I wrote a message to a friend on Instagram this morning and it was a great summary update on us so I thought I'd post that while I work on a more in depth blog post: |Spring 2019|Kyle parted ways with office work at the beginning of this growing season and is now working for a local organic vegetable farm and wedding venue/Airbnb (LINK). He absolutely loves it and cannot imagine going back to the office. He will stay there through the winter and into the next growing season next year when he and whoever is on his team will get about 30,000 sq feet of field to farm (they have about 15k right now). It's a beginning farm (the wedding venue is their primary business) so they are totally non-dependent on the outcome of the farm so Kyle and his crew basically get to farm totally risk free and creatively. It's an incredible opportunity! Otherwise, I'm continuing to bake our second little sour dough bun and our 3 year old is loving the idea of being a big sister! We plan on trying our hand at vegan cheese this month with the help of Miyoko's cheese making cookbook. I'm excited about that. Our garden is starting to take off and I love that people here in WNC (Western North Carolina) think that 80 degrees is hot...lol!!!! 🤣 I'll take it!
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"What would we being doing differently NOW if we were on the Farmstead already?"
<Kyle> (Circa 2 nights ago before bed after the toddler finally fell asleep after yelling at us for about 20 minutes that she had lost our kisses and needed more). As we settle into the daily to-do's associated with what will be our home-base for the next 5-6 years Kyle and I have been feeling a tug on our souls to further refine (again) how we are living our daily lives with both our current values and our long-term vision in mind-sight. This is challenging at the outset when we do not fully know yet what our "destination" will look like. It is a naturally evolving process and vision all the time. Before we moved here to the Asheville area we were pretty much normal city folk who happened to be living in a 750 sq ft 1920's house near downtown on a 1/4 of an acre. It was a treasure of a home in a sweet older neighborhood. We were close to everything. We were walking distance from the hospital where I had worked prior to moving into home-health nursing. We were also walking distance from coffee shops, restaurants and even a couple parks. It took us only about 10 minutes to get downtown to the farmer's market where we picked up our CSA vegetables and about 8 minutes to get to our incredibly special church family that held services in a dual art gallery space. We were 2-3 minutes from the HWY and it took Kyle about 25 minutes to get to his workplace from home. The property had more than enough land for self-sufficient gardening and we were allowed to have up to 4 chicken on any property in the city. We had a chicken coop ready to go but with a new baby we never ended up getting chickens. We were also so new to gardening at the time that we could only do so much as new parents and as formerly "black thumbs" to transform ourselves and the garden into a recognizable patch of life. We tried. We maybe could have done more there but, such was that particular step along our journey. It was our little urban farmstead in some real ways. Our first home was such a sweet start to our lives together as new parents and as a life-partnered pair. But, we knew it was only a place we were meant to remain for a continually diminishing amount of time. We knew we wanted to raise our family someplace with more physical room to grow and explore. We knew we wanted to be somewhere where we could "own land" and experience "more wild" and other more unnameable desires. And we knew we wanted to make our move before our daughter got too old and the act of pulling up roots and putting down new ones became harder. So fast forward through a few previous blogs and here we are today. It has already been (and only been) 9 months since we said goodbye to a life and friendships we had built over many years in the Midwest and moved here to the mountains of inland North Carolina. We now rent a house and have a small start of some land to work with but we are really still acutely aware of many limitations that we face as we look toward the road ahead. Personally speaking, after nine months, we still have yet to "make friends"... like real, adult, non-internet friends. This is partly a challenge because we are incredibly contented introverts and homebodies. We like each other and our little family's alone time and we have a hard time giving up that time for any reason. As introverts we naturally have limited "inner circle" capacity to begin with so we already take a LOOOOOOONNNNNG time finding people of true like-mindedness-- and by this I mean "like-minded" in the ways that really count. We don't want to think and believe all the same things (that's lame and boring) but sharing a few core life-navigational commonalities is important to us. HOWEVER, we have to actually spend time hanging out with people to find that out about them and ourselves with them as friends... AND: ugh, socializing... (says every introvert prior to most large or novel social engagements). And. We are kinda weirdos. We don't really fit in any one decently shaped (said: socially popular) box. We are truly satisfied with this aspect of who we are because it is an expression of honesty and a striving for a genuine and non-hypocritical life... and we can also find it difficult when trying to find new people to create deep bonds with. Additionally our non-conformist boxes at first might not be noticeable because we don't like to shove them in people's faces as an act of marketing. If we do happen to use labels, at the outset, our "boxes" may (to the uncritical eye) look not at all non-conformist. They might look very defined and quite possibly offensive because of the unfortunate use and expression of them in past and present history. That's why sometimes finding people to whom we connect with on issues surrounding core parts of who we are can be a challenge in the greatest capacity. (More on all that in another blog post). I also have a hard time being patient. I get a drive and an itch for something and I want to be all-in NOW. Not 6 years down the road. I want to dive in the deep end with all I have... and, for a purpose I have yet to accept, we aren't able to do that yet. I want to start growing and preserving ALL our own food right now, have chickens, goats, rabbits, farming neighbors, horses, all of it. But. I have to wait and take it in small bites. And be choosy about the bites I do take. If not in the least for the sake of my daughter. I can't just run off with Kyle to intern on a farm with a toddler... as much as I really REALLY wish we could. We have to wait to swim in the deep end. We have to wait at least until we have saved enough for land. And even then we'll feel like we are crawling along while Kyle has to work full time. And I am bad at waiting. AaaaaaaGGHAAAAGh!!!! OH, how