The Baughman Homestead

If you had asked me a few years ago about retirement, we were planning to buy a motor home and travel across the country. We had a nice home without a mortgage, a significant amount of money in the bank, and we were taking several nice vacations a year. We were counting down the days until retirement, and we were planning to climb the mountains. Little did I know that life was going to take a different turn.

We began homesteading a year ago when we bought a house older than we are, renovated it, and now we rarely leave home. When I told a friend that we were planning to stay home for our wedding anniversary this year, she said if I had your house, I wouldn’t go anywhere either. I laughed but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t want to go anywhere and I was content with staying home. 

When we sold our house and moved a few miles across town, it was more than a move, it was a lifestyle change. We haven’t moved a lot, but we have lived in a few different states and a few different subdivisions. We’ve had the nice big back yard, lived on the small cul-de-sac where the kids rode bikes, and we’ve gotten to know some great neighbors over the years. We left all that behind and we finally bought a house with acreage.

According to dictionary.com, homesteading is “any dwelling with land and buildings where a family makes its home.” Although homesteading usually refers to self-sufficiency, any home can be a homestead, and homesteading looks different for everyone.  In other words, you don’t need to have several kids and several acres to be a homesteader. We have friends who are almost completely self-sufficient and if everything shuts completely down, they would be fine. That's not us but we’re getting there. 

Chickens . . . they are so cute. When we started looking for a house with a little land, I wanted space for a garden and Mike wanted room for chickens. I didn’t care one way or the other about chickens, but I was a little excited about fresh eggs. We bought 12 cute little chicks within a few months of buying the house. We started them in the garage with a heat lamp until the garage started stinking and they were old enough to move to the coop. It didn’t take long to hear a weird crowing sound coming from the coop and now we have ten chickens. The first one home from work every day gets to gather eggs and give the daily egg count. Even though I’ve never touched a chicken (baby or grown), I enjoy watching them and yes, I also enjoy talking to them. They are great pets! Let’s not talk about what happens in a few years when they stop laying and need to be replaced with new little chicks. 

Cooking and Canning . . . is worth the time. When we renovated the house, we gutted the kitchen and dining area, took out a half bath, moved the laundry area, and I ended up with the largest kitchen I've ever had with lots of storage. Cooking is one of my favorite things when I have time to do it, and this year I was able to try my hand at canning, fermenting kombucha, and now I am feeding sour dough every day. My next thing is homemade butter. 

Gardening . . . is a lot of work. We’ve added raised beds, trellises, fruit trees, blueberry and blackberry bushes, and the list goes on. We even added a greenhouse so that gives me something else to learn. If you think I have a green thumb, I don’t. I have several good books and I’m constantly looking things up online. What started out small is growing and now Mike wants me to learn how to use the tiller. I don’t know why, but gardening seemed a lot easier when my mom and dad did it. Mike says it’s because the dirt is better in Indiana than it is in Tennessee. I don’t know but every season is a time to learn something new as we dig in the dirt and prepare for the next season. 

So now we live in the house on the hill, with a beautiful view of the mountains, and life has changed in a good way. I have a big fat planner and I’m drawing out my garden plans for next year. I can’t wait to pick blueberries in the summer, if the birds don’t get them, and I’ll be able to open a jar of fresh canned tomatoes when I make soup this winter. Sometimes life takes an unexpected turn. We gave up things when we moved from a house, we thought was perfect for us, to move to the house that is now perfect for us. My biggest regret is that we didn’t do it sooner. My kids missed out on the hard work and the rewards of homesteading, but we have a grandson coming in the new year and we can’t wait to teach him the joys of life on our mini farm. Mike is already calling our grandson, his little farmhand. Oh the joy of grandparenting! Life is good on the Baughman Homestead and there is never a dull moment. We haven’t given up on our plans for retirement and travel but for right now, we are enjoying this phase in life and look forward to the harvest to come. 

 “He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for people to cultivate – bringing forth food from the earth.” ~Psalm 104:14