On beginnings

How do things begin? Where do you start? What do you have to do?

Like almost anything in life, there are many ways to start. Certainly most beginnings can be good or likewise, poor. But there’s no one perfect way to start. There are many bad ways to start and homesteading, cooking, gardening and raising animals are no exceptions.

But just begin.

Growing up my family didn’t have a “farm” per se. We had many animals over the years to include your average cats and dogs. We also had pet rabbits, rats (no gross, very sweet actually), snakes (those I did not like), sheep, goats, almost always a horse of some sort (and almost a zonkey, still wish we did that one mom and dad), chickens, turkeys, pet birds, more cats and more dogs. Never all together but across my childhood we had almost every creature imaginable in our house about 30 feet off of a main roadway in a small Maine town, sitting in just a few acres. They were always there and we always cared for them.

My husband however, grew up with dogs. Only dogs.

I’ll give credit in that he did work on farms growing up and in college his best friend was becoming a vet so he learned much from those experiences that have helped immensely with our farm. But his farm experience was much unlike mine.

But we began anyway.

He always supported me and built me what I refer to as the “Chicken Mansion” when I wanted to get some laying hens. He only balked a little at me brooding them in the guest room for their first weeks. He didn’t blink when we first discussed raising our own birds for meat and he has wholeheartedly supported and built me a beautiful raised bed garden so we can grown our own food.

Even through I grew up with farm animals and he did not, we have both learned equally as much during the last couple years. We continue to learn every day.

Find your way to begin, in whatever it is your heart is leading you to. Read about it, talk about it, watch videos about it, prepare for it, fall asleep and dream about it. Just begin it.