Hi! I’m Ashley. I’m starting this blog to *hopefully* chronicle my family’s journey to a homesteading lifestyle. We currently live in less than ideal quarters for such dreams. That’s not very different from many of you other wannabe homesteaders, though, if I had to guess!
We bought our first home about 1 1/2 years ago. We truly wanted a homestead on some acreage, but living as a somewhat larger family on one income made it difficult to find the perfect buy within our modest budget. That’s okay, though! We didn’t let it discourage us. In a lot of ways, the home we bought was the perfect starter home for us. I’ve always loved the saying, “Bloom where you are planted,” and that’s just what we intend to do. God really did provide and pull through. So, anyway, we decided that we would go forward with our little piece of suburban heaven on half an acre. The previous owners appeared to be avid gardeners as there was a 10ft X 17ft veggie garden already in place in the back yard, and a massive flower bed on the side of the house. My biggest qualm with our current home is that town zoning laws ban some of the animals that I’d really love to have and that would help us to become more self-sufficient. I really want goats. I mean…I *really* want goats. I’ve toyed with the idea of starting a petition to change our town laws. I already know of a few neighbors in my area who have a small flock of black market hens. I’m sure I could get the support for it. If anyone reading this has experience with doing that, I’d love to hear your story!
Anyway, I was very pregnant with baby #4 the Summer that we moved in, so we decided to wait a year to plant a garden. Last Summer was my first real, successful garden. I’d made pitiful attempts in the past, but always managed to kill plants. A green thumb doesn’t come naturally to me. All the more interesting for the aspiring homesteader, eh? We planted lots of veggies, some blackberry brambles, and a few blueberry bushes. We also discovered 2 apple trees on the back property line. So, we’re blooming where we were planted. We have dreams of…oh, we’re not sure yet. Maybe buying some acreage and building a sustainable type cabin for our family. Or, maybe a yurt! How cool would that be?! We’ve tossed around the idea of a small sustainable farm. And sometimes we even joke about getting real crazy going off grid. We’re not sure exactly where God is going to take us. We have a passion for becoming self-sufficient, doing things the old fashioned way, supporting sustainable agriculture, and really just going back to basics.
