I was raised by a mom who cared about what we ate and cooked from scratch. She canned summer produce and grew a garden, so even though it wasn’t exactly farm life, it had a homesteady kind of vibe. I learned to cook, can, and grow food young which gave me some skills to add to my dream of having my own homestead one day.
Fast forward to the age of 23 when I was a young mom and wife, trying to go to school and raise my young son, while having the dream of the homestead still burning in my heart. Dan and I bought our first home on just under an acre in a rural setting and I was unleashed! Within the first year we had planted a huge garden and bought our first flock of chickens. I starting canning in earnest and built my first farm fence to house my future goat herd. We called our little place ‘Butterchurn Farm’. But, as life would have it things became tough; student debts piled up and the stress of trying to manage it all became too much. We decided that it was best for our future to sell, downsize while we were in school and reevaluate the farm life when we were more financially secure.
It took 5 more years, several moves, and some job changes to get back on the path to our dream farm. During that time I continued to build my skills, becoming adept at preserving, cooking from scratch and I read everything I could get my hands on about how to raise every farm animal under the sun, growing food and living off grid.
We had decided at one point to move to a more affordable area where the possibility of owning more land was realistic for our budget. This meant sacrificing the amazing growing season we were accustomed to for more acreage. We exchanged a zone 5 for a zone 3b. To say it was an adjustment is an understatement, but it worked out in the end.
Once we moved we had an opportunity to lease an 160 acre farm with a cabin, off the grid about 45 minutes from the nearest town. We decided that it was a great chance to see if that was what we really wanted. I loved it! I found the challenge of hauling water, hand washing clothing, heating with wood and having minimal solar power was a thrill rather than a hardship. I knew without a doubt that that was the life for me. Dan, not so much. He really wanted to be closer to town and, while the hardship wasn’t an issue, he worried about me being so far out with 2 young children on my own so much while he had to work away for weeks at a time.
We lived there for a year before finding a compromise by buying close to 3 acres, closer to town. I used every square inch of that land! We had goats, chickens, meat birds, garden and even a milk cow towards the end. We lived there for several years before we outgrew it. Our family grew from 2 kids to 8 in 4 years and, let’s just say the neighbours were beginning to look apprehensively over the fence to see how many more animals I had on a weekly basis.
When we started to shop for a farm we had a few things that we needed; we needed more land, preferably with some hay, water, and a house that could fit all of us! Dan also wanted a shop and I was hoping for a developed garden area. It was a tall order.
When we found our current home, Little Mountain Ranch, we thought we’d died and gone to heaven. There were a few issues like there always are with anything, but all in all it was exactly we we wanted. It was 160 acres of mixed hay and forest, gravity fed spring water, a log house, big enough to accommodate us comfortably, a garden and best of all a cold room and a root cellar. We couldn’t believe it when we first looked at it and thought that there was no way we could afford it.
It took some seriously work to write up a proposal for Farm Credit Canada, which is where we’d decided to apply for a mortgage and much to our surprise, the amazing owners were willing to help us finance the down-payment in order for us to make it happen. It all fell into place in the way some things in life do, and here we are, 4 years later living our dream.
Living this kind of life takes a lot of work, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I am not so grateful to be here.
Love,
Chelsea
