My Homesteading history

You will be delighted to know I used to live off-grid. 

So ‘off-grid’ when my son was a baby we lived in a log home on a road that wasn’t plowed…in the U.P. of Michigan…where there is a gazillion inches of snow during the winter. I remember one Mother’s Day we were still training sleddogs on snow! 

I know…I know…it sounds like one of those “I used to have to walk up hill in 2 feet of snow walking to school everyday” kinda stories. Well, I’m not stretching the story to sound dramatic. We lived on a ‘Low Maintenance Road’ and the county didn’t plow our road.

We had to park our truck over a mile away from our house. Our options were to snowshoe, walk, snowmobile, or drive our sleddogs to get to the truck.

Before that we lived in Northern Minnesota in a very small cabin off-grid driving a gazillion miles to get to college classes. We turned a little woodshed into a sauna and had an outhouse that was a “double-seater”.

I had the tiniest garden that grew the BEST heirloom tomatoes because we fertilized the heck-outta-of-the-soil with really old turkey shit from a nearby farm. The dirt was so full of all kinds of goodies my tomatoes never made it into a canning jar because they would get eaten right off the vine!

I’ve raised sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, cows, and had horses.

I canned, dehydrated veggies, made cheese, tapped maple syrup, lefse, perfected artisan bread, brewed kombucha, rendered lard, churned butter, had gardens from the littlest (6’ X 10’) to very large (2 acres). One year I planted 350 heirloom tomato plants that were started from seed by ME!

I have sewn anoraks, made deer hide mukluks, made porcupine quill earrings, a leather quiver, homemade paper, and candles.

My husband and I have built 3 homes, been self-employed since 1999, homeschooled our son, did the Iditarod, and traveled to many places between Alaska and Maine.

I'm not telling you all of this to brag…I'm telling you all of this to say Homesteading is a BIG part of my life. Finding a way to bring ‘Homesteading’ back into my life makes my heart smile.