and communicate with chickens that can result in trust, gentleness and even an emotional bond. But first you must learn how a chicken thinks, and prefers to be treated. It’s sometimes not what you think. Some birds can even be trained to serve as therapy chickens and classroom assistants. Get close and personal with your biddy buddy. Learn the basics of chicken whispering in this cutting-edge, hands-on, nose-to-beak workshop.

Garden Chicks: Growing Food With and For Chickens
This cutting-edge, ever-expanding, interactive workshop gives you practical, and effective ways to employ chickens in your garden or homestead. Learn how chickens create and enrich topsoil. Understand that not all chicken feed has to come from bags. Learn how chickens forage—and which food they prefer. Use your yard as a mini-pasture (including rotational grazing systems) to build soil fertility, provide fresh graze. Control insects, including ticks and fleas. Integrate different types of fencing by understanding what works, and what doesn't. Jump start your gardens with chicken-assisted biomass recycling that transforms trash into black gold. Begin birdscaping, which is planting trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals that your flock will perpetually love. Best of all, we will talk about getting truly wholesome, nutritious, non-GMO homegrown food for both you and your flock. This is truly a “Think Outside the Coop and Inside Local Food Systems“ workshop.


Primary Poultry Healthcare & The Poultry Pharmacy 
Learn the essential of preventative disease management that utilizes proactive care to keep your flock healthy. You will learn about considerations for housing, air quality, feed, water and special challenges that you might face with your flock. You will learn how to treat the most common diseases as well as wounds and trauma. Includes hands-on administration of treatments and wound care. Learn how to use or make simple, but effective treatments without prescription drugs. This workshop teaches you what you need to know to avoid most veterinary bills.

On Sunday, she'll be presenting a hands-on workshop ...

Home Processing Using Tools You Already Have or Can Make
Learn how to humanely, safely, sanitarily and skillfully process your birds. What to do with those roosters and older hens? Get healthy, high-quality meat and bone broth from your backyard flock.
Topics include:
 • The power of knowing your meat source, how it was raised, fed and processed
 • The sacred significance of taking a life—so that you can live
 • The science & chemistry behind skilled meat processing
 • Processing equipment that you have—or could easily borrow
 • Hand plucking made fun
 • Super simple evisceration & an educational anatomy lesson
 • Nutritional differences of meat from heritage vs. commercial breeds
 • Cold shorting & effective freezer packaging for long-term storage

Processing your own chickens for family food is a lost art of our culture. It’s time to bring back this old tradition and combine it with new techniques so that poultry processing becomes common knowledge in homes and communities.

To learn a little more about Pat, check out this video:

Two post-conference workshops this year

In response to requests to actually get on the farm for hands-on learning, this year we are adding a second post-conference workshop on Sunday. Speaker and author Patricia Foreman will be presenting a workshop on home processing of poultry. Pat will start out in the farmhouse with a discussion on processing in the morning. After lunch, everyone will be moving outside for actual chicken processing, which you can watch, or if you prefer, actually get some hands-on experience under Pat's supervision. Click here for more details!

The always popular goat workshop will be repeated again. Attendees will come face-to-face with goats and walk through the barn and pastures to learn about care, housing, fencing, feeding, nutrition, health, breeding, and birthing. You will also get a quick lesson in milking and in making mozzarella and goat milk soap.

Each workshop is $89. The goat workshop is limited to only ten participants and has always sold out. The chicken workshop is limited to twelve participants, and as this is the first year, we are expecting it to fill up fast, so register soon to avoid missing out.

Reminder -- register for the Saturday conference by July 31 and save $10 off the regular price of $89!

Conference schedule finalized!

We are very excited to announce that the schedule for the 2015 conference has been finalized. In addition to some beginner-level topics, this year we are also providing some in-depth sessions presented by experts, which provide more advanced information. Here are just a few of the speakers and topics this year.

Patricia Foreman, author of City Chicks: Keeping Micro-flocks of Chickens as Garden Helpers, Compost Makers, Bio-reyclers, and Local Food Producers, will be presenting three sessions on chickens:

• Chicken Whispering: Discover the Chicken You Never Knew
• Garden Chicks: Growing Food With and For Your Chickens
• Primary Poultry Healthcare & The Poultry Pharmacy

Dr. Jennifer Miller is a veterinarian, FAMACHA instructor, and boer goat breeder, and she'll be presenting a session on Non-Chemical Parasite Control in Small Ruminants.

Richard Hungerford, a certified rangeland specialist who presented at our first conference in 2012 is back to present an in-depth session on fencing for livestock.

Donna O'Shaunessy, former owner of South Pork Ranch, will be talking about how to build a house out of grain bin, as well as how to create and run your own on-farm store.

And in response to last year's attendees, Wes King of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance will again be talking about the legal requirements to sell your homegrown products, including new and upcoming legislation that have changed or will change some of the rules.

Click here to see the complete schedule!

