Well Begun Is Half Done

Today we made a list of everything that needs to be done around the homestead.  We prioritized all of our tasks.  What needs to be done before snow flies?  What can be done over the winter months?  What needs to be done first thing in the Spring?  The lists are absurdly long.  Sometimes it feels like our goals are unrealistic. Diving head first into homesteading is often daunting and overwhelming.  I've found the best way to set my mind back on an optimistic track is to review all of the many ways we have achieved some self sustainability already.  As my mother says, it helps me to "change the tape" in my head.

So, at the risk of tooting my own horn... toot toot.

Solar Energy 

In my previous post, I talked about our home.  Our house is really a fifth member of our family.  I love it dearly, but there are times that I just want to scold it for not being more helpful.  We need floors, we need to replace some of the logs, we need to level the posts, we need to wall in our bedroom, we need to do this, and that, and the other thing.  I was feeling so overwhelmed by the numerous projects yesterday that I went outside to reset my attitude.  As I was looking at our log cabin from out in the garden, I achieved a bit of peace.  We have no power lines running to our home.  That's a beautiful thing, folks!  We have a little oasis, free from interference from the outside.  We are untethered to a power company, to power losses during storms. We are independent and responsible for our own electricity and DAMN, that feels good.

Now, we can't take all the credit for that.  We bought the house with the solar energy system installed.  That's actually one of the primary reasons we bought this particular home. We did have to invest in new batteries.  Our first winter in Searsmont, we had to run the generator almost daily.  Since we replaced the batteries, we go months without having to run it.  We have to have a solid week of poor solar gain to need the generator.

Wood Heat

Andrew and his father spent most of yesterday down in the woods chunking up some downed trees and then splitting the wood for stacking.  I think my dear husband spends 80% of his spare time wrangling a chainsaw or maul and 100% of his day worrying about having enough wood for the coming season.  You really can't blame him if you are familiar with what the last couple of winters have been like in Maine!  Even so, we are happy to brag that our woodstove gets a healthy workout all winter long.  We love having our heat independence.  Our beautiful home also has excellent solar gain through skylights; unless it is exceptionally cold, we don't heat during the day.  (We wear a lot of sweaters at our house.)

Side note:  Cutting/splitting/stacking wood involves a fair amount of beer consumption at our place.

Gardening

Our garden is not yet much cause for boasting, but it still makes me feel like we've achieved some semblance of food sustainability.  As Mary Poppins says, "Well begun is half done."  Our garden is certainly well begun.  It has grown each year that we have been married.  It began in containers on the porch of our apartment and is now occupying most of our side yard in beds.  We let it go a bit this year because it's been hard for me to adjust to gardening with a newborn, but we have grand plans for the next growing season.  We hope to end our dependence on a CSA share to make it through the year.  Which, in some ways, is sad.  We love the farm we receive our veg from.  

(If you're looking for some sweet CSA magic, check out the Bahner Farm. They've been great to us for the past few years.)

In short, we're well on our way to making our dreams come true.  I sometimes need a bit of perspective to keep me going day after day.  And perhaps I should stop making these grand lists.  Nothing says get off your ass! like a long to-do list on the fridge, but sometimes the message gets jumbled and sounds more like you're failing at this!

And while I'm typing, I should add that we have a Facebook page to keep the world updated on our day-to-day goings on.  "Like" us HERE to keep up with the latest.  Thank you for your support!

Where Every Story Begins...

Every story only has only one place to start: the very beginning.  As this blog begins, so does our homesteading journey!  I decided to begin this blog as we embark on building our family homestead in the woods of Maine to document and share every triumph and every setback.

We are in a great place to begin.  We have a family, a house, and plenty of ambition.

The Family

Me

I'm Allie.  I was raised in Florida and in Maine and decided somewhere along the way that Maine was where I wanted to settle.  I met myself a man in my freshman year of college and we got married, bought a house, and had a kid.  I have a lot of dreams and plenty of drive, but zero homesteading experience!

Andrew 

My husband, Andrew, is definitely the brawn in this home.  I'm not afraid of some good, back-breaking labor, but he's the real muscle around here.  He's primarily a stay-at-home Dad and general handyman.  He is full of creativity and dreams, as well as the drive to make them all come true.  We would be lost without him.

Charles

Little baby Charlie is the light of our lives and the primary reason we chose to build a homestead.  We want to be home to watch our son grow and we want our home to be filled with home-produced food.  What's healthier than that?!  Charlie is made of smiles and sunshine.  We have dedicated ourselves to parenting as naturally as possible.

Pea-bear & Merle

Pea-bear the dog and Merle the cat.  Pea is a sweet, fat, and gluttonous ball of love!  Merle is... well, he is not.  He just became an indoor/outdoor cat this week, so maybe the wild woods will wear him out during the day so that he stops attacking our feet all night.

The Home

Our home is a log home built from lumber harvested on-site in the 80's.  We bought it in December of 2012 and have been slowly chipping away at improvements since then.  I say improvements, but what I mean is we have been slowly finishing building it.  It needs a lot of love.  Thank goodness we have lots of love to give the old gal.  We live on 15 acres of wooded property with just enough cleared to make livestock possible in the near future.  We live entirely off grid--we use solar energy and propane appliances.  We heat entirely with wood that we cut from our property.  Our road is unmaintained.  Well, it's maintained by my family and the others who share our road.  Believe me... there are not many of us.  However, we are in the perfect home to begin homesteading.  We just have to jump in and go!

I currently work full-time as an ed tech during the school year.  Andrew will begin staying home five days a week when I go back to work at the end of August.  We will be building, gardening, harvesting, toiling, diapering, living, and crossing our fingers with every spare moment we have.  We'd love for others to join us on our homesteading journey; we're looking for help, inspiration, advice, and support.  And maybe... just maybe... eventually customers.  Welcome to our story!