Introducing a Tractor Tools Direct Partnership with Piney Grove Homestead

You have probably noticed photos and videos from Piney Grove Homestead becoming more prevalent on our social media pages lately. That is because Brad and Deb of Piney Grove Homestead have partnered with us to provide feedback and footage of the use of TTD equipment on their small farm.

Seven years ago Brad and Deb started a journey towards building a homestead out of twenty acres of wild undeveloped land in North Florida. Their dream included having a variety of animals on their pastures, raising chickens, growing fish in their pond, gardening, and harvesting wild game. Their continuing goal is to escape the stresses of corporate life and embrace all that country living has to offer. Brad and Deb agreed to answer some questions about their lifestyle and homesteading goals in this month’s blog. Let’s learn a little more about them here in this interview-style blog.

Why did you decide to embark on homestead living?

Being very active people, we knew we needed to stay busy once we made our break from the corporate world. Living in a typical American neighborhood with a 9-5 job, we knew we didn’t want to be in that environment in the next phase of our lives. What better way to stay busy than to have land to upkeep and animals to care for?! After a one-year search, we found and bought 20 acres of undeveloped land in North Florida and have taken 7 years preparing it as our forever homestead. We are excited as this will allow us to live the life we want, raising animals, growing our own food and just enjoying the outdoors on our own piece of land.

What was your life like before making this decision?

We have a great life and are very blessed but like most Americans, we get up at 5am and work an 8-hour job and cram chores and other day-to-day responsibilities after work or on the weekends. We have a small yard and city limit rules, so there is little space for gardening and farm animals are not allowed. Having Piney Grove has allowed us to escape that on the weekend and work on our own land and build our future. We are much more excited to work on Piney Grove than to get up and go to our 9-5 job!

Describe your homestead. Acreage? Animals? Crops?

Piney Grove Homestead is our dream in the making. We started with a clean slate of 20 acres of raw land with planted pines (silviculture) and carved out a 5-acre pasture, a 30x50 garden, a ¼ acre pond and a 1-acre field for crops. Over 6 years, we have put in a driveway, underground power, a well, an equipment shed, a workshop, and an animal barn. We have most of the infrastructure in place for a modern homestead and in 2025 we will finish construction of our farm house and start living on the property full time. Once we're living on Piney Grove, we will establish our animal “herd”! Deb wants miniature farm animals to keep her busy and her wish list includes mini cows, mini horses, dwarf goats, alpacas and chickens!

Please briefly describe the steps you have taken to make your homesteading dream a reality.

The first step was doing our research and finding the property that fit our needs. We wanted a property not too far away from amenities like groceries, gas and medical, but yet felt like it was still in the country. Once we found our land, we had an environmental survey conducted to ensure we wouldn't have any restrictions due to endangered species, Indian burial grounds, or other issues that would preclude us from creating the “perfect” homestead we had pictured in our minds. We then mapped out the layout of the land for our house, equipment shed, barns and pastures and went to work! We made a prioritized list of all the improvements to be made, created a budget and every year made progress towards the end goal. We estimate we have about 1.5 years of our own labor time invested in the property on just weekends as we did as much of the work we could do by ourselves with our own equipment!

What has been your best homesteading memory thus far?

The best memory is just driving on to the property after purchasing it and looking at each other and saying “This is it…this is ours. What have we done?!!”. After that, getting clean drinking water after 2 failed well drilling attempts was a pretty emotional moment. And building our first structure, the equipment building we call the “Mega-Shed” would be 3rd!

What has been your most challenging homesteading experience thus far?

Part of our dream homestead is to have a farm pond stocked with fish. We had a pond dug 4 years ago and it doesn’t hold water. We’ve tried a few fixes but it still leaks….we intend to fix it in 2025 and then (hopefully) stock it with fish!

How did you hear about Tractor Tools Direct? Why did you choose to reach out to them for a partnership?

As social media content creators, we are always looking for products and equipment that will integrate well with the Piney Grove story. We borrowed some hay baling equipment and baled our own mini-bales last year which led us on a search for a hay equipment partner. Google led us to TTD and we felt their equipment would be a perfect match for our hay baling goals for future livestock. So far, we’ve been impressed with the IBEX equipment provided and can’t wait to feed our animals with hay that we grew and baled….right now we’re keeping our neighbor’s horses well fed!

So far, what is your favorite piece of TTD/Ibex equipment and why?

The IBEX TX31 mini hay baler with the drawbar and remote-control baling feature! We’ve only used it for one hay cutting so far, but the first bale was just as perfect as the last bale. We are really impressed with how simple it is to use, and it doesn’t require any hydraulic or electrical connection to the tractor pulling it….just PTO power!

What future goals do you have for your homestead? How do you see TTD/Ibex equipment helping you to achieve these goals?

As mentioned, 2025 will be our first year of living on the property full-time after working on it for 7 years. We plan to fill the barn with Deb’s animals, continue improving the garden, plant blueberries and fruit trees and put the finishing touches on everything to have an efficient working homestead. With the hay baling equipment we have from TTD, we are now self-sufficient when it comes to making hay for all the animals that will live on Piney Grove. We are also grooming our pine tree rows so we can harvest pine straw using the same hay baling equipment – we are excited to make our first pine straw bales! Going forward, we can see how a TTD flail mower can help keep the Piney Grove groomed and a power harrow would help growing crops in the garden and 1 acre field. Good reliable equipment is something needed by every homestead and so far we are impressed with the TTD/IBEX equipment!

Is there anything else you would like our customers to know about you, your homestead, or your relationship with TTD/Ibex Equipment?

One of the reasons we started posting videos on social media about “Piney Grove” was to show people that if we can do it, they can do it! We’ve learned so much over the past 7 years and enjoy sharing our journey and showing our successes – and failures! We invite everyone to join us on social media (YouTube and Facebook) and interact with us as we realize our dream of living on Piney Grove Homestead in 2025! Tractor Hard!

Check out these links to learn more about Piney Grove Homestead:

Sep 1st 2024 Marti Goodwin