My Homestead/Hobby Farm Dream.

For awhile now I keep coming back to the idea of having my own homestead/hobby farm. I spend all most all of my time on the internet researching animals, crops, alternative energy sources, how to preserve food. You see, I don't want to just have a few animals for fun and call it good, I want to change my entire way of life. I want a simpler lifestyle, where I can have a clean conscious about the way I live.

In an effort to make this dream seem not so far off in the distance, I'm sharing it here with you. I'm also working on a 5 year plan. I'm giving us another year to live in this house. Obviously, as we live in the middle of town, I can't really bring this dream to fruition where we are currently located. I love this house dearly and I wish we could transplant it to a location out of town. That's not going to happen though so Jake and I will be discussing where we want to live. We've mulled over 3 options, all of which would provide us with the land to begin this journey.

My plan is to start small, to continue to plant gardens, to learn more about plants, to continue canning and other preserving methods. Next I will build a coop and get chickens. Once I am accustomed to those, I will add goats, and continue from there. I don't want a giant farm operation, I just want to know where my food is coming from, I want to be self sufficient. I want to rely less on the grocery and big box stores, and more on myself and the handmade and local communities. I get that some people take no issue with being a consumer, but over the last few years I've been realizing that lifestyle isn't for me.

Jake isn't necessarily as gung-ho as I am, but his stance is mainly that, if he has internet access he'd be happy in a hut or under a rock. So I think it will be fine. My goal isn't to go completely off the grid, just to be more aware and purposeful in my decisions and to make, grow, and raise things instead of purchasing them, whenever I can.

I'm at that age now where I sometimes think about whether or not I want children. I've always been adamant that having kids wasn't for me. While I'm still of that opinion much of the time, sometimes seeing my sweet little niece makes me wonder. I think it's a biological thing because it's definitely not a mental thing. If I sit and think about all the reasons not to bring a child into this world, I talk myself right out of ever wanting children in about 20 seconds.

I know that, if for some reason I ever do decide to have kids, I would want to raise them a certain way. I would want them to have a magical childhood outdoors rather than a video game childhood. I love my video games, but I think they should come later in life, after you've explored, made boats out of bark and forts in the reeds. After your little brother almost drowned in the slough and your friend's dad had to go rescue him. Some of my best memories are playing at my friend Kyle's house which was way out in BFE and his parents just let us run wild, imagine our days away, and hoot and holler. My other favorite memories are of my brother and I riding our bikes down to the country store with a bag of soda cans on our backs to trade in for change to buy ice creams and popcorn from Mr. Gatskey. If I ever do have children, I want them to have those type of simple memories bathed in sunlight and fresh air.

I understand that this lifestyle will take a lot of work, but I'm willing to do it. Maybe someday I'll convince my sister to come be my neighbor and we can have little hobby farms right next to each other because I know that this dream is in her heart as well. So if you see a lot of farm animals in my Pinterest Pretties feature, you'll know that it's because I've been dreaming again of my little hobby farm that lives only in my mind...for now.