it drives the little only-child girl inside me nuts! (Being an adult at times feels like partly being at war with your own self half the time). Even if I do know somewhere inside that there is a deep and meaningful purpose in the waiting period. So, that all said. It is easy to just keep on doing what we are comfortably accustomed to doing despite the possibly edge-dulling convenience of it all. It is SO easy to minimize the affect it all has. Until Kyle puts it all in perspective (as he is a genius at doing--and why I love him so much). It matters when we realize that in 6 years our daughter will be 8 years old. She (and we) will be, for better or worse, accustomed to whatever life-style we choose to live on a daily basis. If we decide to just up and move out to an off-grid tepee on a farm in the mountains without having incorporated LOTS of positive rugged-living experiences into our lives over the years... this next move could be a shock that our family is more than likely not going to be ready for. When we move to our farmstead in 6 years as a family I want the transition to feel as natural as anything else we have done (including moving to the Appalachian Mountains). I never would have imagined myself saying that I now feel like there are too many houses too close together and that I am leaning toward commuting a hour or more to get away from power lines (and lawn mowers). I see a yearning in both Kyle and I to find the daily rhythms right here where we are that line up with what we are continually defining as our future "destinations". I see and feel a current existence of "here" and "not yet" in each of us so acutely that it sometimes feel painful. For now, we have no absolute and clear answers to the question of: "What would we bei doing differently NOW if we were on the Farmstead already?". Many things of course would be SO different... but that is not the page of the journal we are on yet. We know some of those differences have no choice but to be limited because of where we are living so we can save our land money (i.e., living within an HOA in a residential neighborhood on a half acre lot of land with lots of trees and lots of shade on one income with a toddler). But, what parts of our lives do we still have available to work with in order to prepare for the future we have in mind? What parts of our lives are still mutable enough to prepare us for a veganic, self-sufficient, earth-stewarding farmstead? What can we still lovingly simplify or give over to a more rugged-care without sacrificing our time together as a family or our soul-care? What parts are purposeful in giving up and not simply an aesthetic motion? The first thing we know for sure & certain is that we want to try and spend a heck of a lot more time living outdoors (camping, hiking and otherwise). As much as we are able to we want to live, eat and sleep in nature over the next 6 years. And we will try and grow as much food and learn as much as we can about homesteading, farming and animals. We also know that the transition may still be a HUGE learning curve but will try our best to not get too comfortable but also be balanced and strive for peace in our hearts and a life that is kind, simple, alive responsive to each other and the world around us. So, I suppose, as we grow our little Superhero --and maybe others-- (and do our part in stewarding our part of the planet right where we are) we want her to know (and remember ourselves) that a hero's cape is not earned by "already knowing everything" or already "being there" but by the continual internal and external motions of expressing a heart of a hero in every day life. We want her to know that even the most simple part of every day (like writing outside to the sound of a summer rain or doing the laundry and dishes with minimal energy usage) can be opportunities for nurturing the hero's heart in each of us. We do not intend to try and be a "heroic" family... but we do want to be loving and kind and honest and real. ********************************************************** What introspective questions or motivations are shaping your lives right now? With love, From Our Homestead to Yours Some of you who have joined us on our journey here or IG and FB may know that Kyle and I both have non-agricultural career backgrounds. Mine is as a Registered Nurse (Kyle is a Structural Engineer). Kyle works full time and, recently, after our move to Appalachia, I have been a 100% stay-at-home parent. It's been about 7 1/2 months of all the wonderful and difficult things about being a SAHP. Just in the last couple of weeks I have felt a strong desire--and different sense of readiness--to return to my nursing work in some form or capacity. When we first moved here to North Carolina we did not know for sure geographically where we would find our permanent home (we were in a temporary rental for the first 5 months of arriving in North Carolina). It makes a difference where you drive to work from around here where you can drive 30-60 minutes to a location that is still considered all part of the same centralized area. Now that we know where we will be rooted for at least the next 5-6 years it makes searching the area for a job a lot more straightforward. More than that, though, it makes a difference as a mama to finally feel like my nest is settled. Now I can fly around a little and feel free to do so. Also, many of my career ambitions have changed in the last year or so. Actually A LOT of both of our career ambitions have changed. Most of that change has intensively been since we have arrived and started making our home here "boots on ground". There is something both physically and spiritually influencing about the soil actually you put your roots down into. This is true about plants and how they grow in various soils and it serves as a metaphor for humans as well I believe. When Kyle and I first met I never would have imagine either Kyle or I would actually seriously consider being farmers (in the sense that we could actually see it being truly viable & possible). But something has done it's work in us the last 3-4 months. Something "in the water". And it's certain to be only beginning it's work in us. The culture of this area has awoken a deeper and clearer longing for things we would never of assigned to our lives back in Kansas City. Much is clearer and more real and much can be said to also have become more complicated...as is true for the actualization of any dream into living reality. Part of what is yet to be determined still where our educational and career backgrounds fit into this richly colored tapestry we find ourselves weaving. We have asked the question, "what role should our 'city jobs' play in our homestead journey and our family's pilgrimage in the next half decade--particularly because we don't hate our careers. We do really desire that we could have WAAAAAY less time away from home and WAAAAY more time together as a family. Whenever we get to the end of the weekend we always wish we had just one extra weekend day...or whenever Kyle