Realities of our "homestead"

     ​It has been such a long week!  Easter weekend was a blur, and Goomba’s spring break went by so fast, I can hardly believe it’s over.

​      This past week, I have been wrestling with myself, feeling the weight of self-doubt and my own inadequacies. So I thought I would share with you some truth nuggets I’d been purposely leaving out. 

​The Realities of our “Homestead”

• We do not own property.  I’ve briefly mentioned this before, but we are not homeowners, we are caretakers of a Masonic building. (Freemasonry, not like, mason/stone work.) With that comes limitations, and requiring approval for anything we do. It’s not all bad though: we get access to the commercial style kitchen when it’s not in use. 

• We don’t have any “farm” animals. No chickens yet; although I bug Caveman about it ALL the time; no goats, or cows. Not even rabbits. We do, however, have a zoo.  Well, it feels that way sometimes: One adorable and annoying Italian Greyhound, two cats, two parakeets, and four, yes four, furry little ferrets. When we moved in we had considerably less... I'm not sure what happened. 

• Our garden is quite tiny.  Well, comparatively. It’s the biggest garden I’ve ever actually owned, but compared to real homesteaders, it’s probably laughable. My biggest problem is space. We happen to live rather close to a retirement home, almost in the middle of town. Add to that the myriad of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, who use the driveway, and sometimes the yard, to cut through, my space is limited to low risk areas. There is so much I would like to do with this property, but going back to reality #1, we don’t own the place. 

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• My farm experience, while considerably more than Caveman’s, is lacking. My only farm experiences are with my Aunt Deb who raises a couple of cows, and a couple of pigs a year in the back woods. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE what she and my uncle do. In fact, I think the summers my brothers and I spent with them is why I desire so much to be a homesteader. But the most we were ever allowed to do was help feed them. I have no experience caring for animals of that magnitude, or growing a large crop garden.  

• Despite all those downfalls, we are still determined. We are still learning and practicing and hoping to encourage you. We love all the little things we do, and we keep adding new things each year. We are so grateful for the opportunities we have, and try to see it as a learning experience. I’m the kind of person who likes to leap without looking, and situations like this teach me to start small. The bigger you are, the harder you fall!