A New Face for the Old Place – The Old Homestead Gets a New Champion

Since we’ve both been working off the farm, it’s been awhile since we’ve posted here. We’ve taken a breather from hog shares and CSAs to get a feel for where we really want to go with the place, to work on our infrastructure and hardscaping, and to dig into the work of making this home a place we’re proud to pass on to our daughter when the time comes. With help from the whole extended family, the house has gotten a major foundation repair, significant carpentry on the outer walls, a new paint job and columns, and a complete kitchen remodel. It’s been a blessed time in so many ways. We’ve added fruit trees to the orchard, a circular herb garden in the side yard, and a new garden patch by donkey’s lot.

New Directions

Our daughter is growing up and taking off. At eleven, she’s developed an interest in homesteading all on her own. She’s spent the whole summer raising chicks for a 4-H project and is now selling eggs herself. She does the majority of the work on her own… feeding, cleaning, providing fresh hay for the next boxes, collecting eggs, washing and boxing. Now, she’s ready to expand to rabbits! Updates to follow, y’all. Pray for her parents!

We’ve decided to spend the next year exploring what homesteading means and how we can move in that direction. It’s a big word with lots to unpack, and like anything in this world it means different things to different people. For us, starting small, it means making more and wasting less, growing or raising what you can, and being careful with our energy use and choices. Being good stewards of the earth.

Humble Beginnings

We’re starting small – for her birthday I gave her a subscription to Annie’s Hook & Needle Kit Club. This month we’re crocheting dish cloths for the kitchen. She’s already quite a steady knitter – simple knit-only fabric for now, but her stitches are getting more and more even and regular. Maybe most important, she’s already learning to pick up dropped stitches and both see and fix mistakes – she’s a natural. We’ll probably be making these for holiday gifts this year, along with our canned goods and most likely some cookies and candy.

For now, we’re exploring what other actions we want to take this winter: shoring up fences and building hutches, preparing for springtime livestock. Splitting and carrying firewood, making candles, cutting down on our uses of central heat and electric light. Making this winter’s presents instead of buying. We’ll blog here as we go along – it’s going to be a wild ride!