Being here....getting there....

Yup, this is my first ever blog post. No kidding. I'm 40sumthin' and I've never done this before. I am sure I'm going to love it though as the gift of gab is no stranger to me. Feel free to keep me in check, comment, advise, etc.

As to why start the blog....hmm....a few reasons.

My husband and I are originally from New England. We packed up, bought raw land in Arkansas, moved our two youngest children with us and are now working on building our homestead. Crazy some might say...adventurous others might chime in, but a little of both is my opinion. I thought it might be interesting for our family left back up north to follow us on our journey. I do believe our 3 older sons will find this incredibly amusing and a laugh or two at our antics may keep us closer.

No doubt, this has been an adventure with a serious learning curve. We were city folk...and I do mean city. We had no prior knowledge of keeping farm animals or growing enough food for the whole winter. We are certainly not even close to accomplishing everything we would like to but we are making little steps in a positive direction. I thought that it would be informative to chronicle our progress, mistakes and everything in between for anyone who would like to read about it. If we can help just one person with their homesteading journey it is worth the effort.

So let's start with a little about us. My name is Kathie and I am a stay at home mom. My husband, who everyone calls G, is my best friend and partner in crime. He puts up with me and that's no easy task. We have 5 boys...yup, I said 5 and all male! Our three oldest are in their 20's and are off on their own. We miss them and they are in our thoughts everyday. My most secret desire is to try to find a way to get them all closer to us.(hint, hint) Our two youngest are with us being only 9 and 7. They are both autistic and can be, I guess what you'd call "high maintenance". I home-school them both which is an adventure all it's own and, you bet, I'll blog about that too. We live in Cherokee Village, AR and have a 3 acre piece of raw land in Hardy. We are clearing it up at this time to get our farm up and running. Pictures to follow. At this time we have rabbits that we breed for meat and our new chicks are on their way. Hmm....might be a good time to put the brooder together. Oh well, it will get done. And I will take pictures and let you know how it goes.

As to our dreams....because this did start as a dream. We want to eventually get to the point where we can support ourselves without the worry of what happening with the economy. My husband still works a full-time job so, no...we did not go off the deep end. But, our dream is to be able to have enough forms of income from things like sales of animals and resale businesses, to be more self sufficient. I want to have my garden and no worry about whats been on or in my vegetables. I want to know where my food comes from and what went into it. I want to raise my own animals, know how to process them and have no worries about being low on food. I believe that we can do this and I hope you'll enjoy the journey along the way.

I intend to be brutally honest about our experiences. What works...what doesn't...what might but is not worth the time, that type of thing. Keep in mind what works for us, may not work for you. If I have one piece of advice for anyone it's...do not ever be afraid to try something. You never know what you can accomplish.

Til later