Let the Homesteading Journey Begin!

It’s official. My boyfriend and I are now the proud owners of five beautiful acres in lovely southeastern Wisconsin. With one big willow tree, a confused little rambler, and plenty of outbuildings, we are in paradise! With thoughts of garden plots and chicken coops dancing around in my head for the last six years, it’s surreal to finally be standing at the beginning of my mini homesteading journey. ​

I have been moving around constantly for the last eight years. Are you ready for the lineup? I went from a small suburb in Minnesota to big city Chicago, then back to a small suburb in Minnesota, then way up north to the middle of nowhere Wisconsin, then back to big city Chicago, then finally landed in southeast Milwaukee. In Chicago, I spent a total of seven years learning and working as a professional actor, photographer and filmmaker. Life was never slow and the opposite of simple. As with most any passion you turn into a job, being a working artist is hard, demanding, and draining. After touring nationally as an actor and producing two seasons of television, I was ready for a change of pace. So now I am happily making my urban exodus. ​

Even during my college years, I gravitated towards classes and subjects that involved the local food movement, Peak Oil, and Transition Towns. Peak Oil is a term used to describe the inevitable end of readily available (but not easily regenerated) natural resources, such as coal, natural gas, and oil. We have come to deeply depend on these resources as a society. Now I don't think that Peak Oil is right around the corner, but I do think as a society we are not taught to have to foresight in terms of how we expend these resources. Even though my generation will not see Peak Oil, it's our responsibility to teach our children the foresight and respect necessary to be ready for this moment or to curb its impact. A wonderful movement, deemed "Transition Towns", is working on just that. Transition Towns are communities that are focusing on the decentralization of government, transportation, and agriculture to allow for local communities to better themselves through creating closed loop consumer and business cycles, to lessen their carbon footprint, and to teach themselves the skills to be more self-sustainable.

Environmental sustainability and self-sufficiency have been two of my main passions since I was a young 4H-er. For those who don’t know what 4H is, this youth organization instills a deep respect for animal husbandry, farming, and community building in rural (and even suburban) towns across the US. The desire to be a mini midwest pioneer can also be blamed on my loving father, who read the Laura Ingalls Wilder series to me at the very impressionable age of seven. My two best friends growing up both had farms, one big and one small. Nearly every day after school was spent on their properties to live vicariously through them, their gardens, and their animals. The concept of homesteading hits on the very core of what 4H instilled in me as a young adolescent. 

What is a closed loop cycle you ask? Well, right now most Americans live in an open consumer cycle, or rather, not a cycle at all. Let’s have an example. You need a mattress, you most likely will shop online and buy your mattress, then you use the mattress until you deem it no longer useful, then that mattress goes out for your garbage man to take, and then it winds up in a landfill, where the plastic components of it will never decompose and the remainder will take over a decade and leach toxins (fungicides, bleach, flame retardants) into the soil. The end. 
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Whereas in a closed loop cycle, the things you buy individually or as a business are either decomposed, repurposed then reused, or recycled. It becomes a closed loop where “stuff” doesn’t accrue. There are organizations that would take that mattress and be able to recycle if not all, at least 85% of its materials. Check out this video that first inspired me and my boyfriend to take the step towards less stuff.

AN OPEN CONSUMER CYCLE

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A CLOSED LOOP CYCLE

I see the act of homesteading as a way to live the closed loop cycle to its fullest, or as damn close as you can get. You compost, you use the compost for your garden, that garden grows the food you eat, then you compost those food scraps and the cycle begins all over again. Add in some pastured chickens and those food scraps can go towards their diet, which then yields meat and eggs for you. All the while you are increasing the health of the soil, the air, and your body! The environment only benefits when you choose to lead a closed loop cycle lifestyle, and by purchasing this little slice of heaven, I believe that I can be a part of that positive change. 

This blog is dedicated to documenting our journey with this property, as well as keep me in line with my goals! I will be providing down-to-earth insight on how to keep pastured chickens on five acres, detailing all the vegetable garden know-how I can get my hands on, and taking you though all our toxin-free and low to no-waste living adventures.

Thank you for reading and here’s to the journey ahead! Next week I am going to go over the property as is, and break down my 2016 goals. I’ll tell you how I’m going to take these 5 acres from just land and some outbuildings, to a vibrant small scale homestead that continually gives back what I put in.