My Journey From Suburbs to Rural Homesteading

How did I come to call myself a homesteader? I’d love to share the story with you because it is unique and fun. It wasn’t a straight line from point A to B and includes a few leaps of faith.

My story begins about 13 years ago. In my past life I was a suburban dweller working as a computer programmer and website designer. I was pretty good at my work and enjoying a nice salary. My wife and I were pay a mortgage on a nice home in a respectable neighborhood.

As a boy and teen I enjoyed many nature activities on various outings and vacations but ended up losing most of that connection to nature when I went to college and embraced a new lifestyle. But by my 30’s I was rediscovering a love for nature through hiking, camping and trail running.

I was enjoying running and cross-fit as activities that allowed me to express the energy that built up in my body while sitting at a desk working 8 hours a day. Even though I suffered some chronic pain from years of slouchy computer time, my body felt great with exercise and releases of endorphins.

In general I felt pretty happy because I was accomplishing my goals of paying down a mortgage as fast as possible, I was in the best physical shape of my life and I still had plenty of that feeling of invincibility left that comes with youth.

Me, inspired by permaculture, following my heart and ready to volunteer on farms & homesteads.
Me feeling alive and free in North East Oregon, without a job and between two worlds. Traveling on my own from farm to farm, homestead to homestead picking up skills, passions and making new friends.

Gardening as a New Life Passion

I was enjoying a growing passion in gardening. I first started gardening in a suburban condominium with a small patch of dirt about 300 square feet.

Gardening from the heart
A year into my first suburban garden in Southern California. It was my garden honeymoon; every plant and flower was new to me and utterly magical.

Today that garden feels small to me, but actually it was the perfect size garden to begin working with because there was no way I could feel overwhelmed by the size of space with which I could design a garden.

I excitedly pulled out all the overgrown and dried weeds that came with that patch of dirt. They probably hadn’t been irrigated except for rain water that sheet-ed over the tiny impervious concrete patio and into the dirt. All annuals and biennials, they had long gone to seed and most had perished. I had no idea yet what any of those weeds were.

I was excited to start with a blank slate of soil! That following spring I grabbed some seed packets of corn, tomatoes, peppers and beans from the local hardware store, made some impressions in the soil and pushed the seeds in. Like most any new gardener I checked on the seeds daily and watered them as soon as the top layer of the soil dried out.

I had this vague memory from childhood when I must have planted corn or beans and remembered how easy it was. Luckily I was remembered correctly and the plants came up easily through the hard clay soil that made big cracks on the surface every time it dried out.

I adored that clay soil, not knowing at the time that it had very little organic matter because the condo developers had scraped off the top soil to grade a surface to host the planned community, and probably hauled it out and sold it off in bulk.

The plants weren’t perfectly healthy, but they grew well in the summer sun and I loved spending time with them.

Up until that point I hadn’t read anything about gardening. My approach was simple. Plant, water and weed. But suddenly I wanted more knowledge because I was loving this garden so dearly and wanted to continue.

My first raised beds and my first greens.

I got a few gardening books that were recommended to me and poured over them. I constructed several raised beds, brought in compost, built a small irrigation system, learned to make my own compost, experimented with many different veggie seeds, succulents, roses, perennial herbs, ground covers, native plants from nurseries and in the case of a cactus, propagated from a wild cactus paddle I managed to harvest on a whim with bare hands.

I couldn’t believe how easy it was to propagate a wild cactus! And this beauty became part of our garden.

That small garden fed my heart and soul. Every single day I would go visit the garden, crouch down or get on my knees, and enjoy the beauty in the micro and macro. I found so many insects, beautiful flowers, veins in leaves, colors, shapes and textures and my heart sang.

It was in these moments sometime in my second gardening season that I knew in my heart that gardening would be a life long passion.

Enthusiastic to learn about wild and native plants

One day I was hiking with a friend who was sharing one of his favorite hiking trails with me. Along the way back down the trail I remember the moment when he pointed out to me that the fruits of the cactus were edible.

