The Many Challenges of Homesteading

Last Updated on June 20, 2024 by Michelle

I may do this homesteading life a disservice most days. I am a romantic and love to weave a beautiful story, just like my Dad always did so well. And I am a writer and photographer and love to carefully choose words and frame images to their maximum appeal.

So I apologize.

My storytelling and cropping of details might make a simple little family farm seem glamorous.

It’s not.

Our homesteading journey has been full of mistakes…

The difficulties–most due to my own mess ups and inadequacies–have been tough.

There was the day many young, beautiful hens died in a matter of minutes, all because of my avoidable mistake.

Then there were the incubated eggs I completely messed up and lost.

There was the sweet barn cat we lost due to my ignorance.

And there are never-ending mistakes we make and projects we start that go unfinished with our 200-year old farmhouse.

I mean truly y’all I’ve never really felt “legit” at this homesteading gig.

Some of our homesteading days have been messy and scary…

Yes, homesteading is messy and hard and disorganized and even downright scary some days. Last Thursday was the scariest.

The day our stable burnt to the ground was the worst…

I had gone out to gather eggs and realized there was horrible smoke billowing up from the area of the stables. 

When I ran to the edge of our barn, where the ground dips down for a full view of the stables, I saw a stable engulfed in flames. The roof was nearly collapsed, I almost fell to the ground myself in despair. The thought of our two sweet cows trapped inside sucked the air out of my lungs.

Bill dashed past me to survey damage that I couldn’t bear to approach. He was more level-headed than I and gave me direction as I stood there, numb and bitter with worry. 

He yelled up to me to call 911. I had an odd sense of relief that there was something I could do. Before I reached the porch door, his voice bellowed and cracked up again, “The cows are alright!”

Scout and Selah, usually very curious and eager to greet any guests to the farm, kept their distance from all of us in the hours that followed. Hours of smoke and sirens and hoses and firefighters.

And now our field is a mess of twisted metal roofing and debris.

I’m so grateful for the weekend’s fresh snowfall to help me not focus on the ugliness quite so much.

We’ve lost more than a building…

The stable that has stood on our homestead for possibly a century is gone. The stable that housed more farm animals than I will know is gone. The stable that was once home to Flaxie Checker, cousin to Secretariat, many decades ago is gone. (I learned this fact from a neighbor who knew sweet Flaxie.) The stable that Kayla looked at in shambles many years ago and decided it had worth and could house a dairy cow or two is gone. The stable where Logan and Kayla spent a long hot Saturday, designing, hammering, and leveling an interior wall to home the little calf that we eagerly awaited is gone. The stable that became the birth place to a large precious litter of barn cats whose momma preferred bovine company to the barn is gone.

It’s gone. And charred mess remains. 

So no, I don’t mean to make simple living romantic, it’s poopy and crazy hard.

And I don’t know what clean up is going to look like in the days and weeks ahead, and I doubt we can keep our cows, which makes my heart ache, but I do know that God is good. And I am blessed to be on this daily adventure of life, even on days when despair sucks the air our of my lungs. Because “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed [way worse than a stable fire, no?], yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken.” (Isaiah 54:10) 

But yet there is joy…

But the part of the day that I will never forget–the day that took our stable and left our cows homeless–is how it began. Habakkak.

Yes, Habakkak. A minor prophet of Israel. 2500 years ago. Not a place most days begin, right?

But exactly where this day needed to begin.

Kayla–my cow-whispering, Jesus-loving, gardener extraordinaire–was leading a Bible study of homeschool teens. Like she does every Thursday. And she was explaining why she loves the verses in Habakkak that talk about where our true joy needs to lie. She’s always loved them because she’s a farmer, in her core, since her toddler hands planted her first tomato plant. And Habakkak pointed out–in a very agrarian society mind you–that even when all crops fail and fields are barren he would have joy.

In an agrarian society, where crops and produce were inherent and vital, Habakkak says he will have joy when the trees no longer bud and the fruit no longer ripens. And, yes, Habakkak even says there can be joy with no cattle in the stalls.

Because his joy was founded in only one source–in his Lord alone.

I cried when I realized that possibly the very moment my lungs felt like they would not work and my knees were giving way under me because I was witnessing the total destruction of my sweet Kayla’s stable… the stable she saw worth in when no one else did… the stable she rebuilt… Possibly at that very moment she was reading these words:

Other Homesteading-related Reading & Podcasts:

Listen in to the Old Fashioned On Purpose podcast when I share why homesteading matters & why I initially had a difficult time with the transition from suburbia.

Check out a dozen mistakes we’ve made on our homestead and how you can avoid them.

Think you want to own a little family farm? Ask yourself these 12 questions.

Then there’s 8 Things Wanna-be Homesteaders Need to Know.

 

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17

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