has to go to work we wish he could just do so from home. Just to be together. Idealy, we love working out in the sun sweating and getting dirty together...but even when that's not possible yet...if we could only just have him with us more and away at his office less. Or vice versa (if our roles were reversed--which, they TOTALLY could function as such if that ever presents itself as a better alternative). And, well, that principle right there is pretty much the casting form for which our future career and farmstead will most likely find its shape and function. For us to have more of each other and to be able to do so with financial viability. As a nurse I am incredibly lucky enough to be able to work only one day per week if I choose. I can also get 12 hours our of that day, that "day" be overnight so I am never away too long during any daytime hours, and I can make descent money. All these things are invaluable when building a homestead or starting a major family life a career change, like entering farming or starting a business. And, as a hospital nurse, I have A LOT of control over how much or how little I work and that is an incredible blessing I will never be ungrateful for. I am aware how invaluable both my career and Kyle's (as an engineer) are as building blocks for our farmstead. In fact, that awareness is in large part why I have decided to return to work. In reality, we have slimmed our budget down enough that we do not need me to go back to work. For this I cannot ever express enough thankfulness and encourage anyone to work toward living off only one income even if both partners choose to work. If I stay away from my career too long, it will be harder and harder to get back in (at least to get hired to a decent unit or company). And, if I give up my career altogether, as I contemplated seriously at few points over the last 7 months, I would be honestly sad (I really DO love being a nurse). It is a deeply satisfying skill-set I have to offer my community. I don't love a lot about our healthcare system in the U.S. and I don't really like the litigious "machine" that is the hospital. I do, however, love having a skilled "nurturing" and healing career that, at least in most of our society, is valuable and respected. And, I have no shame in admitting that this value and respect is important to me and brings me personal fulfillment. If all goes according to our very ROUUUUUGH plan for the future it will be incredibly useful for me to be able to step in with more hours as a nurse while Kyle steps down his hours at the office (either altogether or bringing work home) and we can BOTH have more resources for building our farmstead. (Not to mention it is simply helpful to have nursing skills and knowledge for a variety of events that can occur on a farmstead, out in a rural area or while parenting a tiny wild human). This whole scenario is kind of the crux of the struggle, it seems, for the new generation of farmers in our world today, doesn't it? Yes, we younger ones have heard the calling. Yes, we want to respond and many of us are taking some major steps toward that engagement. But, most of us are transitioning from a "standard western career mindset" and the actual reality of moving from our city jobs to something more simple like farming or even part-time homesteading can be seriously challenging. Besides, most of us grew up in cities and have a POOP TON of stuff to learn (or unlearn) in order to not DIE when we move out to our dream property in the country or mountains...we also have a whole personal identity invested in a different kind of cultural lifestyle. A different kind of wealth. A different kind of friend and neighbor. A different kind of happiness. The transition from the typical American Dreamer of our generation to this emerging Liberated Next-Generation Farming and Saving the Planet Through Personal Responsibility and Taking Action Dreamer is not as simple for everyone as quitting a city job and moving out to the country with a horse, some chicken, a plow and some seeds. It takes periods of detoxing and relearning a new way of life. It takes finding where you truly find joy and incorporating that into the fabric of this new reality. It might mean you still work at your "office job" in some capacity. It might mean you don't work at all and instead give yourself totally to raising money to run a rescue farm for animals with an associated farm-based boarding school. It might mean you don't fit in a box. And, thank goodness the biggest part of this whole movement we see in our world today (away from factory farming and big-ag to earth-stewarding and authentic simple living) is that, beneath all the labels, we are joining our hearts and minds and actions and lives together to throw out the box entirely. We all hate to be put in a box. And, now we can be freed from the expectation that we have to put ourselves in one to be socially acceptable. We might not know exactly how it all will look or exactly what we will be wearing once we step our of the box (yikes... ;p!), but, we would rather be out of the dang box and free to experience the fullness of joy rather than sit obediently inside a box and never fully walk in our own skin. For this gal, a small and practical-level part of this "unboxing" process is being loved, secure and supported (and frugal) enough to be able to move in and out of full-time parenthood. And, after 7+ months of wondering when, how, or IF I would return to my nursing career, I am now embracing that particular thread into the fabric of our Homestead Life. Let us all see what this colorful life tapestry continues to look like as the fibers weave together! <Athena> S T O R Y | S H A R I N G |
| As always, we love to hear our reader's stories! | How have you managed to make your own transition to your dreams of living closer to the land, being a future farmer, running a rescue farm, or urban homesteading? | Have you kept your "city job"? | Do you plan to move away from working in the city 100% or keep working part time? | You can email us or message us or comment below! | With Love, From Our Homestead to Yours! <Kyle and Athena> | Appalachia, North Carolina, USA | I have often felt that life is comprised of a series of distillations. According to it's dictionary definition, the distillation process is used to extract an essential meaning; a whittling down to a core of importance that drives all other purposeful action in our lives--or should. You may not be like me. For me, this process of whittling and refining, and distilling and extracting can really suck. I don't like it. I like it in theory, but in reality the process of having my core exposed makes me uncomfortable, moody and annoyed at best. Multi-tasking for me is not an easy feat and, in truth, it really stresses me out. Since childhood, if I am deeply interested in something, it draws me in to itself and shuts out the rest of the world akin to a passionate musician recording a first album in an bomb-proof, underground, sound-proof studio. I have a really hard time switching