starting over Archives - Real Food Homestead

Real Food Homestead has sprouted out of years of learning and changing our views on living a “healthy lifestyle”. Organic groceries and natural cleaners are expensive and you never know exactly what you are gonna get from the grocery store.

So we decided several years ago to try to save money and increase quality by growing our own food and making our own products. We started a garden, raised chickens for eggs and meat, and raised rabbits for meat. We made our own cleaners and learned how to preserve our harvest.

A Group of chickens around a water bucket

But in 2016, our homestead came crashing down to the ground. Our chickens were attacked by a predator. We lost all but one chicken (which we gave to a neighbor).We also harvested our rabbits because we knew the winter was going to be super busy with traveling.

Our house was for sell and it was all I could do to keep it “ready to show”. They are in our deep freeze and will make wonderful rabbit stew this winter.

But now the weather is cold and dreary. I already find myself missing our animals. The chickens are fun to watch, playing in the snow and fighting with each other. The rabbits are soft and cuddly.

I miss my garden during the winter time too. We decided not to sell the house, but to make it more conducive to the homesteading lifestyle. We are ready for a new start.

So we are taking this time to reevaluate what we want for our homestead. We are taking the time to appreciate why we love this lifestyle. We are making plans for the blog and all of the new adventures we will have with our new, expanded homestead.

By starting this blog, we are hoping that it will hold us accountable to homesteading. Sometimes life gets in the way and you wonder if all of the hard work to homestead is worth the effort. As we learn and grow, we hope to inspire and help others on their homesteading journey too.

We are starting over with homesteading so that we can:

Grow Healthy Food For Our Family

This is the main reason we got into homesteading. We want to provide quality food for our family at a reasonable price. We want our children to love vegetables because they planted, weeded and harvested them with their own hands.

Raise Animals for Food and Enjoyment

We are planning on having chickens, rabbits and bees on the homestead this spring. These animals give us food and we give them a good life of love and health. We want our children to learn how to take care of these animals, butcher these animals and appreciate where their food comes from.

Cook Real Food Meals

Turning our home grown food into healthy meals for our family is our top priority. Besides growing our own food, we can find good sources of real food from our local farmers market, farmers in our area and the grocery store. Using real food ingredients to make simple, healthy meals is a core homesteading belief.

Preserve our Food for Winter and Times of Emergency

We hope to preserve our garden harvest and any animals that are slaughtered for our family during the rest of the year. That includes canning, freezing, dehydrating and more.

Our ultimate goal is produce as much food at home for our family as possible so that we don’t have to depend on the grocery store for the majority of our food. It may sound like a pipe dream, but that is what we are working towards this year.

I am so happy to take you along with us on this journey. Homesteading is a great way to live and to teach our children. Let’s learn and grow together!