We stopped as he took out his pocketknife and scraped the glochids (hairs) off of two of the beautifully bright red fruits. As we both ate our fruits, the juice dripped down my chin and my eyes lit up as I enjoyed the punch of sweet flavor.

He went on to tell me that the cactus paddles were edible. Sure enough one day at the grocery store I noticed cactus paddles for sale that my eyes must have always passed over before.

My whole life and up until that point, I had no idea how delicious cactus fruits were that I had surely walked past hundreds of times through years of hiking. This photo was taken in San Diego, California.

I was astonished that these wild, drought hardy plants that covered the landscape were edible. Further along the hike my friend excited in my enthusiasm for this discovery then shared with me that the grass along the path was also edible.

As we opened the grass stalks and nibbled the small but delicious cores that surely did feel hydrating on that hot day, I felt like I was starting to look through the landscape through new eyes.

As an avid hiker I wanted to know what other plants along the trails were edible. I was gifted a copy of A Southern Californian’s Guide to Wild Food, an out of print wild plant identification book by Christopher Nyerges. There were one or two weeds in the book that I already knew and as I flipped through the pages and read the plant descriptions I dreamed about meeting many of those wild edible weeds and native plants one day.

And right there another passion was born that, over the years, wove right into my passion for gardening. Both wild and garden cultivated food began to nourish me in ways I hadn’t been nourished before.

At that time I did end up finding and identifying several other wild, mostly non native plants, on the trails and in my garden. But many of the plants described in my book remained elusive and I continued to dream about what it would be like to know more of those plants. I was sure I had walked right past many of them unbeknownst and I was right about that.

To this day my relationship with weeds continues to bloom in the most beautiful way. Looking back now, I am surprised to remember that feeling of longing for relationships with wild plants. By now I have already come to know many of those wild plants in intimate ways. All I had to do was dream for them.

Western Wormwood reaching for the sun. Photo taken in Southern Oregon.

Organic Food

My parents and sisters’ family had been switching over to eating organic food to have a healthier diet. As a gardener I began to see more value in organic food.

Actually much of my purchased food was still non-organic. Even though I could easily afford to eat 100% organic food, I didn’t make a full commitment. Truthfully, at first I didn’t spend time researching the problems of conventional farming.

I didn’t like hearing about all the health problems, chemicals and other issues. I didn’t want to live in a world of fear or concern over the food I ate. I was comfortable not caring too much about it.

I put all my attention into my garden food and was proud that a significant portion of my diet was coming from the garden. In fact I grew 100% of the greens and herbs that I ate. I shared so much veggies with friends and family and I was proud to tell them that it was organic food.

Over time though, and throughout this journey, as I embraced organic practices and got to know organic farmers, I came to fully appreciate the problems with our conventional food system and the value of locally grown, small scale organic food.

Permaculture

Fast forward to about 3 years into my gardening stint and my wife and I were moving to a new-to-us suburban home. The house and the yard were bigger. This time I had a 25×50 foot garden space to work with and I was extremely excited to have so much space because my first garden had started to feel small and I was hungry to grow more food and more native plants.

The backyard was mostly grass with a strip along the three edged fences a few feet wide where hedges, roses and other perennials were planted. In my ignorance I looked at that yard and valued the grass for my dog to run on.

I looked at the hedges which weren’t producing food and had been establishing darker top soil through years of leaf drop. I thought how I could utilize that richer soil to grow some veggies.

It is still sad to me to look back now and remember how I ripped out the perennial bushes, hedges and a few small trees along one side fence without even spending some time to get to know them.

Yet my heart was filled with joy for my passion. I laboriously removed the roots and prepared that strip for planting vegetable seeds, adding in some store bough compost. Meanwhile I was planting about 6 or 7 fruit trees throughout the grass yard.

