The Homestead

            Growing up I spent a good portion of my time getting into a lot of trouble on the horse farm that my grandfather managed. My time there was unfortunately cut entirely too short when he unexpectedly passed away. So I have always had this attraction to farms. I have always wanted to live on one. Well now I might get my chance.

             Charlie happens to have some family land out in western VA that we are hoping to turn into our homestead. It’s not much – 4.5 acres – but I still think that will be plenty of room for me, Charlie, the pups, some chickens, a donkey, a large garden and maybe a goat. The goat is still up for debate. It has been slow going at first because we are starting from scratch and I mean scratch. Let’s just say that we almost have the lot cleaned up. The land was recently clear cut so we have been spending most of our time clearing what was left by hand and with some much needed help from our friend Trip and his dozer, and some awesome family members who needed fire wood. We are hoping to get things really moving and getting the septic system in within the next few months, and then possibly start building shortly after.

There is a lot to clean up here. Looks like someone dumped a bunch of tree sized toothpicks all over the place

Trip's Dozer. We couldn't have done any of this without him and that dozer.

The workhorse of the whole project. Well really the only one that worked well enough for us to cut anything

Charlie working on clearing by the creek. The mountain laurel is going to be beautiful once it gets some room to grow

            There are two things that are really hard for me through this whole process 1. Being patient and 2. Keeping the motivation to keep fixing up the house we are currently in to hopefully sell it. I can’t wait to be out there. The city has been good to us. We are close to the water and get to paddle regularly, and there is plenty to do, but part of me craves the quiet simplicity of being in the middle of nowhere. That and the barn parties we plan on having. I feel like in the city I have gotten a little lazy. I am completely in love with the thought of taking care of animals and working in my garden. We have a small garden now, but nothing close to what I want to have out in the country. I know that it is going to be a lot of hard work, but I am excited and ready for that. Working hard to take care of yourself and your family makes it worth it to me.

            One of the things that I am most looking forward to is having chickens. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I have a thing for chickens. It all started with a reoccurring dream of being chased by giant chickens. The dream was scary at first, (these chickens were foaming at their giant beaks) but about the third time I had it and the second person I told, I realized how funny it actually was. There have been other chicken occurrences as I call them. There was a girl in college whose mother decorated her entire kitchen and a good portion of the house with chickens and roosters. It was creepy trust me. This seems to be a common theme for kitchen decorating and usually to a degree that borders on insanity. I try to limit the chickens in my life when it comes to decorating, but I am so excited to have some real chickens on the farm. My current procrastination technique from schoolwork is researching coops and everything that my little chicks will need to be happy. It is amazing the array of chicken coops that are out there.

     A great reference for just about anything for a small farm if anyone wants some info. She gets really in-depth about chickens:      http://theweekendhomesteader.blogspot.com 

            Another hope of mine is that I get back the creative juices I seemed to have been missing for a while. I love creating and making something out of nothing, but I tend to get messy with it. We are a little cramped in our current home (a rancher) since one whole room is full, like hoarder full of our camping, paddling, hiking, skiing, rafting and any other outdoor activity you can think of, gear. It’s quite amazing really. There is also the fact that we are trying to fix up and sell the house. I am looking forward to my own space where I can spread out and get as messy as I want, and not worry about it. Having that freedom I am hoping will unleash my inner artist again. Plus I will have room to store the random things that I pick up off the side of the road, like those old windows in my garage that need to be turned into picture frames…