“Are you SURE we can’t help it??” That’s what my 12-year-old asked me last week. It was when I watched him struggle for twenty minutes to untangle a mess he’d made with his fishing line. His face was getting red, his frustration was building, and every parental instinct I had was screaming at me to…
Last week, I found myself standing in our kitchen at 5:47 AM, staring at a massive pile of tomatoes that looked like they were staging a revolution on my counter. We’re talking about the kind of tomato abundance that makes you question every life choice that led to this moment—the beautiful, overwhelming, slightly panic-inducing harvest…
Blogging is the one chore I almost never mention when I post pasture photos or share another batch of goat-milk caramels on Instagram. You drop by my corner of the internet for chicken-tractor hacks and seed-starting tips, not for tutorials on WordPress plugins. Still, the truth is that writing, photographing, and publishing this blog eats up as…
Look, I absolutely get it. The idea of transitioning from being a completely normal person who buys food at Target without a second thought to someone who suddenly develops an uncontrollable urge to milk goats at 5 AM is… well, it’s a lot. And then there’s the whole “convincing your family/spouse that this isn’t a…
Look, I’m gonna be real with you for a minute. Sometimes when I’m out there doing the morning chores—zipping up tiny coats against the Wyoming wind, hauling feed buckets, and cursing at water that’s turned to ice again—I’ll catch myself just… watching her. Watching this little human who gets genuinely excited about mucking stalls and…
Look, I know everyone expects homestead bloggers to have their act completely together. Like we’re supposed to be these wise, earth-mother types who instinctively know the right way to build chicken coops and never accidentally poison our own vegetables. Plot twist: we’re just as clueless as everyone else, we’re just really committed to learning from…
You know that feeling when you’re standing in your own kitchen, surrounded by all the things you thought you wanted, and yet something feels… off? Like there’s an itch you can’t quite reach, a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit, a song stuck on repeat in the back of your mind that you can’t quite identify?…
Today I’m typing from the airport instead of the homestead, which means I’m about as far from my comfort zone as a chicken in a swimming pool, reflecting on my contrarian thinking, embodying a contrarian mindset. But you know what? Sometimes being yanked out of your usual routine gives you the clearest perspective on life….
I’ve got a confession that might make some of you question my credentials as a homestead blogger: I bought a cookbook last week. This purchase made me reflect on the Not just any cookbook, mind you, but one of those glossy, full-color affairs. It costs more than my monthly chicken feed budget. And I felt…
I need to tell you about the hardest thing we’ve ever done—Christian and I—and it’s not what you might expect. It’s not milking cows in subzero temperatures or building a homestead from scratch. Nor is it raising three kids in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. It’s running a small-town school. Two years ago, when Christian…