my focus back and forth from different things going on around me. This is especially true when I am engrossed or engaged in a task such as learning something new, writing a blog post about something close to my heart, reading a book, editing pictures or even gardening. Needless to say, this isn't a great parenting quality. As a stay-at-home mama who is the primary companion to my curious, inquisitive, incredibly bright, very verbal, high energy 2 1/2 year old wild woman I need all the focus I can get just to keep up with her. I love being able to stay home with her...but I also feel like it is the most challenging thing I have ever undertaken. And then--I choose to take on learning how we can become homesteaders... Anyone who has not stayed home with kiddos may think...surely, you aren't complaining. Surely you have plenty of time to study about gardening, permaculture, companion planting, no-till methods, veganic soil ammendments, canning, preserving, pickling, bread making, noodle making, dehydration, farming, caring for rescue farm animals... Sure. Yeah. Tons of time. So, yes, in truth I have more time than my husband who works 40 hours is away from home about 50 hours per week. He only has a limited number of hours in the evening and he uses that time to spend engaged as a father and a husband. Our weekends are utterly precious and we use each moment as if it were gold. I do have more time than him...but not extravagant amounts by any means. But, as mentioned previously, if my daughter is awake and not watching T.V. (which we do very selectively but really try to minimize), I have to be fully engaged as a parent to her and this can be difficult at times. Sometimes I simply don't feel like it. Sometimes my introvert self feels overstimulated. Sometimes I just want to finish my dang text message or take a moment and poop in private. Sometimes my mind wanders into the garden even though my body is still in the house. Sometimes being a stay at home parent is just hard. You are always on and when you do have a break (naps specifically) you often have a personal to-do list that is about a mile long and still constrained by noise levels. WHAT THE HECK IS YOUR POINT WOMAN? The point of all this rambling (sorry, sometimes it just needs to be journalled out) is that we are in a season as a family, especially now that we have settled into the home we will live in for the next 5 to 6 years, where we MUST answer our WHY. WHY do we want to do ANYTHING? Why would we want to homestead? Why would we want to garden? Why would we want to farm? Why would we want to care for rescue farm animals? Why would we want to own land? Why would we want to live in a more rural area? Why would we want to homeschool? Why would we want to implement veganic growing? Why would we want to build our own house? Why would we want to live in the mountains? What is our why that moves us steadily and in a centering way in any authentic direction? I can often get tripped up on figuring out a bunch of HOW's (because I like to learn) and get busy or deeply focused (as mentioned above). Simply because of my focus (issue?) alone I have to be very aware not to get too far off the flight path of my why. Because I am also a we my why is part of a collective why for my whole family. We have not fully answered our core why yet. We are navigating the answer on a daily basis. It isn't always easy to verbalize these things. It is very important to do so, however, because our why will determine our path of life actions. Our "doings" that end up making our life in much of how we define it. So the ongoing questions that are especially drawing us inward as a family in this season are: What is our why? What are we doing and does it align with our why? Are we willing to be distilled? To conclude, I will lovingly borrow the words of a fellow journey'er on this experience of living distillation: But my mind is always saying:
"What do I do?! I am a protector of the old ways. I am an ally for the soil and the insects and the wild weeds and animals that I share this earth with. I provide care with my whole heart and soul for the animals that the earth has placed in my care. I nurture food and medicine from the earth and lovingly preserve it to ensure my family’s needs are met. I am a provider for my family, in the most traditional sense." --Kaylee of Project Zenstead | # 10 | Blog Number 10 | Wrestling to Define Social Media's Place on the Homestead | <Athena>7/26/2018 THE past few weeks have been a internally very challenging. For many reasons, not all of which are worthy of writing about here, I have felt drained and somewhat heavy. Despite most every day offering some or new skill to master or piece of knowledge to absorb, it has been a time of internal reflection and ultimately, of needed re-adjustments.
As you might be aware, Kyle and I recently launched an Instagram profile, a Facebook page & the Farmstead Journal to share with others our super humble, messy and novice beginnings of a homesteading journey. I have lately found myself increasingly discontent and dedicating degrees of myself to social media outlets while ignoring the unavoidable internal question (once again) if social media expressions are actually sustainable for me. These new social media creations are not bad unto themselves, and I do enjoy elements of them...however; it also, unfortunately, all costs our family something we value very highly: TIME. As I have always found to be true: social media is a strange beast of it's own kind with it's own unique good and bad. It can be useful AND it has the ability to very quickly steal our time and attention. And, not just time and attention in and of themselves but time TOGETHER as a family and attention given to the real human beings in our lives. The floodwaters of social media's pull toward unproductive mindsets is strong & it's endless and potentially insidious requests of time investments may not ultimately pay we think it will. The promise of some type of "successful" social interaction is never quite achieved (though it is "tickled") and because of this it can perpetuate the drain on us even further. It might sound like I am very much making a case against social media use. But I am not. As is simply (and impersonally) the nature of non-human sources of social interaction, disappointment with the promised outcomes is highly likely. So maybe a new perspective of social media would be helpful. Realizing that social media is just that--a type of media--is important. AND, in a less charged way, it is simply not human. Now it can be released from being something it is not, nor will ever be. We are the "benefitters" in this scenario. It is necessary to release social media from the expectation that is will ever be a soul-nourishing place to meet a need for relationships. It does not, nor will ever, be a replacement by itself for living connection and fulfillment of relationship with others. We all know this and yet this may be what we continue to ask of it without really acknowledging or realizing