Just as they had in my first garden, my veggie seeds germinated and looked beautiful for about a week or two as they opened their first true leaves. And then they stopped growing. I watered them and they still didn’t grow.

As a novice gardener I was becoming frustrated and saddened that my veggies sprouts were not growing and their leaves were starting to yellow. I had no idea why my first garden was more vibrant and this garden was so unhappy. I was starting to feel overwhelmed by gardening and didn’t know what to do.

About the same time I heard about permaculture for the first time. My sweetie, Ann, was working for a local non profit that was promoting sustainability and as part of her work curriculum she was taking a permaculture design course.

Ann came home one day and told me how she was learning about guilds and shared her notes with me. It sounded exciting and encouraging and I started to plant beans and herb seeds around each of the fruit trees.

I was inspired and ready for action, but I didn’t really know what I was doing and and I was also grasping for something to work. Unfortunately the beans and herbs that germinated also did next to nothing and looked sad as they slowly languished.

Ann had also visited a local permaculture garden whose designer and gardener Diane was also offering consulting. I asked, can we hire her for an hour or two to come and consult us on our garden?

Diane ended up agreeing to come offer us her thoughts. This meeting was a pivotal point in my outlook on gardening that also led me down a path to a fresh outlook on my own life and that also eventually led me into homesteading.

As we walked around the garden I hung onto every word that Diane spoke while Ann and I furiously scribbled notes. By the end of our time together I was left with a wheelbarrow load full of practical tips and recommended references.

One of those references was the book Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway. As I started employing some of the tips and practices that Diane recommended I also got a copy of Gaia’s Garden and was instantly absorbed by the content, even though much of it was over my head and I hadn’t yet heard of 95%+ of the species that were listed.

I read that book with a passion over the course of a week or so. For me, it was an absolute page turner. My gardening world view was flipped upside down. I was gifted a new lens that allowed me to begin cooperating with nature instead of fighting it.

A year and a half into my second suburban garden in Southern California, newly and thoroughly inspired by permaculture concepts.
My backyard was transformed into an urban oasis in a matter of months.

In my heart I was already cooperating, but in my rational mind I was fighting with nature and I had no idea. Looking back now some 9 years later, I realize that I was practicing dominion over my garden, rather than working cooperatively with nature.

Changing that mindset towards gardening has and is still taking years as I peel back layers of cultural conditioning. I now no longer look at gardening as a set of skills to master. When I walk into my garden today I am visiting my best friends.

Anyway, back to my story and about 8 years ago my perspective was rapidly shifting. I was excited again about gardening! And this term permaculture had attracted my attention and I wondered how much more was out there that I could learn about gardening with nature.

I couldn’t spend enough time in the garden with the plants!

A Dream was Born

Around this time my sweetie and I were slowly establishing this dream of homesteading in the Pacific Northwest. The idea of homesteading sounded interesting because we liked the idea of living rurally (now I know homesteading can be practiced anywhere whether urban, suburban or rural).

I dreamed of living closer to evergreen forests which I always felt drawn to when I went camping and hiking. I also liked the idea of doing more gardening in rural setting.

As an introvert and someone who experiences increased anxiety from traffic, loud noises and intense energy that comes with densely populated areas near a major metropolitan city, the idea of being in a more rural setting was relaxing.

The homestead dream turned over in our minds and conversations from time to time and we gradually began to talk more about it.

For me it felt more like something that I could aim to accomplish when I was retired. I couldn’t imagine homesteading while I was working full time and I had plenty of fears around uprooting and living a rural lifestyle.

Ann felt differently and was feeling the urge for faster change. She was exhausted with a consumer lifestyle and craved that we would pursue meaningful change in a big way. For her the homesteading dream sounded like one of the best options to move away from a lifestyle that was quickly losing its glamor as she was waking up from the consumption “matrix” that we were steeped in from birth.

