Our New Homestead

We have purchased a new homestead!

Our 5 acre homestead has been such a blessing and we have been so thankful for the years spent here growing our own food, raising animals and stewarding this land. We have been blessed with wonderful neighbors who have turned into friends. We would be content to stay here forever if there happened to be about 5-10 acres of pasture adjoining this property that we could purchase, but you can’t create new land!

After we paid off the mortgage on our current homestead last summer, we talked about what our next goal was. We had spent 5 years focused on improving our homestead and learning new skills. We were laser focused on paying off our mortgage and hadn’t talked much about what we thought the next step was going to be for our family.

We agreed that owning a little more land would be wonderful! At that point, we started talking about what we wanted for our next homestead/farm. We wanted 10 plus acres with a modest sized home, to stay in the same general area we are in and have no pool! These were not too many specifications but they were proving hard to find, especially staying within our budget.

In a December, John David was at the home of one of the girls on Weston’s Dairy Show Team and her dad shared that the property next to them was for sale. John David came home and was able to find out information about the property which hadn’t even been listed yet! It was an estate – vacant since the previous owners had passed away.

We were able to get in touch with a real estate agent who was working with the children of the owners and go see the property.

It was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home (with a fireplace and a built in bookcase – two things I’ve always wanted) on 22 acres and was in the area we wanted to be in! The entire back of the property was already fenced and needed very little work to get it ready to contain cattle. There also was a small barn that was structurally in good shape that would work for milking! And, there was no pool!!

We closed February 1 and are now working on turning our new home and land into our new homestead.

We’re excited about all the possibilities that lie ahead!

Why This Lifestyle

Living a homesteading lifestyle is not necessarily an easy lifestyle. There is daily work, manure, animals who depend upon you for everything and even the risk of losing animals.

Why would our family choose a lifestyle that involves more work, mess and potential heart ache when we could continue living a simple, quiet little life on a small lot with no extra responsibilities?

Before we married in 2006, we talked about what we wanted our life together to look like. One thing we knew for certain was that we desired to have a family and for me be able to to stay home with our children. The other desire of our hearts was to live on a farm.

While we dreamed of living on a farm, it was over a decade before that dream finally became our reality. In the meantime, we did what we could where we were.

In our first apartment after college, we raised a few vegetables in containers on our deck.

In our first house, we had a large lot and had a nice sized garden raising tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupe and other vegetables.

The house we lived in previously to this one was on an acre and we had several raised beds, fruit trees, strawberries and even had chickens for awhile by using the adjoining 5+ acres that belonged to neighbors.

When were first married, we were eating a standard American diet (SAD). We thought nothing of drinking sodas, eating fast food, candy, cereals, packaged snacks and frozen dinners because that’s what we knew from growing up. As we began reading and studying about healthy lifestyles, especially after the birth of our first baby, we began making dietary changes, cutting most processed foods and sodas. As we learned more, we made more changes. We began to value pastured eggs and meats and local produce for their freshness and nutrient density. Then we began to desire the ability to raise as much of our own food as possible to nourish our growing children with the highest quality foods.

And as our children began to get older, our desire to live on a little bit of land grew stronger and we spent a couple years looking for a place that would fit our needs. We found a couple places that we really liked but we weren’t able to purchase.

When we found our property in 2017, it fit our needs. It was less than 20 minutes from John David’s work, a little over 5 acres that were mostly cleared and perfect for pasture, an existing barn, and a house that was under 2,000 square feet.

After purchasing our property and actually living here, we began to realize that all of the work that goes into raising our own food is worthwhile, meaningful work.

While homesteading isn’t easy because something always needs to be fed or watered and there’s always weeding and maintaining, it’s deeply fulfilling work. We are meeting our basic needs. Our efforts are rewarded with quality foods to nourish our family. Our goal in life isn’t just to do the least amount of work and live an easy life, we want our work to be meaningful.

As we’ve dreamed more over the past two years that we’ve lived here on our homestead, we realize that we desire to provide others with high quality foods and we’re beginning to do that with Weston’s egg business and we’ve also sold a few pastured meat birds.

