When You’re Tired, Don’t Quit – Take a Break.

They knelt beside me, these littlest redheads of ours, as I poked holes for cantaloupe seeds. The earth was dry as I burrowed in, a reminder that we are in the midst of the worst drought this place has seen in the ten years since we’ve moved here. More cantaloupe seed than a row could hold fall from chubby toddler fingers into a hole and she covers it up like she’s been gardening every one of the twenty-two months since she’s been born. We don’t have much water to do anything but get them started so I soak seeds and pray and, as we say in our home, get my cereal bowl out.

I’ll save the cereal bowl story for another day.

I’d given up on homesteading around the time our Hannah Joy was born. I’d given up on a lot of things four years ago, actually, including sharing in this space. It never seems like a good idea to share stories that are mine, but not exclusively mine, or the things that tear your heart in two, even if to write would bring you through those griefs. So, like homesteading, I mostly quit.

I spent most of these past few years trying to put back together various areas of our lives that felt either broken or burnt out. I worked at filling gaps and catching up on school after spending much of the second-half of Emily’s pregnancy in bed. We began high school with Elijah and are doing fun stuff like algebra, geometry, biology, and chemistry. This next school year Abram will begin his high school years and we’ll have six students from preschool to 11th grade.

I’ve also tried desperately to get rid of anything we don’t absolutely need in our 900-square-foot house and still find myself overwhelmed by stuff. We’ve implemented large family living systems, some that worked, most that didn’t. I’ve been trying to put the pieces of my own health back together, more slowly than surely.

When I look back at these past few years, most of that stuff was secondary to the real mending that was going on. The whole time it was actually Jesus putting me back together; drawing me in for closer communion, making my heart burn with more of a longing for Him and eternity, showing me that there is but one thing truly needful for our family and our children’s well-being. Though I faltered, He was faithful.

At least two of these years Stewart struggled with illness. Different rounds of tests and different health care practitioners gave us a little bit of insight, but it’s still a mystery outside of our best guess. Somewhere towards the beginning, when things seemed especially hopeless, I fell into a deep pit of anticipatory grief. The thing that you may not realize about something like that is that you don’t recognize it while you’re in it, at least I didn’t. At some point I remember crying out to my Savior in prayer and receiving an assurance from Him that this was not a sickness unto death. My heart was stilled and that grief slowly melted away. Again, though I faltered, He was faithful.

In the midst of the rearranging and reprioritizing, the sickness and the grief, there simply wasn’t room for much homesteading it seemed.

When Stewart went to work full time, over 3.5 years ago, it felt like our homestead dream died. It has taken me four years to process the fact that much of the reason I wanted a homesteading lifestyle was simply so my husband could be home, working alongside our babies and I. Yes, I like growing and making stuff and want to know where our food comes from, but all of that is secondary.

For the past 3.5 years, Stewart’s been gone nearly every day of the work week for just shy of eleven hours a day. He goes when he’s tired. He goes when he’s sick. He goes when the list of things to do at home is longer than one can sleep comfortably with at night. And when he’d rather be building or butchering or planting, he goes.

But mostly he goes so that I don’t have to. Educating our children at home (because we have no Christian school options nearby) was never optional. Homesteading, on the other hand, was optional. A couple of little ones in the early elementary ages was something I could (barely) balance along with writing and keeping our home, but four students in things began to change. And so we made the decision that I would focus on them, their education, and our home, and step back from working so much.

Our family needed that.

So where does that leave things with this space? Truly, I do not know that I have the capacity to share much of what we’re doing with you all, though I would like to.

The funny thing about living off-grid is that while I said I quit homesteading and that there simply wasn’t room for it, it was actually happening all along. Living off-grid means that most homestead decisions are necessary, not optional. When you run out of water from your rainwater catchment, you must haul it in from elsewhere. When you can only run one freezer off your solar, you can meat. When you buy cheap pigs off of Craigslist a few years ago and by the natural laws of procreation you end up with 14 of them, you start butchering.

And when from the window you can watch your babies building with their Daddy again, even if it’s just for today, you thank the Lord… and plant cantaloupe seeds… and catch up with old friends on the internet.

This morning my teenage sons helped me trellis the beans while our girls washed dishes and cleaned the floors. And now I need to cut and can meat and there are more dishes to do and babies to kiss and maybe we’ll take ’em all fishing tonight. So, until next time, thank you to those of you who have emailed or commented wondering about our family and I. The Lord is taking care of us.

I hope to “see” you all again, maybe sooner than later this time around.
Shannon