it. Thus, setting ourselves up for disappointment. I am slightly chagrined to admit I have done this many times. On the other hand, social media CAN facilitate the initial potential for relationships to develop. It just can't ever be those relationships itself. And that is okay. It is not meant to. It can be valued for what it is and released from what it's not. Kyle and I started sharing our personal journey to make connections and build community, not for popularity, prosperity or for "likes & follows" (though admittedly the current pull toward those things is strong and ingrained deeply in our culture's psyche). Being the one who primarily handles the engagement of our social media I have had to take a step back recently and pay attention to a nagging and creeping frustration and the potential soul-draining nature of these outlets. I have had to stop and refocus what it is we want (and what is realistic and healthy) in using these platforms for developing human connection. It can be easy to be "driven" by social media's glittering promise of some golden social potential. We get it. And truthfully there is real marketing capability for businesses in our modern social-based media...especially Instagram. Being on the road to a home-based business this makes it all the more naturally complicated. But, is trying to live up to some expectation set by our culture toward another form of image-based popularity-driven context for sharing our lives worth what it can costs us if we are not aware and clear of our own purposes for using it? Social media can be a very useful tool... or it can be an bottomless pit. It can be a means of making connections and promoting a worthy business endeavor or it can be a sharp knife that cuts away at our time and energy no less quickly and heartlessly than other forms of media or entertainment. I don't want that loss for our family. When I look at the real reasons we do this; why I specifically will choose to continue to engage in the social media thing (and how to keep it healthy for us) it is for the following reasons:
It has natural limits and it's mystic is unfortunately its greatest stumbling block. If social media can be taken out from behind this mystical veil and shown for what it simply is: a computer-based algorithmic-driven non-human tool...then it can be released (as can we) and used wisely and well for just that purpose. As a tool for greater connection potential. Beyond it's very unmystical potential of pre-arranging a possible connected however, the responsibility or onus of true and living connection with real and non-computer people lies with each of us alone (or rather to not be alone, I suppose). If we feel lonely or disconnected, no manner of social media with EVER fill that need or void. Even as an introvert (maybe especially as one), finding and making social connections is one of my greatest challenges. This is even more true in this season as we settle into a new state and learn to live in a place where we know almost no one very closely. The first of many to come. A BASIC journal entry of EVERYDAY "goings'on". More like a true journal entry instead of a public blog--which tend to be more for entertainment or inspiration or education. This is where we will just write about normal everyday things, no need to be EPIC or profound! <Athena> ****(These types of entries will always be in blue so they can be spotted easily for browsing)**** I wish I had pictures from last night's dinner. We ate it all too fast and I was too hungry to think of taking pictures before I served it! I made our first ever fried okra (we're in the South now...!) and stuffed and fried squash blossoms (recipes below) farmers market. They turned out better than I hoped, especially for the first attempt. We will definitely be making the stuffed squash blossoms again. I'll work on the okra recipe (which was good, just a smidge bland). We served these to my (non-vegan eating) "In-Loves" (Kyle's parents) along with fresh farmer's market roasted corn, fried zucchini, homemade sourdough (Kyle, the bread-baking King), watermelon, cherries and a homemade chewy oatmeal cinnamon apple bar for dessert (I'll get his recipe fine-tuned and post at a later date).
I also made our first Jam yesterday. Foraged Wild Blackberry and Organic Blueberry (no pectin and low sugar). You can find the recipe on my Instagram post. I will also upload it to the blog with a few other new recipes I worked out in the kitchen yesterday. It was an all-afternoon kitchen science experiement. Thank you to the grandparents for hanging with the little one and giving me the time to do this! It's nice to have the "grandparents" in town because we can both get some stuff done while they hang out with the little dragon-girl. Grandpa needs to head home today but Anissi (alternative spelling for Enisi, the Cherokee word for grandma) will be staying and this will give us the chance we need to break ground on our big fall garden. Happy Summer Sunday y'all! <Athena> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- RECIPE LINKS: Squash blossoms --> LINK Fried Okra--> LINK Blackberry + Blueberry Jam --> LINK INTRO:
Our daughter's day and my day are intertwined as one daily adventure. We are a pair of wild girls on a mission. We aim to be curious, find new adventures in simple things, not stay too clean, learn some good character traits and overcome fairly successfully the occasional (and very normal) mother-daughter tussle while she grows into her "big-girl"-hood and I (and Kyle) continue to somewhat messily figure out how to parent a toddler! Adaline is 2 years & 3 months old at the time of this journal entry. She is very much her own mixture of rightly dependent and fiercely independent! At the start of this writing I thought it would be interesting to share with some of our fellow homesteaders what goes on during a "typical" day for us two gals while Kyle slaves away at his office job all day long every week of the year. However, as I wrote, the entry evolved into something different. I suppose that is normal to writing. It takes on a life of its own. So the following is what evolved. (BTW on a typical day Adaline and I can be found rolling in mud puddles, reading lots of books, watching some Tumble Leaf on Amazon Prime, making muffins, noodles, bread or various other "kitchen experiments, visiting neighbors or our local playgrounds, and eating too many bites of vegan ice-cream--before lunch--while being sure the tomatoes and herbs get watered and the dogs get all the kisses.) A HOME IN TRANSITION: URBAN TO SUBURBAN TO SEMI-RURAL TO...: As is common for a homestead in transition from a somewhat standard "Americanized" lifestyle to a simpler, lighter and more earth stewardship one, it takes a lot of detoxing. Americans of middle class or above (and somewhat simultaneously, Westerners in general) live a life that is light-years from simple, minimal, quiet, slow, gentle, modest, mindful, content or other equally distasteful qualities. We nearly all have a long road in detoxing from all of what is "normal" but not necessarily good for our souls, our communities, or our planet. For example, the move from a consumerist mentality to a "just enough" contented mentality. From a capital-driven market-place economy to a trade and home-based (or community-based)economy. For us, this started with a drive to living with less, curbing our habits that were highly consumer-driven, and generally just being conscious of how we use our "voting power" (money in particular). ONE INCOME AND BEING A STAY AT HOME PARENT: One of the biggest decisions we made this year (besides moving to another state!) is moving from two incomes to one. This decision meant that one of us continued working full-time while the other took up the role of stay-at-home-parent. Now, I wouldn't go as far as saying that (as the elected stay-at-homer) life of full-time parenting is exactly equal to actual front-lines of war... but there are days where the battles are decent and the blood and tear-shed is real. None-the-less--this has been one of the most wonderful, freeing and necessary moves for our family toward our homesteading and life-simplifying goals. And despite rough days, the majority of our days (Adaline and I) are sweet with adventure and the smell of something yummy cooking. Our days, even when it rains or snows, are treasures that I am endlessly thankful for. In this current season, I am the stay-at-home-parent. This could change. Kyle is just as more than capable...and in many ways much more so than I! In the beginning of this new season I resisted leaving my career as a nurse "unattended" for this upcoming unknown future. I attempted to find work, but for one reason or another it didn't feel right. So, in the end, we both agreed we should let it be "okay" that I go ahead and let go of the perceived stigmas and fully engage in being a stay-at-home-mom. It is hard to say what will happen with my nursing career, but it's not my only passion (and certainly not my first)...so this is one of many areas in this whole journey for our family that I feel at peace leaving in the doorway of trust, waiting and not-fully-knowing. KYLE: Our hero (Kyle) gets up before either of us (or any other living thing in our house) is even able to think about being awake. He is consistently faithful in his work outside the home as an engineer. He is dutiful and loyal to his company. Loyal, loyal, loyal. This man would be the sea captain that goes down with his sinking ship if that had been his chosen career (to be a captain that is...not sinking ships... though he is a bit of a pirate at times too ;-p ). We do not have a lot of money. We live "comfortable" lives, rich in so many ways, but we are by no means affluent. We have to be wise and we have to be prudent. We are chasing our dreams as normal people, and for us to be able afford to buy land and build a home for our farmstead, we have to combine Kyle's dedication to getting up every day before the sun is even awake, my staying at home parenting and studying AND some real and true sacrifice. FOOD AND $$$: One of our other really "big" areas of refinement was addressing how we obtain our food. We had to start by paying better attention to how we spent money on food and make an effort to develop a very simple and clear budget. As plant-based eaters we naturally highly value the source and quality of our food. This is good. But... This mentality, when coming from a standard Western-Consumer mentality, also translated into a really high food bill for us. Our food budget is still one of our larger monthly outputs and so is naturally the first and recurrent area we are applying a refining tool to as growing homesteaders. Our food purchasing and consuming is complicated. We do our best to eat only organic but, as not go broke... we try and follow the Clean 15 and the Dirty Dozen. We also buy as local as possible, look for things with the least amount of packaging (especially reducing the use of plastics), buy from bulk sections, remember our reusable bags and glass jars, and support local farmers...oh yeah and not eat flesh, eggs or dairy--but still make fresh, homemade, toddler-friendly and healthy meals!! Whew! Good thing we like to cook or we'd have some fairly big issues here. This is where becoming "growers" comes into play. In order to reduce our food bill we aim to grow and preserve the majority of our own food. We can do this. It'll take work but it will happen. Unfortunately, after a big move this year (which didn't get us into our own home until just before summer solstice)...our full and glorious victory garden will have to wait for next year. (Thankfully we were able to start the Westwood Children's Garden and small staples here at our house and still have time for a fall garden). LITTLE STEPS: In the mean-time, while our food bill is being reduced and our garden is being increased, we try to do things like: eat only beans and rice or other staple macro food items that we have cooked from scratch ourselves; make our own breads (still working on a good sandwich bread if anyone has a recipe they'd like to email us); make our own noodles; forage seasonal fruits in our area; buy from local farmer's markets or a CSA (next year!); fight food waste like ninjas through menu planning and looking in the back of the dang fridge (!); freezing or baking with bananas and other fruit that is moving beyond its prime; putting green onion roots in water and re-growing them for weeks instead of buying new bunch every week; having our own fresh herb garden; buying from local discount food stores or while items are on sale...and do the hard work of saying no to things that aren't on our grocery list unless they make sense in the long run for cost-savings. Just reducing our "Westerner's appetite" is a huge part of this whole process. DEBT: Recently we were incredibly blessed to sell our family's first home back in KC to a wonderful person who will make a perfect addition to our beloved neighborhood there (after the house was already taken off the market no less!). With the money from that sale--which wasn't a ton, but it'll definitely do---we will be able to pay off my car and a small credit card. This will allow us to start putting my car's payment and the CC payment toward Kyle's car payment. His car will be paid off in another year or so his car will be paid off. After his car is paid off we will officially have ZERO debt!!! You read that correctly...zero zilch nada nope nothing zip....debt free!!!! This means that the money we have been paying toward those debts can then be saved toward our future homestead/farmstead and land. As we have mentioned before, we have a trajectory of about 5-6 years before we will be ready to move onto our farmstead. So, it will be saving, saving, saving until then! Other purchases:Aren't women known for their frivolous purchases--especially after marriage?