Big Plans on a Tiny Homestead - Where to Start?
Okay, so the blog is up and running. There's a singular post on my new Instagram page. And my Pinterest account is at least created. I have pages of research strewn across my bedroom, in my purse, on my kitchen table, and under the living room sofa. I think I check Zillow every day to see if my perfect dream home is finally available in my price range. But at some point, the dreaming and the planning have to change to implementing, and it's a little scary.
Narrowing Down a First Step
Big dreams are reached when many little steps are achieved. I want a year's worth of food storage - water bathed and pressure canned - in my root cellar made by my husband. And the first step to that is to successfully grow a multitude of crops. But the first step to that is to successfully grow one crop. And the first step to that is to prep a garden. And the first step to THAT, starts in the kitchen.
To Prep a Garden
Prepping for a garden starts before the soil and before the seedlings. It starts with:
Making tiny changes to become more sustainable and more frugal with your cooking. Today I made soup. I don't even like soup (usually). But I'm learning to love the process of using up what I have and turning it into a wholesome, filling meal for my family. This soup was made with a random potato I had laying around and the last bit of chicken from dinner two nights ago. The kids and I actually had seconds.
Saving your scraps. I have a ziplock in my freezer slowly filling with vegetable scraps for my first attempt at homemade vegetable broth. And this small bowl is sitting on my stove, waiting to be filled with more potato skins and egg shells for my compost. Do I actually have a compost yet? No. But that's future Alexis' problem.
Meal Planning. I know, you hear it from everyone. But it's said so often for two reasons; because it works and because it's so hard to stick to. Last night, I didn't feel like making and eating stuffed peppers, so we had some leftovers that were supposed to be for dinner tonight. That trade off means I got to enjoy my easy meal sooner, but it also means that I definitely have to cook dinner tonight. My best advice is to remain flexible - to a degree. Can you change up what's for dinner tonight based on the fact that you have no energy to cook at 5pm after wrestling your son to change his 8th poopy diaper in 6 hours and mopping up multiple puddles of urine after a full day of potty training? Yes. You can and you should. But should you throw your meal plan out the window and order takeout instead because someone else cooking is always way more convenient? Probably not. Utilize leftovers, and use a meal planner that you can erase and rework to give yourself some built-in grace during the week. This one on Amazon is similar to the one I use now (paid link, please see my disclosure policy).
Starting in Wisdom
You don't have to start 10 varieties of beans and 2 beehives tomorrow to start homesteading. You don't need to buy a new home with more land and space for a barn to start homesteading. And you don't need to know everything about Nigerian Dwarf Goats to start homesteading. You just need the courage, the patience, and the wisdom. Proverbs 14:1 says “The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down” (ESV). It's so easy to get caught up in the minutiae. What pH is your soil? Exactly how many hours a day do you need to harden off your seedlings? Where can you find heirloom seeds instead of hybrid? None of these questions or answers matter if all you do is get bogged down by them. The definition of folly is a “lack of good sense.” And when your dream is to homestead for your family, good sense says that research only gets you so far. Earlier, I said “the dreaming and the planning have to change to implementing, and it's a little scary.” But change is found in the scary. Welcome it with wisdom. Nurture it with simplicity.
Finding My Why
Finding My “Why”
In the Beginning
Starting off my first blog post the same way the Bible starts off isn’t a copyright issue, right? And if it is, does Moses come after me? Or does God pull a burning bush scenario to tell me Himself? But I digress.
This is my beginning. I have toyed with the idea of starting to homestead for a while, and have made some tiny movements already. I have a couple packets of seeds on my kitchen table. I have a rabbit hutch outside my house waiting to be turned into a quail cage. I have watched a few hundred youtube videos of people doing the very things I want to undertake. And while this is all well and good, I know that unless I have a strong reason for starting, then it will be too easy to quit when the going gets rough. So it is only fitting to make this first post about my why: my family.
Sounds hokey, I know. Everyone says “I do it for my kids” or “my family is the reason I stopped smoking.” But I firmly believe that clichés are clichés for a reason. My two babies have long lives ahead of them, and I am in charge of making sure that they learn what healthy choices look like. I am in charge of maintaining my own health to be sure that I will be there for first dates, for graduations, for a couple more of my own kids, and eventually for my grandkids. And while my husband is ultimately in charge of his own choices, I am the one who shops, cooks, and prepares the food, and I am the one who is always researching what we could do differently to support the health of our family. It’s actually exciting! There’s something beautiful in homemaking, an art slowly curated and nurtured over hundreds of years, only to be lost in the busy lives we lead now. Where mom and dad both have to work to pay the bills. Where daycare costs an absurd amount, only for your babies to be raised by people who could never love them the way you love them. I’m not looking foward to the sacrifices that will probably come along the way: living with one car, only eating salad in the summer when it’s in season, learning to butcher quail without hurling. But I am looking foward to what that means in the long run: raising my children myself, feeding my family - body and soul - with good food and good values, and actively pursuing joy and contentment in the simple. And this blog is where I will document my highs, my lows, my successes and my adjustments. Here is where it all begins.