On top of all that, for whatever reason, we've been fielding a lot of questions lately about why we choose to live this way. Why are we the kind of folks who get excited about raising hogs instead of just buying a pork chop at the supermarket when we want one? Why are we inviting the hassle of raising hens to sell eggs when we could just work a couple more hours a week at a job? I thought I'd save some time and just write about it.
Andrew and I were not always this...um..."crunchy." We started dating when I was eighteen years old and owning a farm was the last thing on my mind. I'd hate to tell you what was mostly on my mind in those days. Andrew and I were in the same boat that way. I was in college and on track to become a teacher. But, somehow, we grew in the same direction. We have both changed dramatically in the last ten years and, miraculously, we landed on the same page. So we bought this amazing off-grid log cabin and slowly began to add to our homestead and farm. But why?
It boils down to a really simple concept. We love being connected to our land. We would much rather work our own land for what we need to survive than work away from home in order to pay for what we need to survive. We know people who don't quite understand that. It's incredibly difficult for some people to understand that having a traditional nine-to-five isn't necessary. But if you don't need as much money because you're producing your own food for a fraction of what you would have paid in the store, cutting back on hours worked outside the home is easy.
We also made a conscious decision to be around our kids more. We didn't want our kids in daycare and we intend to homeschool. That is obviously impossible with both of us working.
Hear me out, though. We have a mortgage. We live eleven miles from the nearest grocery store and our car isn't exactly fuel efficient. We pay out of pocket for homebirth midwifery services (worth it!). We have kids that need clothes, animals that need feed. We have expenses. So our current situation is this: Andrew works two part time jobs that he has chosen because they include wonderful perks. He works at a larger farm where he gains experience, knowledge, and, often, leftover materials. We also have access to their greenhouse so we're able to start our seedlings there. We hope to have our greenhouse up and operational by the end of summer this year. He also works at a hardware and feed store where he receives discounts on various farming necessities and feed. I stay home with the kiddo and we cut corners where we can. It isn't always easy keeping our budget balanced, but we're extremely happy. We are frequently stressed and tired, but it's the kind of tired that we like. Feeling a sweet ache in your back at the end of the day feels good when you know it's because your chicken coop is mucked out and filled with fresh bedding and that your compost is benefiting from rich fertilizer as a result.
Our goal is to keep this up and cut back on Andrew's hours as we can afford it. In order for us both to be home working our farm, we need to not only provide enough food and wood fuel for ourselves, we also need to be bringing money in to cover our mortgage and other monetary expenses. I have to tell you, not a week goes by that I don't wish there was a mortgage fairy that would just lovingly make our mortgage disappear. It's a fifteen year mortgage, which is great, but it's still sad to realize that it's the primary reason we aren't able to really invest in farming full time. But, hey, no one likes a mortgage.
So I hope I shed some light with this post. Long story short, we live this way because it makes us happy. We know we don't have to be poor. We like being poor. We are poor by choice because it allows us to persue our dream of staying connected to our home, our children, and our passion for growing things.
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