--ha! Well, come to think of it, I really do want pair of overalls (that actually fit my 5 ft 1 in frame) or a wheel-barrow (seriously though)... anyone want to buy me a scythe?...and ya know, I'd really like to have a two handed garden-fork or a broad-fork for my birthday and while we're at it let's get supplies we need to build the green-house we have dreamed up in our collective head. Well... in my case I may not be too far from the stereotypical woman but I have curbed some habits, thankfully. In some ways I may be different from that stereotype but I still have yearnings to purchase and consume. I am thankful that I am pretty good at not making frivolous purchases (read as: it still pains me to not just go and purchase ALL the seeds from Sow True Seeds, or all the compost, mulch and garden tools I want and need while I do some "window shopping" at my local garden store)...but it still takes discipline and conscious effort. Maybe it's because I grew up with very little money and was raised by parents who worked VERY hard for the money we did have. But, to me, though I know I will never be monetarily "rich", I am willing to choose not to buy something even if we could in order to be a good steward of our income--which is another resource we intend to manage well. It might mean we have to wait to build our pretty cedar garden beds or our "Pinterest'able" green-house...it might mean I don't get my legit overalls next year or the year after. And, more importantly, I am very thankful that Kyle has the same mentality. It makes such a different to have very similar mind-sets in marriage when relating to money and other resources of which we sustain our lives. It won't always be easy to not spend when we want to. It will mean however that we can continue do what we are doing. I can continue to stay at home with our daughter, have some extra time to squeak out a mediocre blog post here and there, watch YouTube on planting for pollinators and predator bugs, read Bill Mollison's Permaculture, learn how to propagate plants and make Rye or Beet Kvass (next project for us, you should try it too!). And, more than anything else, it will mean that eventually--after much hard work and lots of miracles--Kyle and I both will be able to do this all together. He will have the option of working less away from home and have more time to work at home, learn and grow in his own curiosities and passions and otherwise more fully engage in his own ways with this homesteading journey. We do this together always. Even when one of us has to be away from home 40 hours longer than the other one and I happen to be the primary blogger, Instagrammer, and mad-scientist. We will continue to work our butts off at what we can, learn as much as we can and also continue to love one another and never forget that playing together is often more valuable than any cash-flow we will ever generate. So, here is to our messy, wonderful, slowly-growing journey (and yours in whatever stage or speed)! We will see where it all goes, won't we? With love and great warmth from our Homestead to yours! When Kyle and I initially started (earnestly) looking into uprooting and making the move from Kansas City, we had had set our sights on Oregon. When we were dating we had road-tripped and camped all over Oregon. As many others have, we found the state to be extraordinarily diverse and beautiful. It was not hard to fall in love with her. As we talked and waited and researched and waited some more we knew we had to eventually be near the mountains and live a lifestyle closer to the wild, camping, hiking and generally being outside as much as possible (as a family). We brain-stormed and worked out different ways we might realize our dream of living near the mountains. We knew we would be better off as a growing family if we found a job for Kyle first (especially while I was still nursing our daughter). Engineer jobs in Kyle's specialty were found to be ironically few and far between in the places we hoped to move to in Oregon so we opened up our search to the entire Pacific Northwest. About 4 months before we chose our final destination and packed up all our belongings to make the big move, Kyle received an offer for a structural engineer position in Seattle, WA. The only catch was that we had to wait an undetermined amount of time before they could confirm the position he would be hired to. We used this time and waiting period as a catalyst to investigate both the area around Seattle and our own gut-feelings about a move there. We found home and land prices to be quite astronomical compared to what we felt comfortable with and the general cost of living to be much higher than either of us had experienced. Looking forward to the future desire of owning our own land and homesteading one day, the cost of good land was a daunting reality that we were naturally uneasy about. But the area is utterly gorgeous and we already knew a few friends and family members who lived out there, so we would not be utterly alone moving to this big bright promised land. We were drawn to it. It was hard not to be. We dug deeper into our research of the area, received more details about Kyle's possible position, re-looked at our budget and our own hearts, and as we did so, we found our hearts reluctant to sign up for such a sparkling "promise"-- though we were admittedly very torn. We had been yearning for a number of years to be in a place where we could live a more outdoor life for ourselves and our young growing daughter. We wanted more wild than Kansas City could offer. We wanted mountains and rivers and we hoped one day to have our own corner of wild land to steward. We also felt somewhat of a time-crunch as a family. We wanted to move and set down our roots before our daughter (and possibly more kids) turned school-aged. We, ourselves, wanted to be in a slower paced, gentler living, and more wild area...and to have more of one another and time as a family. We knew we loved the Oregon area as travelers but we weren't 100% sure it would be the same as residents (though we know it very well could have been). And we certainly weren't sure about Seattle, Washington. A place we'd never been to and mightn't be afford to even visit at that point. We just weren't sure, in our guts, if this was the right move for our family in light of all factors we could see...and many we could not. More interestingly though, we found ourselves continually (albeit by a gentle, small unassuming voice) being drawn toward a town in Western North Carolina. Kyle's parents lived on the coast of North Carolina, but otherwise, we had no prior draw or connection. But...there were mountains. So we kept it loosely on the list of possible destinations. We did what we have found a proven strategy at times like these. We waited. We let it all go a bit (again) and gave our desire to move up to our family-saying, "if it's meant to happen, it will happen. If not, then it won't. We aren't going to force anything". We took this opportunity to practice patience in the midst of yearning and rest in the midst of want for action. (In a future post I will share more of what led us to making our final decision to move to where we ended up. In the mean time...we continue to actively wait.)
