Beginning

Let me begin by saying that writing is not one of my creative gifts so please bear with me as I fumble through this process.

My greatest motivation in life is knowledge. I am constantly reading and talking to people about my current subject of study whether that be breeding rabbits for meat or building a cedar chest. For the past several years, I have kept coming back to the subjects of "prepping" and homesteading. I have found that it is possible to prep without homesteading, however, it is practically impossible (and also not a good idea) to homestead without a great deal of prepping. Preparadness is one of the basic tenets of homesteading.

I have been interested in the notion of self sufficiency my whole life. I spent my childhood building lean-to's in the woods behind my parents house with my sister and two brothers. Fueled by reading too many boxcar children books along with bedtime stories about the summers that dad spent on my great grandparents' farm, my siblings and I had visions of grandeur when it came to those piles of sticks covered with leaves and pine needles.

In August of 2013 I bought my first house. Having lived in an apartment for two years and a college dorm room for 4 years before that, I was excited to have a space completely my own.

For the first couple of months, my girlfriend Ashley and I spent every free moment working on the house. It was a foreclosure and the previous occupants had apparently tried to destroy as much as possible before leaving. Nevertheless, we persevered through those first months of working ourselved to the point of exhaustion and turned our new house into a home. I'll be posting before and after pictures to show off our hard work.

Our first winter in the house, our heat pump stopped working during the coldest winter in almost 100 years so we learned the value of an emergency propane heater and a wood-burning fireplace.

We also experienced the biggest winter storm in over two decades that year and as a result we gained first hand experience with food shortage. Although the roads only iced over for a couple of days, the threat of the storm had caused everyone to rush to the grocery store and practically clear the shelves. Thankfully, we had plenty of food storage (canned vegetables, rice, beans, etc.) and we were able to make do with that after seeing the empty shelves at the store. Through this experience it was very clear how easily a disaster -whether manmade or natural - could disrupt the food supply and cause a shortage.

It was during this difficult winter that it became apparent that not only did I want to learn to be more self sufficient in order to have fresh eggs and vegetables. I want to have a private food source that isn't dependent on weekly deliveries.

Subjects you can expect to see on this blog:

• Gardening
• Chickens
• Rabbits
• Quail
• Ducks
• Recipes
• Frugal living tips
• DIY
• Miscellaneous homesteading information