There is also the desire to teach others to do what they can where they are and to share the things we know about raising food.

Examining a snake skin that Weston found.

In addition to raising our own food and the work ethic that is developed, we also choose to live on a homestead to provide our children ample room to play, explore, create and learn.

We are educating our children at home and have a desire for them to love learning and we believe that time spent in nature and in connection with the rhythms of the seasons provide an excellent educational foundation for young children.

The homestead lifestyle isn’t for everyone. It is a lifestyle of commitment and work.

But, it’s just the right lifestyle for us.

—Rachel

Goals for 2019

We’ve set a few goals for our homestead in 2019. Most of them are fairly simple goals to help keep us on track as we go about tackling projects for the year and a few of them are lofty, exciting goals.

Improve pastures and garden soils
- Cover crops
- Manures
Produce more of our own food
- Garden expansion and cool weather crops
- Can 150 jars (tomatoes, pickles, green beans, corn, etc.)
Secure animals
- Perimeter fencing
Plant perennials
- Invest in new trees and bushes
Add new animals
- Rabbits and turkeys
Pay $10,000 towards the principal of our mortgage*
- Attempt to make profits on some of our products

*Our mortgage goal is a combination of a personal goal and a homestead goal because our mortgage is both for our home and our land. This $10,000 goal will (hopefully) be reached by a combination of our personal income, tax return, any extra money we may make from odd jobs/selling things as well as any profits we may make from the homestead. We would love to begin to make some money off our our agricultural endeavors to help pay down our mortgage.

Our goals for 2019 have us excited about what the year holds and the learning and improvements that will happen here at Arrow Hill Homestead.

—Rachel

April 2018

April started off with Easter services at church! John David is employed at our multi-site church as the Weekend Services Coordinator. We don’t typically go to church together since he is usually at different campuses but we did manage to take a family Easter picture after service!

I made several batches of lye soap this month. Since we have a lot of lard from our pigs, I made simple soaps made with just lye and lard. I experimented with adding oats and salt to the basic lye soap recipe and have been pleased with the results. I’m selling the lye soap for $3 a bar and other soaps which are made out of other oils like coconut oil, cocoa butter and such are $4 a bar.

I started making soap late last summer and it’s so neat using soaps that I made – we have them in our bathrooms for showering and hand washing as well as in the kitchen. I also love giving soaps as gifts!

Sweet little Laura is my chore tag along most of the time. I’m so thankful for a comfortable baby carrier that allows me to wear her on the front or back.

John David built a smoker for smoking hams and bacon! He built it using salvaged materials.

On April 10, some friends had a baby lamb that the mother wouldn’t accept so we acquired our very first bottle lamb. The kids love her and have named her Blossom. She spent several nights in the dog crate near the wood stove but has since been moved outside. She’s a sweet little lamb.

April was gardening mode month – we got our garden beds prepped and paths chipped. The local FFA chapter had a plant sale on April 13th and we purchased a lot of tomatoes, peppers and some herbs for the garden. We had to wait several days before getting everything planted because April was pretty chilly.

Cecilia loves Blossom.

On April 14, I was in our upper garden working on prepping the garden beds and I looked up to see our pigs running around in their pen. It was unusual because they usually move very slowly and are quite calm. I started walking towards the pen to see what was going on and saw two pit bulls chasing them down. I started yelling at the dogs to stop and for John David (who was off but inside taking a nap because he’d spent all morning prepping garden beds). I got down to our basement area and both dogs were attacking our mama pig. I yelled at them, got their attention and she managed to get away. At that point, I was scared for my own safety so I ran up the basement stairs inside the house and to get John David up.

I ran back outside. He gets up, grabs a gun and heads outside. When I get back around, the dogs have attacked one of our baby pigs and a neighbor comes running through the woods since he’s heard me yelling.

The dogs killed one of the baby pigs and the other two babies, the mama and our other pig, Evergreen, ran away. The only pig left on the property was our boar.

