It's been a very long time since I've sat down to write and life has changed greatly. I feel like I'm living in a dream because as of a week ago we moved to an 8 acre farm and basically I have my dream home and things I'd never thought I'd have.
Homesteading has been a dream of mine for a while now but starting a homestead from nothing has been extremely hard. In 2016, we bought a fixer upper house on almost 2 acres of land and started from scratch. We got ducks, built raised beds, started a container garden, and other projects over the years. It was slow going to start from nothing.
In 2020, my health started to deteriorate. Covid and being home all the time for a year effected my health but I didn't know that was the cause of my issues. Apparently, our fixer upper home had developed a mold problem in the ceiling and walls in a few rooms where our roof had leaked. We didn't know the mold was there but I developed mold poisoning. I had so many crazy health issues because of the mold. It caused me to become allergic to fragrances, sanitizers, foods, etc. Because stores in 2020 were using insane amounts of sanitizers and I had bad allergic reactions to them I basically had to give up going out into society and was home bound. I was sick with upper respiratory issues and sinus infections for 6 straight months at the end of 2021. I had muscle aches, memory problems, depression, and anxiety issues all for unknown reasons. I felt disabled a lot of the time.
It was in December 2021 we discovered the mold and figured out why I was sick all the time. Then, we had a decision to make. Fix the problems in our home or find a new one. I felt an urgency to get out of that house so I started looking at farms to see what was out there. I was so tired of constantly fixing things in our fixer upper house that if I was going to move the house had to be perfect and need no work.
And we got extremely, extremely lucky...1 hour away was a beautiful 8 acre farm with a lovely house in great shape with all kinds of cool homestead stuff already built. It was around the same price as we could sell our old house for.
And so we jumped ship and a week ago moved into our new home and a much better setup to homestead. Being out of the old house for a short time my respiratory issues have cleared up. I had a cough for years and I've stopped coughing. I overall feel better and healthier but I've still got a ways to go.
Our new home has a barn, natural stream, bee hives, a goat house, a cistern to catch rainwater, an outdoor wood furnace,a few ancient animals houses, a spring house, 2 big fields for farming, and so much space to move and grow. It's crazy we basically traded a tiny homestead for a bigger one with all kinds of cool stuff.
Now that we've moved in we are exploring and dreaming of spring plans. I'm taking care of myself and trying to heal. Right now I'm wandering the land planning on raised beds and starting perennial food plants (apples, pears, cherries, paw paws, strawberries, asparagus, etc.). It's nice to start anew but this time at a more advantageous stage in homesteading. Instead of starting everything from scratch we have an established farm, ready for us to use it.
