Finding Our Homestead

We are a family with a goal of working towards a self-sustainable lifestyle in our new home of North Carolina, having moved here from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Our family consists of my husband and I, our 23 year old adult daughter, our 11 year old son and our 8 year old daughter. Our six dogs also share our household and while they really do not fit into the theme of homesteading, they have been members of our family for too long to be willing to give up where we believe when you take in a dog, you keep that dog for the duration of their life time.

I will be chronicling our homestead journey and projects in a series of articles with the hopes that our information may be helpful to others who may be trying to simplify their life. Each article will contain specific subjects of things we are actually doing ourselves as we progress towards a more self-reliant way of life. This will be the first article out of hopefully many more to come as we progress towards our goals. I believe self-reliance is and ever important and worthy goal with today's economy. I can only hope that this series of articles will truly help others, inspiring them to live better on less.

In August of 2009, I found a place in North Carolina for us to move into after living in a small apartment in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We had to downsize drastically in order to make the move, only taking a few luxuries such as our television, computer and children's video games and game systems. Everything else we brought was because it served for our basic needs such as some clothes, dishes and some homeschool books and a few books on homesteading. We moved to a comfortable single wide 2 bedroom trailer in the country in North Carolina that sat on 2 acres. The 2 acres consisted of 1 acre of woods with a flowing creek and an acre of clear yard. It offered cheap rent with the possibility of purchasing it later on land contract payments yet in the meantime the landlord did not care what we did with the land.

The previous owner had never done anything with the land, no gardens or fruit trees, no outbuildings other than one small storage shed or really anything at all. The land sits blank, waiting for us to create what we will with it, wide open space waiting for us to fill it in. As of now, the only thing the land provides naturally for us are a few good hickory nut trees in the wooded part of the land where we have already gathered the nuts now for the fall season as they were ready to harvest by the third week of September. Such an open canvas gives us many ideas for what we would like to do, yet such open land will also mean there is much work to do ahead of us.

We are starting with an income of $900 a month that we are fortunate to receive on a monthly basis without the need for work outside the home. It is our goal that hubby will not have to work at a regular 9-5 job outside the home. I am hoping that through hard work, preservation and a little bit of creativity, hubby staying at home to work side by side with the rest of the family will be a permanent lifestyle for us even if he has to find temporary work from time to time in the meantime. The more we work on reducing our expenses and simplifying our lives, the less we will need to comfortably live on.

We have many things going on now in the planning process such as growing fruit and veggie gardens, beekeeping, raising chickens, rabbits, turkey, quail and goats to name a few. Most animals will be for food yet it is also in our plans for fiber type animals so we can spin our own yarn and make our own clothes. Hunting and trapping is also part of our future plans and I would love to convert us over to solar power or other alternative energy sources. Since we all have a love for nature we also have it in our plans to provide wildlife feeding stations and nest boxes for our wildlife friends.

Plans take money and since we have little of it, our progress may be slow in the making, Care and careful consideration need to go into what needs to be done first, that will be the most help in reducing our expenses such as food costs. The more expenses we can reduce to free up our finances, the more projects we can do speeding our growth towards our goals leading to a snowball effect. Our homestead plans will be in harmony with what we hold value for us to do so. We will also be taking advantage of free available resources for our projects salvaging what materials we can. For this reason, our homestead journey may look vastly different from other homesteaders as we use our available resources and creatively problem solve on our chosen projects.

The ultimate goal is the same however, to become as self-reliant as we can, leaving as few footprints as we can in the process. To not have to rely on grocery stores, clothes stores, or employers. Living a life of quality and meaning on as less money as we can manage. To live in simplicity providing our own basic needs in an eco-friendly manner. To creatively find multiple streams of income from our home to gain the little cash we will need. These are the basic goals of the homesteader. Cheers to our future and yours as well!