HollyWritten By: Kerry Roberts
Looking back, my husband and I have always been homesteaders at heart. We didn’t even know there was a name for it. It was simply a way of life that we aspired to, a desire to be self-reliant.
I grew up in the woods, picking flowers and berries. Later I realized that, as a grown woman, I still wanted to live in the woods and pick flowers and berries. Connecting with nature is life giving for the body, mind and soul alike. The dream has always been to harness that connection and make a (mostly) self-sustainable life for our family. It became a mindset that we took with us everywhere we went, even if we didn’t fully realize it at first.
Homestead Begins
My husband served just over a decade in the military, which meant our homesteading dreams would have start slow and small. We grew some sort of garden at almost every house we lived in, the first one being in Florida. My husband would hunt when he could, braving public land in unfamiliar places. He managed to stock the freezer when we needed it most.
I was surprised to discover that I enjoyed getting my hands dirty to help process the meat. We were young and broke, living off venison hamburger helper for a while. And then, just like that, it was time to move. We packed up, and took our dreams with us.
We were stationed in Hawaii next, where the soil on base was literally toxic. We wanted to plant another garden, so we improvised with raised beds and flower pots. Thanks to the warm, tropical weather, our garden was thriving year round.
Growth
While our garden grew, so did my belly; we had our firstborn son, Raylan. It wasn’t always easy to be over 2,000 miles away from our families with a brand new baby but we had each other at the end of the day. We adapted to the challenge and became a tight-knit family unit.
When Raylan was only a few months old, we got into archery. We bought our first bows and had to drive to a range to shoot them. Baby Raylan would watch us sling arrows from his stroller (he now shoots his own bow). My husband bought a bow press to do his own repairs and started bow hunting. I learned how to fletch and wrap my own arrows.
Challenges
Living on an island came with unique challenges. The grocery store would run out of random items, as most goods had to be shipped in by boat or plane. If the boat was late, so were the eggs and frozen chicken breast. I wished even more that we could raise chickens so we didn’t have to rely on cargo ships for eggs. That was definitely a no-no in base housing, though. Maybe someday.
For the time being, I tried my hand at baking bread from scratch. That’s right, I’ve been baking bread since before the pandemic made it cool! We learned how to brine and can our own pickles. I taught myself how to make coconut curry from our homegrown basil. Then it was time to move again and start over somewhere new. We gave away our container garden and prayed that our bows made it across the Pacific in one piece. The movers loaded our lives onto a truck, and we held onto our dreams.
Base Move
I was pregnant with baby #2, Gavin, when we arrived at our next duty station: Florida again. When we finally unpacked our bows, we took them to the base archery range. I was hugely pregnant, and looked like I was going to topple over when I drew my bow. It felt good to have it back in my hands, though. Not only was the archery range nearby, but so was the water; my husband would go kayak fishing and catch us dinner when he could. He didn’t stop at catching it, he also cooked it to perfection.
After Baby Gavin showed up, we bought our “forever” house there, with a duck and two ponds on two whole acres of land! It felt like freedom after years of tiny base yards. We couldn’t wait to finally get chickens and till a garden when we got settled. We painted the walls and made renovation plans. In spite of how hard we tried to make Florida home, life had other plans. Extremely long story short, Hurricane Michael blew through and took our house with it.
Our boys are now ages 7 and 4, and we’ve expanded our family by a set of twin girls since then. The transition from military to civilian life was a rocky one. My husband took a job on the East coast, where we lived in a tiny apartment for a while, followed by a rental in a subdivision. In spite of all that we lost, we kept our dreams alive. We always found a way, even if it was something small. From making homebrewed beer in our tiny apartment, to shooting bows in our suburban backyard. Hoping the neighbors wouldn’t complain to the HOA. Obviously, we needed more land.
Dreams Rooted
We put down roots in Virginia, where we bought 10 acres and had our house custom built. Thankfully, we got settled in before the pandemic.
Those dreams we’ve carried with us all these years can finally come true here. The ground isn’t toxic, we can hunt in our own backyard, and raise chickens. We have a wood burning fireplace, gas stove, septic system, water well and solar panels to greatly reduce our reliance on the grid. The solar backup battery has already proven useful during power outages.
Wild blackberries, blueberries, flowers and edible mushrooms are abundant. We have a compost pile to reduce our waste, and to fertilize future gardens. There’s enough land for a food plot, ATV trails and an archery shooting lane. We don’t live far from town and still have internet, so our modern homestead gives us the best of both worlds.
Homestead Built
When I look out the window, I can see our ducks splashing in the pond and the chickens free ranging by the coop the kids painted. There is a woodpile stacked and ready for winter.
Our dog, Stormy, is the best snuggler and tracks lost chickens for us. The kids catch frogs and fireflies, play in the woods and help take care of the animals. I’ve perfected my bread baking skills, learned how to make a fire in the fireplace and just started hunting. My husband built everything for the ducks and chickens himself.
The kids have learned so much already, and honestly, so have we. It’s surreal to watch this dream finally come true, especially after the obstacles we’ve faced to get here.
There is always something to do, a new skill to be learned, and chickens to cuddle. I followed my heart straight to our homestead in the woods with my favorite people and I wouldn’t trade this life for anything. And this is only the beginning.
