THIS is How We Homestead
I wanted to copy over some original posts from my old website and thought this was a good one to include as it tells you a little of who I am and how this all got started...
Hi guys! I'm Luana and my hubby is Lucas. We are starting on a new adventure and wanted to take you along! This is how we homestead which I know you will find quite different from most others out there who are way more experienced and actually know what they are doing!
A lot has changed in life in the past couple of years, but the biggest change for me happened when my youngest daughter got married last spring. I was a sudden empty-nester (yeah I saw it coming but NOTHING could prepare me for how I was gonna feel!!) and it took a hot minute for that to sink in...and it took even longer for me to be ok with it. I guess one thing that helped was to keep myself occupied and since I had just started an aeroponics garden a few months before she got married, once the season was over, I decided to try my hand at raised bed gardening for the next season, Spring 2023.
And so began a new adventure of me learning all kinds of things. Hubby is super happy with this decision because he grew up gardening and wanted a garden here but I had refused to even try (that's a story for another time). He also tried making kombucha and then quit...again because of time. I knew his family preserved food every year, but nope...not interested.
So, what changed?? Honestly, I don't know. But I enjoy learning new things, and I am always looking for ways to be healthier, so all of this just seemed like the logical thing to do. That, along with the cost of produce going up every day, and it was a no brainer. I have to grow my own food so I can afford to eat it since I want to eat more of it. Homesteading became a thought....one that I knew I wasn't going to be able to follow through with.
Homesteading...
So what exactly is homesteading anyway? I remember asking that question about 3 1/2 years ago when a friend of mine mentioned to me that her son and his wife were going to buy land so that they could homestead. I had never heard of it before!! It seemed so foreign at the time, but now it makes SO much sense. According to homebiogas.com, "Modern homesteading refers to a self-sufficient lifestyle—living autonomously, with minimum help from others. In a nutshell, it includes subsistence agriculture, renewable energy sources when possible, home preservation of food, zero-waste living, and, depending on your skills, even homeschooling, and craftwork."
Yup, this kind of new adventure makes sense for so many reasons. But for the majority of us, it is either not achievable or undesirable. I mean, not everyone is cut out for farming, and raising animals, and preserving food. And I know a lot of moms out there tried their best to homeschool their kids during the recent pandemic...and it was just HARD! So what do you do? Give up before you even try?
...Not Exactly
Not ready for a homestead? Neither are we!!
We want to do all the homestead things, but other responsibilities limit our time. We also don't have a lot of land. But we thought, why not just do what we can? There is no reason why we can't make the best of what we have with the time that IS available and the land that we DO have. We don't have a farm, and we don't have chickens, but we do have dogs....3 crazy fur babies (which is why I won't have chickens LOL) and a back yard, a kitchen and the desire to learn! We even have a shop where hubby builds stuff.
Hope you all decide to tag along with us as we learn the ropes to this homesteading thing as best we can. Make sure to subscribe to our blog so that you will be notified every time a new post is made available. We are not professionals and will be sharing the good, the bad and the ugly as we go through the process so that you can learn from us and with us and share our successes as well as our mistakes. This is how WE homestead! So make sure to subscribe to our blog to see how we do!!
Don't forget to learn something new...and grow a little to!
Welcome to Homesteading...Not Exactly!