Homesteading

In September

It hardly seems reasonable to claim this as a month of transition from summer to fall but here we are in September. Summer – particularly July and August – bring a paralyzing halt to just about everything. It is simply too hot to work on as many homestead projects as we’re accustomed to. So we’ve learned to use this time for major freelance projects, hiding away in library corners with laptops or tucking under a fan for a hot afternoon.

Now that September is upon is it is firewood collecting and garden bed making, little girl egg hunting and Papa building shelters for new arrivals. It is back in the kitchen and baking and catching our breath when 95 feels like a reprieve from recent weeks. It is having an appetite to gather around a table once more and earlier to bed with no blankets needed… at least for now.

It is full and fast days passed under a changing light that we find only in this, the month of September.

Making Shelter

Since I took these photos, rafters went up and I stood on a ladder holding a big old doohickey while Stewart screwed it in and I wondered how he does this day after day without face planting. Stewart has been working on the addition for much of his days and, with the help of family…

the simple life : in it

It’s 85 degrees at 10 in the morning and the door is flung wide open to catch the breeze. Right behind that white wooden door I’m at the sink washing dishes. A soap-drenched rag goes round and round the plates which then go into a sink full of rinse water. I hear birds chirping, a…

A Walk Down the New Fence Line (Three More Acres)

When we started our little homestead one of the things we decided was to just start with a couple of acres. We knew it would take us some time to really put those two acres to use and nearly five years later that was one of the few things we were actually right about. Those…

What I Want You To Know About the Simple Life

On a warm August day painted with the picture-perfect blue sky, the children all congregated behind the cabin. The eldest, nearly eight now, assisted in washing laundry while he encouraged his younger brother, six, in the garden fence he was putting up. His little sister squatted down in the mud nearby, the way toddlers seem…

Construction Old and New

We finished up the cabin a while back with insulation, walls, and then a simple coat of white paint. Stewart also finished the tile that acts as a mud floor as you walk in as well as some protection beneath the wood stove. Interior walls may also go up at some point. This 400 square…

The Start of the Winter Garden

It is one thing to say we’re going to move off-grid and start a homestead and it is an entirely different thing to do it. What you think might happen really doesn’t and what you envision your days looking like isn’t really a reality. We’ve spent the past seven weeks learning that lesson, amongst others….

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