Finally!

Well, finally I have figured out a place to post our experiences and/or antics. Hopefully, you will have found this site with a relative of ease, and more importantly, find useful information.

We are currently researching how the most efficient way to grow a garden. By efficient we mean with non-hybrid plants, so we can harvest their seeds. To figure out how to do the least amount of weeding, while keeping the weeds at bay. To produce the very largest possible crop with what seeds and land we have available.

Within the next couple of days we will be starting the seedlings for our tomato's and a few other veggies that can be placed outside sooner. We have learned that the "official" last frost date for our area of Southwestern Iowa is May 10th. This will truly be our first garden, ever. We are so excited to get working on this project, the weather just isn't co-operating quick enough!

The Begining...

December 17, 2008:

Why in the world would you want to go to Iowa, was the response by many of our friends and family as we prepared to move from Weiser, Idaho to Iowa. We were, after all, leaving our older children, some of whom were pregnant and/or recently pregnant. Friends would ask if we had family there. Family would ask how we would see each other. Our answer was the same; we don’t know exactly, it’s just what we need to do. The “call of the wild” the call of land, the call of slower life kept reverberating in our brains, and more importantly in our hearts. We had to go. We had to begin an adventure that would change our lives.

July 4^th, 2008, with a 26’ Penske loaded to the brim we set off. Before we had traveled 25 miles we blew a tire on the trailer my wife was pulling behind a beautiful 2006 Dodge Durango. The trailer was loaded with a new dune-buggy we hadn’t driven more than 5 miles in the year we had owned it. We had moved our motorhome out during spring break in March. Sonia would fly back for the birth of one of our grand-babies and then drive out in August in the 2008 Dodge Caliber we had just bought. We had money in our pockets and money in the bank, enough to finish the remodel and get the house livable by the time my wife and little kids showed up. Little did we know how this adventure would turn out, how vastly different we would be living 6 months after we confidently set off to build our homestead.

Flash forward: Today, Dec 17 2008, We are hanging on until payday hoping that we will have enough funds to: get a refrigerator for our kitchen, the furnace fixed, propane bought, a bigger wood stove that will heat more than two rooms, pay for a check that we wrote after making a mistake in our checkbook, buy enough gas to get to work, some milk, bread, eggs, and a few other staples, and maybe gloves to go out in the cold. Forget about Christmas, the kids will be getting what their real dads and moms buy them. I still haven’t bought the ticket so My 16 year old can go visit his mom. We are hoping that there is still a seat for him on something going South. The Durango is sold and gone. The Caliber too, the fridge? Well, we had planned on renting one for a couple of months until we could by a big side by side with water and ice in the door. That hasn’t panned out. We have however learned that if you hang out slices of ham on a tack it better be very high on the wall cause cats got ours hung at about 7 feet. $4.30 a gallon gas and an illness has thrown us, as they say, for a loop.

You would think that our spirits would be dampened. You would think that we would consider tucking tail and running back to a place that we know, with people we love. But we cannot, we will not. For in the struggle we have found a purpose, a way to save ourselves, our family , our neighbors, our community, maybe even our nation and we will hold fast to our initial plan and build this homestead.

You, why are you here? Maybe you felt the same pang of hunger for a different way to live your life. You may be able to get some info form our struggles that will help you learn what you need to know to do what you desire for you and yours.

And thus we begin. A quest? An adventure? A dream? Whatever you are searching for, may you find some info and a little bit of solace and comfort here. Happpy homesteading!!!