Angel is a wife, and mother of three living and homesteading in the hills of East Tennessee.
Her and her husband homeschool their children, and incorporate their homestead in schooling.
They grow a lot of their own food, including their own dairy from their dairy cow. Angels husband hunts, and they grow a beautiful garden.
If I have learned one thing during our journey, it’s that homesteading looks different for everyone. While most of us have a goal in mind, it is an ever evolving learning process. Different folks are in different stages and that’s the beauty of it. But all you have to do is start somewhere. Start small, give yourself grace and don’t become discouraged. It might look like learning to garden, or getting chickens and using your own eggs. Maybe getting a few meat animals to learn how to harvest. Whatever the case may be as long as you start somewhere you’ve began your journey!
I grew up visiting my great grandparents homestead in the mountains of Utah. My summers and winters there made me crave to always have wide open spaces and animals around. They had no electricity(aside from generators), built their own place, grew the food, fished and hunted for meat, the water supply came from a cold hidden spring, and they used an actual outhouse. Life was so beautiful there. It was good honest hard work, delicious homemade meals with lots of family time together around them, and the beauty of God’s nature.
As I got older I wanted to work towards that myself, but had no clue where to even begin. Truth be told it has been so much trial and error to get where we are now. I remember starting my very first “spring” garden in august. Ha, I just had no clue. But I’ve come a long ways and learned so much from simply trying. Yet there is still so much more to learn, and that excites me!
We now have a milk cow, replaced our dairy products with her milk, grow a big portion of our own food, my husband hunts during the seasons, chickens and ducks supply our eggs, we’re learning to build coops and small barns for the animals, we homeschool, and by all that we’re slowly chipping away towards what homesteading means to us. It’s a beautiful, simple way of life, with a good kind of hard work that teaches invaluable life lessons.
As our kids grow we’ve incorporated their help more and more. Many hands make light work! And they truly enjoy the responsibility we’ve entrusted to them. We feel it’s important to really cater to their interests and find what passions they have. This allows them to grow within their own strengths and helps the whole homestead run more efficiently. Not only do our children learn so much more by hands on experience, but it has given us the ability to go even further with our journey.
We homeschool, but I’m also a huge fan of unschooling. Yes we have structured day to day lessons, but a huge portion of their learning is by getting outside and doing what they love. Our 5 year old loves tractors and trucks and can change wheelbarrow tires for his mama already. Our 8 year old loves botany so she’s always fixing problems in the garden that I don’t understand. All of this translates into our day to day lives and helps Gabe and I as parents gear what chores to delegate for our kids.
I just wanted to encourage those that might be still on the fence with a new experience like this. If your wanting to try something easy, get some chickens! I always suggest them first to people that want to become more sustainable. The eggs can be used in so many ways, the chickens will supply manure that is turned into compost for gardening, if you free range they keep bugs down in your yard and if you get a small coop it still will not take many hens to keep a family supplied with eggs!
I hope this little ramble has left you feeling a bit more ambitious to try homesteading in some way shape or form. I cannot speak enough good things about the positive impact living a more simple way of life has had on my children. And that in itself has made it worth everything!
Happy homesteading mamas,
Angel
If you want to be self-sufficient and feed your family healthy hearty meals from scratch, you’ve got to
start milling at home. I know, I know, it sounds complicated and al little bit scary, right? But it doesn’t
have to be!
I am not well traveled. I’ve never flown on a plane. I’ve never been north of Ohio or west of Texas.I’m not as well traveled as some may say one should be, but this piece of land has housed all of my fondest memories…
“In some Native languages the term for plants translates to ‘those who take care of us’ … the land knows you, even when you are lost.” – Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass…
Hey there, Homesteading Mama’s!
I’m Rachel from @frontier_homesteading. My husband Ryan, three children and I have been homesteading for about 10 years now, first in Wyoming and now in Alaska.
We currently have milk goats, pack goats, sheep, a pig, a cow, chickens, rabbits, bees and a dog. Seasonally, we also have more pigs, meat chickens and turkeys….
Homesteading and growing food is not the easy way out of this life, i would say it is the hard way as there’s nothing convenient about it. It’s a lifestyle, a life change not a trend or hobby. Well, that’s my opinion any way…
After a busy daycare week for our toddler, and the hectic joys of infant co-parenting + farming, weekend mornings are eagerly anticipated family time; the weekend promise of adventures great and small is so refreshing…
