“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” – Cynthia Occelli
I’m sure many of you were taken by surprise when you found out we are selling our homestead. Don’t worry, this blog will continue to run no matter where we end up. Homesteading is a lifestyle and a mentality, neither one requires owning land. If you’re interested in buying our homestead and supporting our growth, click the date below.
We’ve spent thousands of hours working the land, tending our animals, and trying to make this place work for us. It seems like a lot to just pack up a few things to start again and it is. But as we’ve learned over the past 5 years, things change, sometimes dramatically.
A little background
Prior to starting our homestead we had been caught up in the shuffle, just trying to keep our heads above water. You know the deal: bills to be paid, groceries to be bought, budgeting money and time.
We were unhappy living in an apartment but didn’t see another way to pursue our dreams of building our own eco-friendly house when both of us worked 50+ hour weeks for meager wages. We settled on a land/home deal through a modular home company as a growth step.
When we first got our keys it was a breath of fresh air. There was so much space in the house. The land is unrestricted so we could do anything we wanted! There was so much potential I couldn’t decide which direction I wanted to go first, where I wanted to put what or which box to open. I laid down on the living room floor of this empty house that was ours! But after a while, the shine fades.
Changes and Growth
We’ve been here five years now. During that time frame, we have changed our lifestyle, our diets, the plants we keep, and animals we raise dozens of times. We’ve learned new skills, habits, and modified what we could so it works for us. We’ve experienced so much growth mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically in the past 5 years.
The homestead was suitable while we were learning about ourselves, our new lifestyle, our animals, and how to manage them, etc. But each time I installed a garden for someone and took more time and effort to really research and connect with their land I wondered why I couldn’t connect with ours. I wondered why I always looked at “for sale” signs of acreage when we drove by, unintentionally scanning the land for potential or why I often talked about the things I would want in our land now that I had some experience.
Over our time here I’ve learned that simply having something doesn’t mean you have the thing that is right for your purposes. I call it the “fool tax”, a phrase I picked up somewhere in my reading. The “fool tax” is the price you pay for your inexperience of things. It’s the beginner’s mistakes that you laugh at once you know better.
An example is planting a tree in the wrong place and not knowing until 3 years later. It’s patching the drive to realize you’ve now created a lake. It definitely includes building chicken coops out of recycled materials and patching it every season because you didn’t build it quite right.
It’s also realizing that we’re not the same people we were 5 years ago. Our growth and needs have changed dramatically since then. Don’t get me wrong, I love this land and I love our house, but since we have been here I have learned we do not match each other’s needs. We never did.
