Starting Out - 5 Easy Ways to Begin Homesteading

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." - Lao Tzu

Have you been thinking about incorporating clean, real eating into your diet?  Making a birthday present for your best friend, but do not know where to start?  Every journey really does begin with that single step and it also requires your intention to change your current cycle and habits towards a new one.  I'm pretty sure no one ever woke up in their Frete sheets and thought you know, today is the day, I'm going to toss all my luxury away and go be Laura Ingalls and live off the land.  I find myself examining my decisions regularly and making small adjustments towards a self-sufficient lifestyle.  Not everything can be changed over night and we've been conditioned to comforts that reduce our stress in certain areas.  Here are 5 small steps to start you on your journey to becoming a homesteader:

1 - Eat and Buy Local - My husband is never going to allow me to have chickens where we live right now, so I've adjusted my expectations of how to have fresh, local eggs on a regular basis.  I sought out a woman in town whose husband tolerates her love for her chickens and buy eggs from her.  My kids come along to see the ladies and we all have a great time chatting about who pecked who this week....and then walk away with our fresh dozen.  Less stress, more local goodness.

2 - Make Your Own Food - May sound simple and straight forward, but there are so many options for pre-packed/made food that many people have lost the tradition of making food as a family.  With work schedules being hectic and kids schedules dominating so many homes (not mine!), there leaves little time in the evening to prepare foods together. If you find yourself in this situation, take some time on the weekends to make a large batch of food for the next few days.  It will help relieve your stress and leave you with many good meals that can just be warmed up.  More posts on my batch cooking & short cuts to come soon!

3 - Grow Food - Herbs and Garlic are easy ways to start growing your own food.  Adding fresh herbs into any meal will give you some extra nutrients and extra yummy goodness.  In the spring/summer time, look for ideas of container gardening or use an Earth Box to get started.  These containers are my favorite as they provide the right blend of soil, fertilizer and a cover to allow maximum growth for your veggies.  The color of the container can blend into your porch or deck making your veggies a nice vegetation addition!

4 - Mason Jars - Enough said.  I love them so much, it could be seen as an obsession.  I'm not sure if it is because of the hours and hours of Little House on the Prairie I watched as a child, but I can never have enough.  I check out yard sales both online and physical to add to my collection and enjoy them for everything from a morning cup of coffee, storing rice, beans and popcorn kernels, to my evening glass of wine.  They are so useful and look so good.

5 - Read, read, read!  Here are a few books that I read to help me get started on my homesteading journey:

• The Backyard Homestead
• The Weekend Homesteader
• Made From Scratch

5.1 - One more...Learn/Find a Craft to Make - Find something that you enjoy making from scratch and start doing it!  I enjoy crocheting....but realized knitting is not for me.  Try a few things and do not settle.  If what you are working on does not put you into that meditative state in which you lose track of time, then it is not for you.  I also enjoy sewing freestyle...but not from a pattern.  I love being creative and not following directions.  When making with my hands, I listen to my inner self for guidance and use that as my guiding light. 

Each day is a new opportunity to integrate small changes (adjustments) into your life (practice)...it is kind of like yoga. Accept where you are today and go (GROW) from there!

xoxo

Waking

My body has a natural ability to wake before the sun does - every day.  It is really quite a remarkable relationship I have with my brain and body where I can be absolutely exhausted at the end of the day and say to myself, ok, it is time to rest, but I need to be up at 5am to work on blah ditty blah.  Like clock work, I wake at 4:59, reach for my phone to check the time, and realize I've done it once again.

However, there are some days, like this morning, that I wake early with no set purpose or agenda, except to enjoy the stillness of my house to become grounded in my day and clear out the administrative tasks I must complete before the rest of the house wakes.  I remember as a child always wanting to wake early but being told it was too early and go back to bed.  My inner child no longer has those restrictions so I honor my inner clock and wake when my body is ready.  I have such clarity at this hour about dreams to finish, tasks to be done and thank you notes I have to write.  I'm so grateful that my body is works this way so I can have the time to focus on what I need to complete before the 3 wee ones wake and need to have their demands met.  So today, I write.

Since my house is so quiet on these mornings and usually is a symphony of 5 talkative personalities, I've found time to read.  Wow, for a mom with 3 kids that is quite a statement.  Recently I finished reading The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown a guide to wholehearted living.  My "new" yoga instructor (because I feel in my heart I will only ever have 1 true yoga instructor in Rebecca Pacheco) quoted the book in a recent class.  Which paragraph he quoted exactly I still cannot remember.  I have a terrible memory for that type of recalling, always have, probably always will.  But the overall gist of what he said about resilience and the body's ability to be resilient even in the most difficult times, inspired me to Amazon Prime that book right over to me!  

As I read the entire book, cover to cover in less than a week (which again, for this busy mama is amazing), I felt as if someone had been watching over me in the past 10 years documenting everything I have been through on my personal journey into her book.  She uses 10 pillars as her guideposts of living a wholehearted life and for the first time, I finally felt connected to way I've been trying to live, and now do, and what I have been trying to express to my friends about the ways in which I've shifted my thoughts around compassion, connection and courage.  Balancing the 3 Cs creates a life of wholehearted living, no doubt about it.  But getting to that point, is not as easy as flipping a switch.  The painstaking journey of recognizing things that get in the way, letting go of perfectionism and realizing that shame, fear, and vulnerability drive so many of our actions unconsciously is a journey that we must endure to become truly living with our whole body.

I never had much gratitude for anything in my life before starting to practice yoga and gardening, two activities that bring my soul so close to the earth it sometimes makes me cry.  Growing up, we were always fighting an uphill battle of keeping the lights and heat on, that we never took the time to be grateful and thankful for what we did have.  And we had so much, but it was never enough - or I was taught to think that way.  The emptiness that I felt when I arrived at college was unimaginable.  But I remember being so thankful that day when I moved in that I no longer had to feel sadness constantly.  It was a very long car ride to Boston that September day, but I distinctly remember feeling a sense of relief that my life was about to begin.  And it did.  Yoga became a necessary pillar in my life and the act of forgiveness, gratefulness and resilience made me cry, laugh and smile every practice for years.

And so whether you are already living a wholehearted life or know that you need to be, I encourage you to read the book and begin the journey.  It will awaken you to a place you never knew you were not before and a place you never want to return.  Be grateful.  Be alive.  Awaken.