The Temporary Homestead.

  I haven't lived in one place for longer than a year since high school at my parents house.  I was in and out of dorms and apartments in college, came home to live with the parents for about 2 months before I moved to my own apartment(so that I could get a dog).  I only lived there for about 6 months before I got another dog and decided a 500 square foot apartment on the second floor wasn't a great fit for me and two large dogs.

Some of these tubs I have had since freshman year in college.  One day I hope to unpack them all

!

 The dogs and I moved into an addition onto Brandon's mothers house.  The dogs had a lot more room to run and we had a yard and access to Brandon's mother and grandmothers land.  We were only here for about 8 months but we did a lot of work to the addition and managed to turn a bedroom into a home.  We but linoleum down and turned a hallway into a kitchen.  All I had was a hot plate, a small refrigerator, a toaster oven, and the sink in the nearby bathroom but I made it work and managed to cook a lot of our meals.  Brandon installed a washer and dryer in the basement for my "Christmas present" that year.  We bought a couple couches a kitchen table and we had everything that we needed. 

Brandon got me flowers for my birthday to decorate our entryway at his mothers house.  Sadly we were only able to enjoy them for about a month before we moved. 

When Brandon went into the police academy I decided to move back into an apartment in my parents basement because it was closer to my job.  Unfortunately this meant that my puppies had to live outside for a couple months but I had a nice set up for them. 

The dogs taking an afternoon nap at my parents house.

When Brandon graduated from the police academy he was stationed in another county.  The first step in becoming a self sufficient homestead would be to own our own land.  We considered buying a home but we decided it would be best to rent for a year to decide whether or not we liked the area.  We only had about a month to find housing so we searched for apartments on the weekends but neither of us wanted to live in an apartment again with these two dogs who had become accustom to being outside.  Brandon had a friend, another trooper, who had moved out of a house a couple months prior and introduced us to the owners.  We visited the house and immediately knew that it was perfect.  It was a small house(inexpensive to heat and cool), there was no lease, cheap rent, no neighbors(besides a heard of cows), a lot of land, and the owners had no problem with our animals. We started moving in the next weekend.

The house when we first moved in.

Our neighbors.

I have named our little house "The Temporary Homestead".  It's not too pretty but for now it works.  I can slowly start little farm projects like raising dairy goats and chickens, making my own cleaning and beauty products, planting a garden, having a compost pile, picking berries that grow wild, I can have a clothes line, we used a wood-stove for heat, and cut the wood for this wood-stove.  Now that I have a real kitchen I can cook a lot more make basic staples like bread.  I also have a lot more storage space in this kitchen so I was able to create a stockpile and only buy items when I have coupons and can get them for an extremely low price. 

My kitchen.

Another great thing about our temporary homestead is that there are a number of sheds and outbuildings with things that the owners have left behind that are still useful to us.  We found several wood-stoves, all of our fencing that we use for the goats and chickens, a screen door, and many other little things that have come in handy.  It always makes me giggle when I come home to some "new" flower pots on the porch and know that Brandon had been scavenging or when he is working on a project and I see him start walking up the driveway to the sheds to see if he can find the part that he needs and nine times out of ten he returns home with something that will work.  

You can see our house to the right of this photo. The house is surrounded by hundreds of acres of mostly fields that the owners rent to a beef cattle farmer.

We have been living here for 8 months now.  The winter was difficult.  We had a lot of snow and ice and we are about a mile down a gravel road with a pretty major hill and no snow plow.  Another dificulty of living so far out in the country is that we do not have cell service.  Normally this wouldn't be a huge deal but we have to have a phone for Brandon's job and it was difficult to find a land line and an internet provider who could connect us because apparently we live in "a bowl".  We ended up finding a satellite company that could provide us with phone and internet but we are paying A LOT for something that we rarely use.  We have to stay at our temporary homestead for at least another 4 months before Brandon can ask for a transfer back to my hometown so that we can be closer to family.  Although this place has been good to us I cannot wait to have a place to finally settle down and start to create a more permanent homestead.