A New Beginning, Part II (Video)

Here's the ending of one life and the beginning of another.

We bought our property more than a year before we were able to move onto it (Andrew was honoring his contract at work, and the Father knew in advance that we'd need the preparation time!!) so the anticipation of finally getting to moving day was intense. We had used the time we had left in our tiny Cityhouse to try to connect with the homesteading community online (they're awesome!) and learn as much as we were able, but it finally got to the point where the only way you can really keep learning is to GO and DO.

So we WENT. And can finally start DOING.

We loaded up a truck with all the belongings that we'd decided to take (so thankful that we spent the past year selling and donating as much of our stuff as possible!), put the obliviously happy gerbils in my car and the loudly protesting cat in Andrew's truck, got the baby comfortable, and closed the door to Cityhouse for the last time.

City Backyard (tiny, but beloved).

It didn't feel like a sad departing though: it felt like a beautifully timed, appropriate ending, like the last page of a book. Only this one was part of a series, and the next sequel has a really exciting cover.

Country "Backyard" (huge, and much to be discovered)

When we pulled up our hill and saw the fields and trees and barn, the feeling was incredible. Though we were very thankful for the time we were given in Ohio, there has been no mental or physical looking back. We just feel like we are, truly, HOME. Home, where the chorus of dozens of different birds, frogs, and crickets fills the air, home, where the smell of sun-warmed grass, wildflowers, and woodsmoke drift on the breeze, home, the only one our young son will ever really remember, home, where the evidence of a Creator's fantastic design are literally on every rock, leaf, and feather.

So now the Simple Life Homestead actually has a real, live, homestead!

We're currently living in a single-wide that was already on the property (these things are so much bigger on the inside than they look on the outside!)(...and I'd quote Dr. Who but I've only seen one episode so I'd feel like a poser), so we are happy to have a really nice "base camp" while we attempt to tackle our rather ambitious list of goals. Goals such as...

--Building a half-buried, timber frame house out of sustainable materials (with a greenhouse on the front!)
--Pasture-raising chickens, guineafowl, sheep, and a cow or two
--Growing and preserving enough food to get our family through each year
--Building an outdoor kitchen
--Using hugelkultur to install sustainable food forests on the sloped parts of the land
--Heal the land and make it a healthy habitat for all the native animals we share it with (check out the book Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepard for more on that!)
--Homeschooling our kids
--Making our own herbal medicine for most cases
--Install a rainwater harvesting system that will largely replace the well (so we can save the well water for emergencies)
--Processing wool from the sheep by hand to both sell and create usable items
--Get a dog
--Also bees!
--Get off grid/ Break free from all the systems
--Teach others what we're learning
--And lots more.
--Oh gosh.

It's easy for me to look at this list and feel intimidation try to creep around my shoulders, but we're resolved to just take it one step at a time. At least now we finally have the place to build the house, raise the animals, teach our family, and make all of our mistakes and discoveries. And we're excited to have these different platforms (like Steemit!) to engage with other exciting people who are finding what they really care about and going for it.

So, while we have lots of enthusiasm for the future, our set of skills will have to do a lot of work to grow and look into the eye of that enthusiasm. However, since we were both formerly teachers, we spent a lot of time learning how to learn. It's somewhat wonderful to turn back into a student again, but this time, it's for topics that really matter.

Thanks for reading. Let us know, what crazy ambitious goals have you dreamed of?