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!
<3 

"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>

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:

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:

• To locate potential connections with people who are doing what we are doing or dreaming the same dreams.
• To learn from others at different points along the spectrum of similar journeys.
• To begin to establish a living community of like-hearted people and engage in story-telling with each other.
• To do things that are enjoyable and worth their cost in time, such as: create beautiful pictures as a form of art & story-telling, writing and journaling for our own hearts and possibly as a source of inspiring others as normal people living everyday lives, sharing what we learn, as we learn, and hopefully making the elements of a lighter, freer, simpler life more real and accessible to those for whom those qualities make their hearts alive.

What we are not looking to social media for:

• Popularity or prosperity gained in exchange for our time together as a family (vs. the time we agree upon as worthy of its exchange for a yield of some true value to us all).
• Showing how incredibly awesome we are.
• Falsely creating a picture of some beautiful unreality of our lives that does no one any good but rather only promotes our culture's unhealthy issues with "Instagram'able lives" or Hollywood-esque expectations.
• ANY type of affirmation. Thank God...or we'd be depressed! Social media is not real-life social feedback. It is made up of algorithms that aren't really human-nature and based on a precept of making connection but never really being connection in it's own context.

SO, all this said--social media does not have to be shut out altogether. Maybe it should be understood better for the machine it is though and not confused on any level with any true source of affirmative validation or social connection unto itself. 

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.