Welcome to our homestead! This is who we are, what we do, and what we hope to become.
Hi! Meet me! Johanna! I was raised in the concrete jungles of the New York boroughs. When I was little, my parents used to say “one day you will have a farm.” I loved horses, farm animals, and was fascinated with the idea of living off the land.
Meet “The Farmer in the Red Hat,” my husband, Joe. Even though Joe grew up in rural New Jersey, where farm fields are abundant, he grew up in a suburban home with a lawn. He is a full-time engineer. Plants, and gardening slowly grew to be more than a hobby. He applied his engineering and technical skills to slowly expand his humble garden, create compost bins in our yard, and read Fedco catalogs for leisure.
I’m not sure we ever envisioned ourselves where we are now. But we are never leaving.
When you hear the word “homestead” you might picture acres of land and rolling hills. Maybe it is isolated in the forest on the side of a snow covered mountain, nestled deep in a picturesque valley with a river through the middle, or out on the wind swept prairie surrounded by tall grass lands. Our Homestead isn’t any of those….
Our start to homesteading was a slow one, with only one compost heap, and a small veggie patch. Then came the chickens, then came two fruit trees. Then, in the height of the pandemic, we moved to the property of our dreams….only a few blocks away. 1.26 acres abutting forested conservation land and ringed by trees. It’s our playground, our refuge, our escape from the hussle of the Boston metro area.
We are suburban homesteaders. We still take trips to the store. A lot of them.
What we DO is find small (and big) ways to be self-sufficient. We live off the land the majority of the spring, summer, and early fall from our large vegetable, herb, and berry gardens. We plant fruit trees and nut bushes with the hopes of having bountiful harvests in the coming years. All our meals are from scratch. We don’t buy processed food, (with the exception of pretzels, pasta and crackers) we grind our flour, bake our bread, preserve our harvest for the winter months, chop our own wood. We educate our children about food, plants, resources, and living outside of the world of automatic resource consumerism.
Joe and I want to start a revolution. A backyard revolution; keep your job, keep your life, but return to the victory garden, the canned tomatoes in the cellar, the fresh bread on Sundays, the togetherness, the family dinners made by family. We want to encourage you to plant two plus fruit trees in your yard, maybe a hazelnut bush, a small herb garden that isn’t just basil. We want to help you be like your gran, your nana, your crazy Aunt Ida who lived deep in the mountains. Let’s go back to basics, the modern way. Return to the wild, but still clean up nice. Let’s make homesteading approachable. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It just has to be something.
Come start your journey with us, because it may not look like it, but ours is also only beginning.
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