I offered a compromise of a 3-5 year plan of paying off our mortgage as fast as we could and saving our money for the new lifestyle that was bound to have expenses. I wanted the comfort of time to research and learn before making a big change.

Divorced and Laid Off

Unfortunately for me at the time (but actually very fortunately for me in the long run) this 5 year plan was not enough for my sweetheart. She needed change fast as she craved more meaning in her life, and I realized too late that I hadn’t been supporting that need. And as I was unwilling to compromise further, 3-5 years must have seemed an eternity away to her.

This disagreement was the tipping point, after many other problems in our relationship had been building, and led my sweetheart and wife at the time to opt for divorce as an escape from an emotionally stagnant relationship.

As I grieved for the loss of my marriage and sweetheart, I continued to garden just as passionately as I had before. With energy and time freed up from the relationship I found much of my free time after work and on weekends in the garden planting, weeding, harvesting, pruning, observing and loving every minute of it.

Being in the garden was so healing for me. And so was spending time with friends. One of my friends who always seemed to have a positive outlook on life advised me to take this change as an opportunity to redefine myself, into whoever I wanted to become.

I wanted happiness and healing in my life and this proposition sounded exciting and worthwhile. This idea became a seed that was planted in my psyche.

Meanwhile I was selfishly asking my ex-wife to delay selling our home because I had ripped up all the grass in the backyard and I really didn’t want to leave my permaculture re-landscaping project halfway completed. More than that, I intuitively knew that the garden was an opportunity to grieve and heal through spending time with plants before fully moving on.

This is what the above garden looked like while I worked on the transformation.

She agreed and to this day I am so grateful that she did because that critical time for me spent in the garden was surely incredibly healing and nourishing on all levels.

Meanwhile as my passion for gardening continued to grow I spent more and more time dreaming of plants and gardening. I began dreaming for a vision of what a future homestead life would look like.

Some months later and I had another twist of luck as I was laid off from my job, along with two co-workers. My manager had tears in his eyes as he delivered the news that was too below the owner to present directly to me. (Even though our company only had 11 employees before downsizing!)

Funny enough, as I received the news there was a big part of me that was celebrating inside. I wasn’t quite sure why, except that my job was a job, and while it paid well, I didn’t feel particularly attached to it.

It suddenly struck me that I had been working without any significant break since mid-way through high school. In standard fashion you might expect from a culture that embraces productivity, I allowed myself a whole week off to have a nice break and then began applying for new work.

At some point I found myself in an interview where my interviewers were very excited about me. But in the back of my mind there was a voice saying “Please don’t make me an offer.” Funny enough, they didn’t seem tuned in enough to notice that I wasn’t emotionally excited about the job they were offering to me, I was just going through the motions.

I walked away a bit surprised, but I also knew that I had spent all of my adult life and school hours as a boy being productive and having this break felt great.

A Leap of Faith Towards Farming

I ended up with this crazy idea to combine my passion with my career. Since I loved gardening the first obvious conclusion that I came to was to consider farming.

Looking back, this is when things got fairly interesting because I started making one heart based decision after another. I got word that a local organization might want a farm manager at some vague point in the future. So I decided to start volunteering there in case it gave me a leg up when and if that day ever arrived.

That day never arrived, but my decision changed the course of the rest of my life. I became free volunteer labor. But I didn’t care because I was around people in a new industry that I knew nothing about. I asked a ton of questions and made new friends.

Farm greenhouse photo taken in Western Washington.

I kept my ears open and I heard about this local person and that local farm and another local organization. Suddenly a new world opened up to me. I started reaching out here and there for interviews or volunteering.

I ended up volunteering at all the local urban farms that I could find within 20 minute drive or so. In those days it was just a small handful and I ended up volunteering at 3 local urban farms that were within a short commute from my home.

At the same time I enrolled in Introduction to Horticulture at the local community college. I went to my professor’s office hours and asked advice about changing careers.