A few minutes later we heard a gun shot and our neighbor said “I bet someone just shot one of your pigs.” Sure enough, he was right. Another neighbor shot Evergreen. (He said he thought she was a wild boar.)

To make a long story short, we called the police and filed a report because this was the third time these dogs have attacked (they killed several chickens at our neighbors on two separate occasions). We ended up with one baby pig killed by the pit bulls and a sow shot by a neighbor. Another neighbor found our injured mama pig and we were able to get her home safely and treat her wounds and the other two baby pigs came home at sunset that evening.

It was a traumatic and scary day, hearing that baby pig killed was horrible but I was just so, so thankful that it was just a pig that was killed and not my children. My children play in those woods. We felt so very safe here on our property and let the big kids roam freely and even let baby Laura play outside. Things could have been so much worse.

(And, I’ve always been pretty neutral regarding pit bulls until now. They wanted to kill. Our Australian Shepherd sometimes enjoys chasing our chickens and would probably enjoy chasing our pigs if allowed the opportunity BUT she has never, ever tried to kill any of our animals – much less take on a 150 pound plus pig.)

After the pit bull attack, we had another pig to process. We were able to get her within 10 minutes of being shot so thankfully there was no waste. It was an unplanned slaughter and we just made a lot of sausage instead of curing anything or doing any specialty cuts. The kids were big helpers when it came time to package the sausage. Cecilia loves putting labels on the packages.

The boys both do a good job working the grinder.

The kids were so helpful making sausage. They helped their daddy with the grinding, mixing in seasonings and packaging from start to finish.

Our kiddos are growing too. This picture was taken April 22. Cecilia is 4, Weston is 6, Laura is 11 months and Paxton is 8 (as of April 16th!)

On April 27th, we put our meat birds out on pasture. They have done very well. Aside from the few losses we had during the first couple of days, we didn’t lose any other birds.

We had 40+ broilers this time so we divided them between two chicken tractors.

Laura loves Blossom. She has enjoyed feeding her the bottle. We’ve been pleased with how well Blossom is doing. We have never raised a bottle lamb and we were very excited that she survived the first week.

There’s a lot to look forward to in May – a first birthday for Laura, chicken processing and watching the garden grow!

—Rachel

2017 on the Homestead

2017 was a full yet wonderful year for our family. We purchased our homestead on May 2nd and started the process of moving in.

That was quite the adventure due to the previous owners selling the home ‘fully furnished’. This meant they just chose to only take the things they wanted and left us with over 50% of their belongings (including furniture, dishes, junk and even trash!) We basically had to move them out before starting to move our belongings in. And, I was 37 weeks pregnant at the time. But, that nesting energy had me moving fast and we got quite a bit accomplished in a short amount of time.

By May 3rd, our bedroom and kitchen were mostly unpacked and somewhat organized and I was beginning to feel ready to welcome a baby. Our kitchen is one of my favorite parts of this house – it’s a bit dated but I really enjoy having a large kitchen.

Our very first addition to our homestead was a hive of bees. We had ordered them back in the winter and were planning to start keeping bees at our former home. We picked them up May 6th, just 4 days after moving in!

On May 12th, we welcomed our fourth child, Laura Kathryn. My labor was very slow but I went through transition and delivered in a span of about 15 minutes so she was born into her daddy’s arms without our midwife present. It was a definitely an experience we’ll never forget.

On May 15th, Weston purchased 10 Olive Egger chicks with his own money. He was so excited and proud to finally have his own chickens. He ended up with 4 hens and 6 roosters from this batch of chicks. Weston is our second child and he is our little farmer – he loves farming, animals and nature.

John David’s parents brought our chicken coop back to us (we had built it back in 2013 for the hens we had at our former home before we found out we couldn’t legally have them where we were living). We made a little chicken pen for the chicks and were given a 6 hens and a rooster from a family who were relocating.

I started brewing Kombucha once again in June after nearly a year off due to weeks of morning sickness, pregnancy tiredness, moving and having a newborn. I quickly got back into the routine of brewing and we’ve been enjoying probiotics in our diet ever since.

