I am so happy to meet you! So many people ask how long we have been homesteading, but homesteading has so many elements to it. Most people picture a farmhouse with cows, chickens, pigs…perhaps sheep and ducks. You might say I grew up homesteading, but it wasn’t a traditional farmhouse look. Nothing about my life growing up was traditional, but being nontraditional is certainly where I got my roots. My homesteading journey began at the very beginning of my life.
A Log House in the Woods
I grew up in a log house in the woods in Iowa, which doesn’t exactly spell out a poster child homesteader. So many elements of what we consider modern day homesteading were interwoven into my life growing up. My mom was a genealogist, an herbalist, and collected early American primitive antiques. My dad had a passion for nature, the earth, and primitive skills. Both of my parents’ passions were interlaced into our life and my childhood. Things such as cooking from scratch, baking homemade bread, making a fire using a bow drill or hand drill, and hide tanning were all very normal to me. It directly impacted my faith and breathed life into my own passion for animals. The earth was a living breathing soul, full of beautiful life, hard lessons, and a love deeper than anything I had ever felt. Everything was interconnected, and I remember feeling so lucky to be a part of it.
Homesteading at an Early Age
If you asked my parents whether or not they were homesteaders, they would probably laugh. I don’t think they ever thought about defining their interests – they just did them. And just about everyone thought they were weird. They played music from the Civil War era on instruments my dad built, including hammer dulcimers, lap dulcimers, banjos, and fiddles.
My dad’s idea of camping consisted taking a knife. That’s it. No tent, no fire starters (except for a bundle of tinder in his pocket, and maybe a bow drill). Needless to say, we packed lightly.
Over the years they embarked on brewing beer, cheese making, and making jerky to name a few. I grew up with people who wanted to know how to make their own food. They both loved knowing how things worked and enjoyed learning new techniques in preparing food.
Lots of Wild Game
The Creator (or God, take your pick) was everywhere and in everything. While we were grateful and excited for a fresh deer to get us through another year, there was also a deep reverence for the life the animal gave up in order to nourish us. I remember feeling a tremendous responsibility to honor the animal and not waste it. And we didn’t.
We would start by carefully skinning the deer so we could later tan the hide. Tendons were kept to make cordage, the heart sack was saved to make a bag, and the meat was harvested for many meals to come. We utilized every part of the animal we could.
My mom was a master at cooking game meat. We ate a lot of game meat! Not only was she an incredible cook, but she was also knowledgeable about herbs and their medicinal uses. She made a wonderful balm for mosquito bites, had me put plantain on bee stings and wasp stings, and loved aromatherapy to calm nerves. She didn’t carry around a bunch of essential oils, though – it was usually a handful of herbs. Looking back, I love how natural it was, and how close to the earth it seemed. The flowers, leaves, or wood, still intact and not in a bottle or vial. There is an absolute time and place for vials and bottles, but the purity of grabbing just a handful of herbs and breathing in their scent just felt so powerful. There was nothing fancy about it, and it made me feel as if I was getting to know and familiarize myself with the actual plant.
Working so closely with the earth, it seemed only natural I would be drawn to animals. Understanding them was easy – understanding my peers was not. I was that weird kid who was on a crusade to save the spider and not have it be stepped on. It had been ingrained in me to never take a life unless it was absolutely necessary – no matter how small or large, plant or animal.
Harvesting is an art in itself from knowing when to harvest, where to harvest, and how to harvest. This goes for both plants and animals. None of it is to be taken lightly, but it is also okay to experience joy in the taking.
A Short Stint in New York City
I never saw myself living in a city, let alone New York City. This is where homesteading takes a turn because it is not defined by where you live. I could have been miserable living there, but I wasn’t. While New York was never a place I wanted to live, life circumstances took me there. No, I didn’t have a garden or raise my own food, but I still cooked and baked from scratch. As luck would have it, horses found me, even in New York.
Horses had long been a passion of mine. I had been riding nonstop since I was six years old no matter the weather. Of all places, I found myself at a barn in Staten Island with the sweet smell of horses. It breathed life into my soul and kept me going when I was beginning to feel like I was drowning.
Apart from horses, New York introduced me to some wonderful people and lifelong friends. I may not have been galloping across fields or driving down a dirt road, but life was alive with so many wonderful things. I loved the ethnic foods and incredibly kind, caring people. Still, I longed to be back in wide open spaces.
Back to my Roots
Throughout my 20’s, I felt lost in the world after growing up the way I did. Growing up, I was able to travel throughout most of the United States. I was even able to go to Europe, study abroad in Spain, and immerse myself in other cultures completely foreign to me. I was on a quest to find myself and what I was going to do with my life. Most of my peers were striving for big careers that seemed so detached from the earth and nature. I didn’t care about a big house, fancy cars, country clubs, or flat screen tv’s. What I wanted was a connection to the earth, to animals, and to raise a family with the same values and skills I learned growing up. I wondered if there was even a place for it in this modern world. Fortunately, I met my husband who shared the same vision for the future that I did.
I met my husband soon after moving back to Iowa and we were married two year later. In the beginning of our marriage, we rented a small house on about four acres of land. We had chickens, horses, and mules, and dreamed about building a life where we could continue to raise our own food. Homesteading wasn’t something my husband or I ever actively set out to do – it just happened. I don’t think it ever occurred to us to live any other way than we do now.
About a year after we were married, we purchased the home we have now. Over the years we worked to make it our own by installing fences and building a loafing shed for our animals. We put a woodburning stove in our home and continued adding more and more animals to our homestead, along with a couple of kids. Today we have a small herd of roughly twenty beef cattle, two dairy cows, pigs, and chickens.
My Life Today
I love homesteading, homemaking, and homeschooling our children. It is a perfect blend of my passions for the earth, animals, cooking, and family. They all feed off one another and help to nourish our family, giving our kids a wonderful start to their lives. We are able to spend so much time together learning and growing as individuals and as a family.
My love for animals has never gone away. Over the years I developed a passion for training dairy cows. I rely heavily on my work with horses when working with cattle. Owning dairy cows fulfills my yearning for having a partnership with animals.
Communicating with animals has always felt so much easier than communicating with most humans! The relationship I have with each of our animals is special and unique. I am always working with them, continuing their training, and making them the best they can be. Training really has no limits, and I rely heavily on communicating with them through body language, touch, and voice. We have to learn to speak their language so they can learn to speak part of our language. Cows, just like horses and dogs, can learn voice commands very easily. An entire world of possibilities is opened up once we understand how they think and process information and new situations. This makes the partnership with them much easier. Animals enjoy their job and their lives much more when they have a good, healthy working relationship with their humans.
Traveling with our homestead is difficult, so I don’t do it all that often, but I do carry my travels and experiences with me. I am so grateful I have been able to visit so many places and live in such a variety of spaces. As my children grow, I hope to foster that yearning for travel and exploration in them. Our time with them is so short. There is so much to teach them in such a short amount of time to prepare them for life the best we can. Ultimately, I hope they leave us with the confidence to pursue their own dreams, whatever they may be.
Fun Facts About Us:
- My husband and I both grew up in log houses.
- We both grew up riding (me – horses, him – mules).
- My 13th great grandmother (Francis Alcott Hutchins) was accused of being a witch in the Salem Witch Trials.
Follow along with me to see how I intermingle my passions to provide my family with wholesome food!