I applied for paying work at farms and a native nursery. I applied for mentor-ships.

I ended up working for a new friend that ran a small urban native landscaping business and started to get to know more about the native plants around me. I was paid a little bit and it felt great because it was my first real gig in the field of working with plants.

I offered to design a new front yard landscape with drought tolerant and native plants to my friend who lived close by. She accepted, I worked diligently on the design, researched a plant palette and I brought my designs to my professor for feedback.

I was able to reach out to a local grey-water professional that I had connected with after attending a one day permaculture workshop. With her help we organized a work party and planted the landscape design over the course of a weekend while she offered grey-water demos as marketing for her business.

I enrolled in a permaculture design course and over the course of a few months I became wide eyed, inspired and informed about the world of permaculture design.

Permaculture students volunteering time to help a community member finish a project in San Diego, California.

I continued to reach out to everyone I knew in the farming, plants and sustainability world about a job, which honestly wasn’t that many people yet. Finally I got a lead for two part time jobs from my friend Diane. One job was at her permaculture demonstration garden and the other was at a biodynamic citrus orchard.

I enthusiastically took both jobs which added up to full time work. It was essentially labor that consisted of a lot of digging, with odd jobs here and there. 40 hours a week of digging and working with my body in that way and I have never felt more physically exhausted in my life. Not from cross fit, not even from raising a child (even though that’s exhausting).

It was a 3 hour round trip commute to work and by the time I got home and had dinner, I only had energy for a shower and crawling into bed. I never slept better in my life!

I did that for a few months before realizing that I wasn’t learning as much as I wanted to. The transition from volunteering to a paid job had different responsibilities and expectations, and while I had opportunities to ask questions, I found myself missing a deeper educational component.

That’s when I started to crave WWOOFing (Worldwide Opportunities in Organic Farming).

A humble outdoor shower and wash station.

WWOOFing Away

I was high on new experiences, following my heart and intuition and feeling aligned with the universe in a way I had never been before. My backyard garden was all planted out and I was enjoying the fruits and veggies of that labor. I felt ready to sell the home and move into the next phase of my life.

I made the decision to downsize all of my possessions and volunteer on organic farms in the Pacific Northwest, where my heart was still calling me to go. I spent the next few months selling, gifting and donating everything that I could bear to part with. My physical possessions was whittled down to what could fit in a small car, for the first time in my adult life.

I spent a month living with my parents and got to know them as an adult in a beautiful way that I wouldn’t have been able to do without sharing that intimate space. And then I hit the road.

With permaculture as a driving inspiration I was looking for permaculture farms that were practicing silvopasture and agroforestry. Perhaps I had high standards, but my search came up short within my search radius.

So I decided to design my wwoofing experience in piece meal. I would learn separate skills: Permaculture and herbs at one farm, raising animals at another, food forest and off grid living at another, and market gardening at yet another. Each of these ended up being smaller than the farms I had previously worked at, they were mostly at the homestead or farmstead scale.

Calendula blossoms lighting up the homestead garden in North East Washington.

It turns out that was another gift from the universe because at some point in my wwoofing adventures I decided that I actually did not want to be a farmer and that I really wanted to homestead in a permaculture way. (I’ll get to that in a moment.)

Through wwoofing I did meet and socialize with many farmers as well as permaculturalists, herbalists, homesteaders and other rootsy folk.

And in another twist of fate and through word of mouth I found out about TerraFlora Permaculture Learning Center, a homestead that actually was practicing silvopasture and other permaculture practices. And as that homestead ended up being incredibly inspiring and educational to me, I ended up spending many months there soaking in knowledge, garden beauty and especially inspiration.

Over the course of my wwoofing experience I became more enamored with weeds and herbs. Weeds and herbs filled my consciousness and I soaked up knowledge from books I happened across.