We put in a small garden this year but between settling into our new home, having a new baby and traveling for nearly two weeks in June, it was quite neglected. We did manage to harvest a few things – our okra did pretty good until the deer found them, we had a pretty good crop of squash and zucchini and our cucumbers did very well.

We made a couple batches of Garlic Dill Refrigerator pickles which all of the children love – it’s so much fun to preserve our own food.

In July, we ordered Silver King meat birds. It was so exciting to have baby chicks arrive. We got them settled into their brooder and enjoyed having chicks.

We started our homeschool year on July 31st. Paxton started second grade, Weston started Kindergarten and Cecilia is preschool age. I jokingly refer to it as farmschool because living on a farm presents constant learning opportunities.

In early August, we purchased a couple pigs and a goat. Our favorite is Wilbert, he’s a black and white spotted boar and is as sweet as can be. He loves having his back scratched!

John David and the boys built a chicken tractor and got the meat birds onto pasture in early August.

We all shared responsibilities of moving the tractor and feeding the birds. They were very friendly chickens and we enjoyed caring for them and watching them grow.

Weston harvested a beautiful pumpkin that he grew from seed – he was very proud of this pumpkin and has hopes to grow an even bigger one next year.

In August, I started making soap. I’ve wanted to try soap making for years since I prefer buying soaps from artisan makers instead of store bought soaps. I finally decided to give it a try and am really enjoying the making process and having homemade soaps to use. I’ve made several batches since then and have given several bars as gifts and even sold a few bars.

On September 19th, we had a baby pig born. That was an exciting day and the kids named him Wilbert Junior – he is very healthy and thriving!

In early October, my grandparents gave Weston a katahdin sheep from their farm. He was so excited to have his very own sheep. Since she has calico markings, her name is Callie.

In mid October, Weston purchased another sheep so Callie wouldn’t be alone. He named this one Ginger. Both Ginger and Callie are doing very well.

In late October, we harvested meat birds with the help of our neighbors (we have been blessed with amazing neighbors here!) All 26 of the baby chicks we started out with survived. (Yay for a 0% mortality rate!!) The result was delicious meat and bones that make a very gelatinous broth.

On December 8th, it snowed! The homestead was so pretty covered in snow and our children had a blast playing outside.

Sweet baby Laura’s first snow!

We enjoyed the month of December, John David had several vacation days left that he took in December so we enjoyed being together at home and working on some projects around the home and on the homestead.

We ended 2017 with a hog killing. John David has been studying butchery via online courses and resources. John David, along with his dad and our neighbor, slaughtered and butchered one of our pigs. The result was delicious pork, an abundance of lard, ham and bacon that are curing and a satisfaction of learning a new skill.

2017 will definitely be a year that we remember with much fondness and we’re looking forward to what 2018 holds on our homestead.

–Rachel

Welcome to Arrow Hill Homestead

Welcome to Arrow Hill Homestead. As I write these words, I can’t help but smile. We’re finally living our dream.

Owning a small farm has been a dream of ours since we were married in May of 2006. We were both in college studying agriculture and had a shared dream to one day own a little piece of land where we could raise our children, raise livestock and have large gardens.

Over the next decade, we moved several times, changed jobs and had 3 children but never gave up on our little homestead dream.

In March of 2017, after a few years of looking at multiple properties, we found 5 acres. It wasn’t perfect – no white farm house, beautiful barn and fenced in property ready for livestock – but it was less than 20 minutes from my husband’s job, was in our price range and had wonderful potential.

We closed on the property May 2, 2017 and welcomed our 4th child into our family just 10 days later.

We’ve added several hens, pigs and two sheep to the homestead.

2017 was an absolute whirlwind of a year, full of many changes but we’re excited about what 2018 holds both for our family and for Arrow Hill Homestead.

This blog is intended to be a record of our homestead happenings for us to look back on and remember and to share with family and friends and any new friends we may meet via this blog, our Instagram feed or Facebook page!

–Rachel