It’s hard to believe that we began our homesteading adventure over 10 years ago. We have learned a lot in that time – honing our gardening skills, raising chickens, processing our own venison, raising bees, building with reclaimed wood, and so much more. It’s been such an adventure!
But, it is time for us to move on. We lived up the hill from my in-laws for over 13 years and we are now moving to a new town. No, not the country this time, but in a smaller city…real close to a major highway. It’s a big move for us, but one that we’re looking forward to.
We have since sold our chickens and will be closing down the summer garden in the next month, but we will be starting a new adventure in a neighborhood. Will we change our homesteading ways? Some, but not giving them up entirely. In life we have learned to go with the flow, to bloom where we are planted, to use the resources we have available at the time, and to adapt to our surroundings. To me, that’s truly a homesteading way of life. It may not mean that you have 40 acres and a home you built yourself. It could mean living in the city, in a neighborhood, surrounded by people who may not understand what you’re doing or why. So, we now begin that next adventure. We’ll still garden and our bees will be kept nearby, and we’ll still be able to hunt and process our own venison. But, we’ll also learn new ways to be somewhat self-sufficient in the city. And who knows…perhaps we can teach our neighbors something (or learn something from them).
Stay tuned to our new journey. Check out our blog to see pictures of our new home!
Our Homesteading Adventure – Pre 2016
We began our homesteading adventure sometime during 2004 or 2005. Johnny’s grandmother, affectionally called Ma-Ma, told us about Countryside Magazine. We tore into the magazine whenever it came in the mail. We couldn’t wait to see what else we could do and what others around the country were doing on their properties.
We started out small and took on one project at a time: gardening, composting, canning (first with pickles and jams eventually leading up to stocks, beans, meats, etc.), hanging clothes out on the line, and now we’re looking into raising chickens and hogs. A few years into this new adventure Johnny realized that we could start salvaging building material from the new subdivision going in down the road. So, with permission from the builder, we took all the lumber they weren’t going to or no longer could use. We removed and straightened the nails and stored the lumber under our home. All our efforts eventually turned into a shed, front porch, a deck, a back porch and a playhouse. We salvaged more wood and that was used as siding and interior paneling on the new addition to our home. We have saved thousands of dollars simply by salvaging wood and reusing what others discarded.
Homesteading is not something we take lightly. My husband prefers to call it “country living”, not homesteading, as this is what our forefathers did before us. They used what they had or did without until they could afford it. They built their own homes, raised their own food and praised God through it all. This is what we aim to do with our country home.