My interest in weeds sent me down a path of eating weeds regularly. I learned how nutritious they all were and cooked them into my food regularly. As I volunteered on farms that were selling their produce for income, it worked out well because I could add nourishment from greens and roots into my meals without taking even more from the farmers’ bottom line. I think it was humorous and fascinating to most of the families I stayed with because I always encouraged them to try eating more weeds in their diet!

Me excited when I discovered that literally every weed I pulled from garden beds is edible.

Homesteading Instead

After a full season of volunteering on farms I questioned if I wanted to do that for another year. I was starting to crave finding a job as a farm manager, but this time I wanted a paying job that also included mentors that could help me continue evolving.

After some searching I did find a job for a farm manager on a new permaculture farm. I drove across Washington state to meet in person and I loved what I saw. The land was beautiful and the work looked rewarding and fascinating.

I was driving back across the state to visit my friend several hours away where I was spending the winter. But in a sudden shift and to my surprise a strong message from my heart was delivered: I realized that I really did not want to farm for money. I did not want to ride a tractor. And as I realized my body was not what it had been in its 20’s, I did not want to be tempted to pursue extractive practices while trying to earn a decent income.

In all honesty, I do think its possible to farm without compromising most of my ethics, but I knew that it would be extremely hard and many sacrifices would have to be made to do that. I realized what I really wanted to do was plant and tend a food and medicine forest in a creative, personal way without a productive agenda. I dreamed of wild-crafting and wild-tending the gardens that I planted.

Even still, I wanted to pursue the possibility of making an income from homesteading. To this day I’ve been resolute in that choice and glad to have made it, even though sometimes I wonder how things may have turned out if I chose the farming path, because I am pretty sure I could have loved that path also, in a different way, and by serving community through food.

Tomato trellises in a forest garden at TerraFlora Permaculture Learning Center, North East Washington.
My first experience making biltong from sheep meat.

A Homestead Romance

At this point it had been a few years since my divorce. My ex-wife Ann contacted me to share that she had been apprenticing at Camp Joy Gardens, a small biointensive and educational farm, for a full season. We had both taken our own leaps individually and blossomed into new people, taking risks and following our hearts. We had both been able to mature in the absence of our relationship in a way that we hadn’t been able to do before.

We both wanted to and were ready to homestead. And we both missed each other it turned out. After some phone conversations and a meeting we decided to give our relationship another chance.

Noel and Ann re-kindling our relationship at Camp Joy Gardens, outside Santa Cruz, California.
Camp Joy Gardens, outside Santa Cruz, California.

I went to spend some time at the farm where Ann was apprenticing and she came to visit the homestead I was volunteering at in Washington. We share some perspectives, experiences, friends and memories. At that point we were both feeling fairly graduated from our volunteer days and sought the next place to live while we figured out our future homestead plans.

We ended up doing work trade at a homestead and mom & pop sheep ranch in North East Washington in exchange for a place to live over the course of one winter. There we rekindled our relationship while we helped the homestead couple with their operation.

We knew in our hearts that we wanted to homestead together. Finally it was time to move on so that we could pursue that dream together.

Through a chance visit and listening to our intuition, we decided to set our destination to Southern Oregon where we live now. At this point we were used to wwoofing and loved the carefree nature of that lifestyle, we didn’t have an income and so we wondered if we can find a partial work trade to help pay for our housing.

We didn’t know anyone in Southern Oregon but through the magic of the internet we managed to put out word that we were looking for a work trade spot in a rural location. We conjured our intention, quieted our fears, aligned ourselves with the universe once again, sent out some emails written from our hearts, and sure enough we got a few interesting responses.

We offered work trade and paid a partial rent in exchange to live in a beautiful rural setting. We had garden space available and we started homesteading on borrowed land. We planted the gardens with veggies and flowers. We foraged for wild food.

Our landlord ended up becoming a dear friend. And being accustomed to the life of volunteering on farms, we reached out to some of the local farmers and made new friendships. We gradually became connected into our new community. And we fell in love with Southern Oregon.

