Since we started dating in 1996, we have wanted to live off the land and homestead. We investigated moving to Alaska early in our marriage. We even honeymooned in Fairbanks, Alaska.
We hated it! It was November, and in the one week we were there we lost an hour of sunlight. By the end of the week the sun rose at 11:30 am and set at 2:30 pm. When we disembarked from the plane it was 25 degrees below zero (without windchill). While we were there it snowed 12 inches, and no one even noticed or mentioned it. The final straw was when we found out that Alaska doesn't really homestead anymore, and it's more of a land lottery.
When we returned to Indiana we moved on with our lives thinking that homesteading wouldn't work, since Alaska was the only place we thought you could do it. And we clearly couldn't hack Alaska.
We bought a trailer, finished college, bought a house, had babies, and found ourselves absorbed into the standard American life. We were very busy, very comfortable, and very financially secure. We had a big mortgage, two jobs, two or more cars, went on nice vacations, and lived a fine, fat life.
However, we began to realize that we were never home, our kids were raising themselves (rather unsuccessfully), and while our marriage wasn't bad, it wasn't particularly good either. And we were living such a good life we were getting kind of chubby... and sick. We began investing in improving our marriage, which made us remember that we really liked each other. But we found that even though we were honored to be working on the jobs that we were, we were miserably failing at raising our kids. Sacrifices and changing our schedule and priorities still didn't solve those problems.
One day in 2012 on the way home from family vacation in the summer, Brian and I asked each other when and why had we bought into the "American Dream" at the expense of being faithful to raise our children for the Lord.
Although the job that I held was so important to the girls I was serving, their parents, and our church we realized my first and most important ministry should have been to my husband and my children, and I just wasn't able to accomplish that and work full time outside our home.
By that Fall, with a plan to be able to survive on just one income (which we were almost sure was going to be completely impossible due to our standard American lifestyle choices) I resigned from my job with my final day as May 31, 2013.
Beginning in June 2013, we began killing our consumerist, materialist, physically un-disciplined, self-centered, standard American lifestyle. We taught our kids to work hard, finish what they start, be nice, love God, and be good students.
And we have found great liberation in working hard together, being united in our goals, learning skills of self-sufficiency, experimenting, and experiencing. Family relationships started to be healed. Chaos started to be cleared.
While we are incredibly grateful for the amazing freedoms we have as Americans, we are not sure the Founding Fathers and pioneers sacrificed all of their freedoms and even their lives, so that we could become consumeristic and materialistic self-focused individualist who put ourselves first and our spouses and families last. The Founding Fathers and pioneers sacrificed so that we would be free to raise our kids to love and serve Christ, not so that we would be free to work so many hours to feel personally fulfilled that we didn't have energy left to invest in our children's development.
The almost 2 years since I retired from my Ministry to stay home and fulfill my MINISTRY have proven that we love each other more than we thought we could, are capable of more than we ever thought we were, and deep down haven't given up on our dream of living off the land.
The last 2 summers have proven that we can raise and care for animals, but we can also kill, butcher, and can them when we need to. We can also plant seeds, weed, harvest, and put food up for the winter....and be disciplined enough to eat it every week instead of buying pre-processed food in a box.
As we've become even more focused on killing materialism we've also realized we can (and actually do enjoy) living with a minimal amount of electricity, without clothes dryers, without lots of heat, without eating out, without a clothes washer, without a dish washer, without tv, without buying stuff every time we leave the house, and without a lot of other stuff. ....but we don't want to live without each other. In fact, we really do want to see a whole lot more of each other.
As our abilities on our little homestead have improved many of our endeavors have expanded. And we realize that we're running out of space. And our house is a little more fancy than we need (or want).
We've reached the point in our life together as a family that we think it's time to move. While it seems easiest to buy the vacant lot beside us, land is a bit high in Indiana. Besides, we'd love to live somewhere a little warmer with a bit of a longer growing season....with woods, and a creek, and a pond, and a HUGE organic garden, and horses, and more goats, and no mortgage. ...in a cabin that we built ourselves, with a fireplace, a wood burning stove, and lots and lots of love.
So we tentatively started looking around. ...near and far. ... Arizona (no churches, jobs, or water), Nevada (desert, no thanks), Wyoming (no churches, jobs, or water), Montana (expensive and 7 months of winter ...gag), Pennsylvania (sooooo expensive), Maine/Wisconsin/Minnesota (too much like Alaska), Alabama/Georgia/Mississippi/Louisiana (good churches, too hot).
But we do think we may have found the homesteader's dream. ..KENTUCKY. Perfect weather, lots of jobs (in the right portion of the state), great churches, longer growing season, not 40 hrs travel from our family.
So the search for land is on. ....
And we'll see what happens. ...
But it looks like we're headed south....
And we can hardly wait!
In this order. ..
1. Land in Kentucky
2. Build cabin as a family
3. Sell house in Indiana
4. Job in Kentucky
5. Move to Kentucky permanently
http://www.offgridworld.com/how-to-build-an-off-grid-cabin-on-a-budget/
