| #2 | Blog Number Two : Where We Are [& a bit of where we are headed] (Athena)

Monday of this week we should have closed on our house in Kansas City. Due to the nature of real estate that didn't happen and we find ourselves in the middle of a stressful "battle" with the buyer's agent and lender. My heart was really heavy over this last night and I had my fair share of a headache today writing an email response to a very unprofessional acting agent. However, despite all this I feel at peace. We have made this far by things falling into place in ways we could hardly imagine or ask for.

On Thanksgiving of this past year (7 months ago) we found ourselves in a hotel room with my In-Loves looking up which restaurants were still open at 8 o'clock at night during a serious winter blitz (serious for the Western North Carolina area! ;-} ). It ended up being a Chinese Place (of course, right!) and we were SO thankful for some good dirty Chinese Food that night.

We were visiting a housing community that was a cross-between a co-housing community and a standard mountain housing development. We were feeling out the air (physically and metaphorically) and checking in with our guts on whether this was where we were to move or not.
We decided not to move into that development but we did feel right about moving to the area. So on January 1st, 2018 we rolled up with the smallest U-Haul we could fit the majority of our belongings in. It was also the coldest day of the year. We had spent 3 days on the road trying to make the trip not entirely torture for our daughter (almost 2 years old at the time)... and us!

We arrived. We unpacked. We settled in as best we could. We had been fortunate to land in a wonderful co-housing community only 20 minutes from Kyle's work near downtown. The air warmed up. The flowers bloomed. We planted a garden for the children and then time came to move again. And finally actually start to feel settled. That's where we are now. Physically and emotionally we can send down roots and grow. We are in a wonderful home with some good land for gardening.

But...this isn't where we will stay forever. In fact, we know we we likely only be here for the next 5-6 years. This home is Kyle's Parents retirement home and we have the next 5-6 years to save and plan for our own land...our own farmstead...our own homestead.

That gives us many days to learn how to homestead right here and now. And to do so in a way that is consistent with our core values. It feels like many days...and then also not many at all! We have 6 years at most to learn how to farm; how to rescue and care for animals on a homestead that doesn't depend on them for food; how to grow, can and preserve our food; how to build fences and grind our own flour, how to manage a solar and/or wind system and everything else a good vegan homesteader will need to learn.
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The point for us in this moment is to take one small step at a time. Together. To not get overwhelmed and to stay close to what inspires us to continue. Each other. We want to homestead primarily so that we can reduce our dependency on a system saturated in consumption of resources. We do this to have more time with one another and less dependency on hours that Kyle (or I, when I am working) has to stay away from home to earn our sustenance. Herein is the core of our dreams and goals. This is the reason we are learning to homestead-right-where-we-are.

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