That experience strengthened our relationship and it confirmed our desire to homestead. We loved every minute of our homestead lifestyle, which felt like a dream come true. I am so glad that we didn’t wait to start homesteading before we owned property.

Homesteading on borrowed land in Southern Oregon.
We couldn’t believe that we got to homestead here in Southern Oregon for 2 1/2 years. If we didn’t ask the universe, we never would have received the opportunity.

Putting Down Permanent Roots

We loved living lightly but we also began craving a permanent home where we could put down roots. Being inspired by permaculture, I had a dream to plant a food forest of perennial food plants and trees. Ann wanted to plant perennial flower plants. We never stopped nurturing that shared dream.

As we continued to explore alternative lifestyles, we began to question whether we even wanted to own land. We were well aware of the responsibilities that come with ownership and the effort that it takes to make a large purchase. We also realized we could be happy and connect with nature on any piece of land, as long as we were in harmony with the land owners or community around us.

But still, in the end we decided that for us, even though we don’t believe that land can really be owned, we wanted the legal status of having a property title so that our homestead efforts could not easily be challenged later. We wanted the peace of mind knowing that we could stay with the trees that we planted, and that we could always be on that land by choice.

We had some savings from our past life that we could humbly put towards a property. We were also building a new web design business with our skills from our past lives that that could help us have a stable income. We also started that business from the heart, with intention and a desire to work meaningfully with less ethical compromises.

Our homestead permaculture garden, designed from the heart
The 2nd season in our homestead garden in Southern Oregon.

As we started exploring where we wanted to live and what kind of property would fit us, a new discussion started with my parents. For some time already, they had their own dream of homesteading rurally when they retired, but by this time they were already retired and hadn’t really pursued that dream on their own. As they aged and gained grand kids their priorities changed, wanting to be closer to grand kids and having less desire to work a large property or a large garden.

We started wondering what would it look like if we combined our dreams and the two couples homesteaded together. They had visited us and enjoyed seeing our rural homesteading lifestyle and could envision us doing that together. After many months of conversations we all agreed to try it out!

Ann became pregnant with our son and that ended up putting a bit more urgency on our search for land. Again fear and urgency crept into our minds and bodies, but with practice under our belts we grounded ourselves, accepted whatever is meant to be and asked our hearts and the universe to show us where to go next.

With that intention we reached out to our communities and followed every lead that we heard of, checking in with our hearts to see if they were right or not. In the end it was a lucky twist of fate that brought Ann and another woman together through a shared interest.

She happened to be preparing to sell her home. We visited right away and saw that it could fit our two families’ criteria for a home while simultaneously falling in love with the landscape. Our hearts cried yes!

With my parents’ generous financial help and enthusiasm for a shift in their own lives, we ended up purchasing the property together before it was ever put on the market.

Our son was born 4 days after moving into the new home and we celebrated with the earth as she brought a deluge of heavy rain showering down. At the time of writing we’ve been here through three seasons and have not wavered in our passion for or decision to homestead.

I am still the same suburbanite that I was 13 years ago when this journey started. I am still the same boy that I was 30 years ago that loved camping, exploring nature and climbing trees. And now I feel lucky to have had a chance to live yet another life, as a dreamer, a traveler, an apprentice, a homesteader, a father.

In the past three seasons here on our very own homestead there have already been many ups and downs. It hasn’t been easy in many ways. But we feel so lucky to be able to live on this land. We feel so lucky to have discovered this lifestyle that is bringing us closer to our Mother earth.

That feeling of gratitude and our passion for this lifestyle is what has drawn us to create this website. We want to share our love for homesteading because it has brought more meaning to our life. We want to share some knowledge that we’ve gained through our unique experiences. We want to inspire others to pursue a lifestyle that is more connected to nature.

Thank you for joining us on this journey!

To new beginnings! Pictured is a young Buartnut seedling springing to life after dormancy.

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