We actively yearn and work hard at learning and growing and continuing our internal reflections...and we wait, doing our best to be content and joyfully patient. Here we are, in our current home, incredibly entrusted to us by Kyle's parents, in a state that is more wild and wonderful than we ever could have hoped for and we are not surprised that we still pine and yearn. For more time with one another, as a family and to find our own land to cultivate in a loving and careful way. This in itself is a driving motivation for much of what we aim to accomplish in keeping a homestead. We know we still have so much to learn. We are contentedly discontent. We are thankful that Kyle has a position he actually really loves for the first time in his career, at a company that we both respect. We are thankful that we landed in a community when we first arrived that became our first true and loving friend base (a hard thing for natural introverts that just want to be at home with one another). We are thankful to have an incredible little sanctuary of a home to live in for the next 5-6 years as we save our money and build our skill-base for our future land and farmstead. And yet we let that ember from the fire of hope and contented discontentment burn inside us. We let it burn for a simpler life. We let it burn for a more responsibly responsive humanity. We let it burn for more time together as a family. We let it burn for a deeper connection with the sources of our food and sustenance. We yearn for heart-work as well as hard-work. And we are assured to continue to receive lots and lots of lessons in patient waiting, quite listening to the still small voice of Leading and being patient before loosing arrows of direction and destination. I often reminisce about the times as a child my Dad would take me hunting with him in the mountains of New Mexico. This wasn't the hunting I typically see (and openly do not respect--even if I wasn't a vegan) in the Midwest where someone sets up a tree-stand near their food trap or blind and sits and tries not to fall asleep (or freeze to death) waiting for a animal to pass by while foraging for food in the winter and then the "hunter" snipes it with only the skill needed to not stink too bad, not fall out of a tree, and operate some kind of gun or mechanically balanced bow).(And I know that in some areas deer can be serious (even dangerous) "pests"...but there are much deeper and greater issues afoot there on that mole hill than can be addressed in this journal entry).
I digress. My memories of going with my Father hunting into the wild of the cold winter wilderness are deeply cathartic and still move my heart and soul in greatly important ways today. When we went hunting as a family in those days, we would pack-in deep into the frosty winter woods on horseback into the mountains of New Mexico with all we would have to sustain us for a week or more. We would eat lightly and forage if there was anything to forage. We would build fires for warmth and drink strong dark coffee by a fire each morning before the sun was quiet ready to shed it's own sleeping bag. During this trips my dad (who will never give himself any credit for the amazing teacher he is) taught me how to track animals, not get lost in the woods, how to respect the intelligence and the wild that is nature and generally be in awe and wonder at the depth of our often neglected tie to this type of raw wild. These times taught me what it meant to live off the land (even if it was in short, brief bits) and be thankful for having "just enough" amidst the wonder of our own fragility... and honoring, with great understanding and a Spirit long-lost to the white man, the loss of life it took to provide meat for a family for many meals. My family would also make use of, or give away to be used, every part of the animal...nothing wasted...no life taken in simple greed or sport. Now to be honest, someone could have looked at my little pale, slightly green face watching my dad gut an elk in the sun while eating my orange ....and known, "this kid's doomed to be a vegan..."--or at very least not be able to eat oranges or elk meat for a long while now. Ha! And they would've obviously been right. Looking back with honestly and with a more "aware-of-my-own- heart" hindsight, I was sad for that animal. I can honestly say though that the memory is both joyful and sorrowful. Like any memory that continues to move us years after its creation. I would only going hunting wild-life with my camera these days... however, I am thankful for and will never forget the visceral experiences I gained (and the wonderful memories I built with my Dad wondering in the wilderness) during those times that have deeply moved my life and influenced my core values about living, respect for nature and all of life. The difference is night an day between sitting in a blind (which can be literal or metaphorical for our common Western Culture) and that of riding my strong, well-loved horse into the forest with a pack to spend a week tracking the paths of nature through a wild forest, eating only what we had brought or what we could forage (getting to drink sugar with coffee in it... like a big girl), feeling the fragility of our humanity in the sub-freezing temperatures of the living, singing night and watching an animal die at the hand of a human (even if used in a very ethical way) will forever be in my DNA. I see sparkling reflections and gentle shadows of these childhood memories, that are overall still some of the most deeply cherished I have (wild moments in the woods with my Dad), and recognize their continual influence on my life today. As a growing homesteader that also values all life enough to eat, clothe, and purpose my life differently, I hold onto these memories and others with a strong gratefulness. The bitter of them and the beauty of them, it all moves me at a level greater than most anything else. 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. 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. #veganicfarming #veganicgardening#veganhomesteading #veganhomesteaders#permaculture #veganpermaculture#veganfarmers #vegangardeners#northcarolina #appalachia #foodforests#earthstewatdship #earthcare #peoplecare#fairshare #veganfamilies #simpleliving#kitchengarden #perrenials #annuals#herbgardens #flowergardens #foodgardens#biodynamics #smokeymountaingardeners #morningchores #homesteadchores#veganashville #ashevillevegan |
Kyle and AthenaWelcome to our Farmstead Journal. We warmly invite you to read along as we share our journey as we learn and grow more authentic is our care and honor of the earth and all our fellow inhabitants, as we pursue our search for our own land and explore the meaning of homesteading and growing within plant-based/"veganic" principles. We seek deep authenticity, true peace, sanctuary for all and simplicity as our continual journey of learning and growing as a family. Archives
August 2020
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