Homestead Life
When we embarked on this homesteading adventure, we were looking for something undefinable, a feeling as much as anything. We saw a tiny house on a lake and hoped that might be the place, but it didn't work out. We saw a place with a large greenhouse, acres of land for growing vegetables and a newly planted orchard, but it had only a seventy-year-old, single-wide trailer for housing and a clear view of neighbors on three sides. No privacy. It was perfect, but it wasn't. We looked at it more than once and it just didn't feel right. Most other places that seemed promising had one or more problems and just weren't home.
This place was lacking in growing space, no traditional garden space or grazing land. No lake in the front yard. But it had a special feeling. And privacy without isolation
We hoped to begin cutting ties to the grid and to get closer to the earth. We were looking for a different kind of lifestyle: a closer relationship to the source of our food; a closer relationship to the weather and the seasons; a closer relationship to the stars and the sky, if I may wax poetic for a moment. Since we've been here we have watched more sunsets than in our entire lives previously. We have seen more falling stars, heard more frog songs, seen more varieties of birds and spent more time over at the lake. Don't get me started on clouds.
This morning our daughter Melissa came over and she and Kathy made blueberry zucchini bread with applesauce instead of cooking oil. The busy kitchen activity was cozy and with Melissa's baby bump there were three generations in that kitchen.
We gave Melissa our excess Revere Ware. I bought it on eBay last year, half from a man who got it from his mother who got it from her mother, and the other half from a woman with the same basic story. They were downsizing their kitchen clutter and passing on heritage cookware to another family, as were we. I paid ten percent of what it costs new, and for pots and pans that have stood the test of time and come through in almost new condition. Not to mention, lower price and better condition than other offerings seen on eBay.
While sitting on the deck drinking tea, Kathy and Melissa got to see four white tail fawns playing hide and seek where the woods meets the north meadow. That's why we're here.
There is magic in growing some of our own food, in cooking with pots and pans that have cooked family dinners for over seventy years, and in seeing animals going about their lives. There is magic in making a home in the woods without displacing the other creatures living there. We get to know that magic and we get to know the magic of living everyday knowing something special is always going to happen.
Stephen P.
This place was lacking in growing space, no traditional garden space or grazing land. No lake in the front yard. But it had a special feeling. And privacy without isolation
We hoped to begin cutting ties to the grid and to get closer to the earth. We were looking for a different kind of lifestyle: a closer relationship to the source of our food; a closer relationship to the weather and the seasons; a closer relationship to the stars and the sky, if I may wax poetic for a moment. Since we've been here we have watched more sunsets than in our entire lives previously. We have seen more falling stars, heard more frog songs, seen more varieties of birds and spent more time over at the lake. Don't get me started on clouds.
This morning our daughter Melissa came over and she and Kathy made blueberry zucchini bread with applesauce instead of cooking oil. The busy kitchen activity was cozy and with Melissa's baby bump there were three generations in that kitchen.
We gave Melissa our excess Revere Ware. I bought it on eBay last year, half from a man who got it from his mother who got it from her mother, and the other half from a woman with the same basic story. They were downsizing their kitchen clutter and passing on heritage cookware to another family, as were we. I paid ten percent of what it costs new, and for pots and pans that have stood the test of time and come through in almost new condition. Not to mention, lower price and better condition than other offerings seen on eBay.
While sitting on the deck drinking tea, Kathy and Melissa got to see four white tail fawns playing hide and seek where the woods meets the north meadow. That's why we're here.
There is magic in growing some of our own food, in cooking with pots and pans that have cooked family dinners for over seventy years, and in seeing animals going about their lives. There is magic in making a home in the woods without displacing the other creatures living there. We get to know that magic and we get to know the magic of living everyday knowing something special is always going to happen.
Stephen P.
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