When we first decided to try our hand at homesteading, we thought we would have some time to research and figure things out beforehand. Well, it did not have that way, as they say, "Life Happens!". I was in the military and got deployed to Iraq, we bought a house and had a small plot of land in the country that I could start learning to garden on and thought this is great! Well, things changed and it did not work that way.
During my deployment, my knees deteriorated and when I got back I had to have a knee replacement. I was not an ideal time but it had to be done, we had saved some money from my deployment and thought everything will be ok. We kept things up for a while but it did not go as planned, I was down for a year with the surgery and then doing the PT for the knee other problems presented themselves, my other knee was going to need surgery in a couple of years as it was deteriorating also, the meds from the VA for PTSD put me in a bad place and it just kept going downhill for us.
We choose to move up the plans to start a homestead and grow our own food. We wanted to be able to build debt-free. We had a small window in which to find land and start figuring things out, it was a rough time in our lives and we struggled every step of the way. We did not give up we kept on going and moving forward with things and learned to be problem solvers as the problems arose.
I said all that to make a point if you are going to homestead it is a life-changing commitment and a life of bumps and bruises, it is not easy and it will be a struggle to get it right and get it done. We are not anywhere near being done with our homestead, as we bought raw land to start ours on, for the simple reason it was all we could afford to do at the time. Things on our land were not perfect as we have very sandy soil with very little topsoil and it made gardening a bigger hurdle to jump. That is why I have been trying to grow in containers also! I am building the soil up as we go along and maybe next year I will have everything in the ground and not having a lot of containers around for growing in.
As you see the pictures of this post of the tomatoes I am growing right now, this is the 3rd time I have tried and this is the best year so far. There are some pictures of the peppers I am growing too. This is the second time for them. When you decide to do something and really want to do it, failures will happen in something you are working to do. That is life and you have to keep going and trying to succeed and working towards your goal. I got my first harvest of tomatoes yesterday from three years of trying. I have done better with the peppers this is my second year of getting a harvest from them.
I did not say all of this to be a sob story for me and I am not looking for anyone to feel sorry for me, but a story for you to know if you want to do it, it can be done with some hard work and lots of patience. I am trying to let people that are discouraged in the anything they are doing that it can be done if you just keep on trying. If you really want to do it, set goals, small goals you can meet, and just go from goal to goal and you will get there.
Enough of me rambling for now! I hope everyone has a great day/night, whatever it is in your neck of the woods. Thanks for taking the time to read our blog. I hope this has been an encouragement to you in whatever you are doing to just keep on chugging along and one day you will get there. ALWAYS FORWARD!
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