We’ve finally begun a new chapter of our life. Our homestead journey has officially begun! Although we are beginners at the large scale aspect of building a self sufficient home, we’ve been growing a small garden at our previous home and freezing as means of preserving our harvest. All and all, we’re very amateur at all this. Thank goodness for the World Wide Web! Since we’ve decided to make the leap at beginning a homestead from scratch, I felt this would be a good story to share as it plays out.
OUR (not so homestead-y) STORIES
My husband and I both grew in big cities. He grew up just outside of LA and I grew up in Virginia Beach. Our families were not homesteaders by any means. He gardened when he got older and i learned a lot of old fashioned skills like sewing and housekeeping.
We both realized at a young age that we wanted to be self sufficient, off grid ( as much as possible), sustainable, all those things. Then when we met, it was love at first sight and we knew we would build that life with each other.
I always hear this life, beginning a homestead, isn’t for the faint of heart or weak minded. This life takes courage and grit. This is the path God has put me on and I walk it with bare feet and steady hands.
WHY HOMESTEAD?
We’ll, the short answer is … WHY Not?!?
A more in depth version is because we want to live closer to the earth, in harmony with the land and seasons, which ultimately brings us closer to each other and God. We want to be self reliant and not have to depend on grocery stores to provide food for us.
We’re striving for a simpler life. Not necessarily and easy one, but and old fashioned, put on your boots, elbow grease life. One worked hard for.
WHERE TO START?!
First , we started with RESEARCH. A lot of of research. We made a list of all the food we want to grow and started a chart on spacing, depth, and companion planting.
We’re going straight into the earth with this garden so we made a very rough draft drawing of the layout of the garden. ( Pictures to come! )
So far it’s looking good! We’ll have plenty of space and maybe a bit more for my herbs and ornamental flowers.
Our next step is to obtain some local chicks.
Yes, we decided to start from chicks which I was against at first because 1. They don’t always survive 2. I’ve never raised chicks 3. That’s more babies for me to raise.
But it will be a fun experiment, and our toddler will love watching them grow up!
From there I take the reigns and learn to can and preserve all of our harvest. I’ve never canned anything before so this will be a fun challenge for me to take on! At our last house I was mainly freezing and dehydrating with the oven.
But our gardens were very small so we were able to eat most of the produce before it went bad.
Other ways to enter a more sustainable lifestyle would be farm shares, buying locally, and finding more bulk products for those items we can’t grow or raise ourselves yet (cow, oats, dairy, beans, etc).
A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best
Ralph Waldo Emerson- Self Reliance
MAKING THE HOMESTEAD HAPPEN
Honestly, I have no idea how we’re going to do all this. My best plan is to do one thing at a time, and slowly ‘chip away’ at the list. I’ve read many articles about homesteading with children and I’ve already rooted myself into that lifestyle being a homemaker with two children.
They NEED to be involved. It’s the only way to get anything done. It helps when they WANT to which always seems to be the case. Even for my four month old, he wants to see what we’re doing and be apart of it. He could care less about play gyms and development toys!
I still don’t know how I keep food on the table, clean the house, and cloth diaper my baby without going insane!
This is where our hearts lie. In nature. In self reliance. Our path has led us here on purpose and with purpose. I can’t wait to take on this journey!
Harmony with the land is like harmony with a friend
Aldo Leopold
Do you have any tips for us as we step into this new and excited adventure?!