The faces and story behind the conference

by Deborah Niemann

Deborah speaking at the Mother Earth News Fair in Pennsylvania

People sometimes ask who exactly puts the conference together, so here's our story. Back in 2010, the folks at Mother Earth News Magazine decided to have their first ever "Fair" for homesteaders in Pennsylvania. I was one of the lucky people asked to speak at that event, and it changed my life in many ways. For starters, I met the folks at New Society Publishers and began writing books for them. The other thing that happened that weekend was that I realized that there were thousands of people in the world like me! In my little corner of Illinois, our family is quite the anomaly, as we are surrounded by conventional corn and soybean fields. The organizers and speakers at that event were overwhelmed by the attendance, which topped out at about 12,000 for the weekend. Apparently there were a lot of people who were excited to get more information about this lifestyle!


The following year, there were two fairs -- one again in Pennsylvania and one in Washington State. And by the time the PA fair rolled around again, the folks at Mother Earth News had decided to declare September as International Homesteading Education Month, and they were encouraging others to start having events in their areas. One of the things they kept hearing was that there were many people who wanted to attend such events, but they simply could not travel very far to do so. As soon as I heard about Homesteading Education Month, I started planning the first Mid-America Homesteading Conference for September of 2012.

We decided to have the event at Joliet Junior College because my husband, Mike Boehle, is a professor there, so he knows his way around, understands the technology, and knows who to contact for what. It shortened the learning curve for us in terms of the venue. They were also willing to let us cancel at the last minute in case no one registered. (Thankfully, that was never a problem!) I then began searching for speakers and creating a schedule, as well as this entire website and our Facebook page. Sounds simple enough, right?

It turned out to be a LOT more work than I expected! A couple of enterprising people contacted me and asked if we needed any volunteers the day of the event, and I said yes, which was a very smart move because when the whole thing was done, I realized the day would have been complete chaos without their help.

Cathy Lafrenz speaking at the 2012 conference

The conference officially falls under the umbrella of our farm's educational program. Antiquity Oaks started as our family's homestead, but as our children have grown up and moved away, our focus has turned to educating others through on-farm classes, books, online blogs and webinars, and through this conference. Although most of our educational offerings feature my husband or me as the instructor, the conference is an opportunity for us to bring other speakers to the area, including other published authors and homesteaders who bring additional knowledge and experience to the table.

Putting the conference together is truly a labor of love, and each year at the end of the day, as we are chatting with speakers and attendees, we are reminded of why we keep doing it. It's educational, inspiring, and just plain fun! And as we are working on our fourth annual conference, we hope to continue doing it for many years to come!

Registration for this year's conference is now open.

And the winner is ...

Kristin is the winner of the $20 gift certificate for the conference bookstore.

We are still working on firming up the last couple of speakers for this year's conference, although we do have a partial list of speakers available on the speaker page of the website so you can see who has already confirmed.

Confirmed sessions this year include:

• Value-added products with livestock
• Fencing for livestock
• Non-chemical parasite control in sheep and goats
• Raising goats
• Permaculture
• Wild mushrooms
• Legally selling farm products
• Vermicomposting

And our DIY track is especially exciting, as you'll learn how to:

• Build a grain-bin home
• Make and use medicinal herbs
• Make cheese
• Make goat milk soap
• Make lip balm
• Create and run an on-farm store

Registration now open for 4th annual conference!

You can now register for the Fourth Annual Mid-America Homesteading Conference, and if you register by midnight, Friday, May 8, you'll be entered into a drawing and could win a $20 gift certificate for the conference bookstore, where you can buy books on permaculture, beekeeping, animal husbandry, or dozens of other topics, as well as goat milk soap, lambskins, and Shetland wool rugs, roving, or yarn. We'll also have cheesemaking supplies (rennet, citric acid, cultures, and cheesecloth) again.

Although the schedule is not complete yet, it will be within a few days. We've already confirmed sessions on:

• Legally selling farm products
• Raising goats
• Raising chickens
• Intro to Permaculture
• Fencing
• Parasites in sheep and goats
• Mushrooms

We will also have live demonstrations so you can learn how to ...

• Make soap
• Make mozzarella
• Make lip balm

And that's only about half of the sessions. Keep an eye on the website over the next couple months as we give you details on the topics and the speakers we'll have at this year's conference.

Click here for the registration form! And remember, registration is fully refundable up until July 31.

Video recap of 2014 conference

If you're wondering what it's like at one of our conferences, this video gives you an idea ...

Mark your calendars for the Fourth Annual Mid-America Homesteading Conference

The 2015 Homesteading Conference will be at Joliet Junior College on Saturday, September 5. The schedule is already taking shape as we have confirmed sessions on livestock fencing, value-added products with sheep and goats, raising goats, making soap, and more.

If you have ideas or suggestions for speakers or topics, let us know!

The Hampton Inn will again be the conference hotel. They are offering us a special rate of $109 per night. For more details, check out the hotel page of our website.

Early bird conference registration will open May 1.