First Things First

In 2004 we moved from the city to the country when we purchased a home on 16+ acres.

The house had its own well & septic systems. And there was no trash removal service in the area. So, we instantly became responsible for having to manage our own water supply, wastewater, excrement, and rubbish.

We learned firsthand how crucial these utilities were to our daily life — particularly when we experienced a drought or the well pump stopped working or the septic tank filled up. And we paid much more attention to our waste.

Phase One

Safe & Secure Shelter, Water & Waste Management

When we bought our property, we did so with its condition being “as is”, because it was the only way we could afford to purchase it. Needless to say, the house needed a lot of work.

Since the house was set back from the road and had a set of gravel driveways surrounded by several acres of open fields and overgrown brush, the property also needed work & a lot of maintenance to keep ticks and snakes at bay.

Thankfully, my husband, being a handyman in general & having worked in roofing, construction & landscaping before we moved, was able to tackle much of this work himself.

Soon after our arrival, we acquired burn barrels & separated our trash accordingly, and we became more recycle-conscious. Eventually, we installed our own greywater system to reduce the demand on our septic tank.

Getting a handle on these things was phase one of our living on the land experience.

Phase Two

Producing Heat Energy

The house we moved into came with a fireplace in the living room & electric baseboard heating units in each room of the house (on the main level). And then it also had a basement fireplace with a wood-burning stove (& blower) insert and heating units in each of the rooms of the finished basement.

After the first few winters, we found using the electric heat to be very expensive, so we acquired & inserted a used cast-iron wood-burning stove into the living room’s fireplace, and made a habit of chopping & splitting wood each year from felled trees on our property. The two wood-stoves have been our primary heat source ever since.

Phase Three

Acquiring Livestock to Help Manage the Land

Several years later we started employing an assortment of animals to help deal with the brush, grass & pests. After acquiring these animals, we naturally had to learn how to properly manage them — to not only keep them safe, watered & fed, but how to make good use of them. And then receiving milk & eggs and eventually meat as a result of caring for them was a natural by-product.

Phase Four

Foraging & Intentional Food Production

Then we spent many years learning different ways of growing food in the midst of caring for livestock.

Through much trial & error and gaining a better understanding of the positioning of the sun, the importance of capturing, containing & distributing water where we wanted it to go, and the natural composition of healthy soil & how to get it there naturally, we were able to bring our land to the next level: rich fertile soil. <– We could not have done this without the animals.

And we established several methods of food production — to include the planting of fruit & nut trees, berry bushes & other plants and herbs establishing a food forest for ourselves, periodically sowing patches of our fields with corn, potatoes & sweet potatoes, and developing several garden areas with strawberries and an assortment of leafy greens & vegetables.

This is how we established our way of life in the natural world — starting with first things first.

Thankfully, we were able to do this because we employed ourselves & made a way to earn a monetary income working from home — one that our children could learn as they came of age, and eventually they worked alongside us in every aspect of life. And together we have developed all that we have today.

[This page was last updated on 4/18/25.]