Hey there! I’m Ashley. I am a first generation homesteader and natural born crafter. We are in our first year of homesteading and we have jumped in feet first! I hope to educate and inspire you to strive for self sufficiency.
My husband and I have 2 beautiful children, both work full time jobs, and run a farm. It is very busy but so very worth every moment!
Two years ago my husband, Josh, was diagnosed with chronic Lyme’s disease. We seen a couple doctors that had good intentions but were going about treatment entirely wrong. In February of 2018, we were tired of all the tests, medications, and money spent going nowhere. We decided to take a different route and see an integrative medicine doctor a couple counties over from where we live. She had Lyme’s disease as well and understood the difficulties that came with it. Her first course of action was to change my husband’s diet and strongly encouraged us to eat as organically as possible and cut out gluten.
As we were looking into eating organic, milk was something that stood out to us. Josh come across an article discussing the benefits of raw milk. From that, we went on the hunt to try some! We didn’t get very far because it is illegal to sell unpasteurized milk in North Carolina. We were in the process of buying a house and the house just so happened to have an acre fenced in pasture. The idea sparked in my husband’s head far before it did mine, he wanted a dairy cow. I really thought he was joking and had lost his mind when he mentioned he wanted a cow! He was dead serious. I started doing some research and reading more on milking a cow. I was more convinced with every blog post I read.
We closed on our house April 19th and had our beautiful Guernsey cow delivered two days later! Mind you, neither my husband nor I had ever been around cattle, much less milked a cow! It took up an hour and a half to milk her! Looking back we laugh, but at the time it was an eternity!
Shortly after we moved, we added beef cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs, ducks, and a couple beehives. We have really went all in with our farm. It gets interesting around here, but we love it and wouldn’t have it any other way.
I hope you stick around to hear about the exciting everyday life of new homesteaders!
-Ashley