We hope you all are a having a wonderful and blessed summer! We have been harvesting out of our tiny garden and been gathering veggies from neighboring farms. So far we have "put away" corn, green beans, yellow squash, pickles and relishes. So our summer is going well and we are staying as cool as we can in the southern heat by visiting the creek often and eating lots of watermelon!
As many of you may have noticed we have a much smaller garden this year than usual and the reason for that is, we are currently living in a very temporary housing situation. After 14 years of a beautiful life of homesteading on the 96 acre farm we leased, we had to move last fall. The owners decided to do other things with their property and it was time for us to move on. How very grateful we are for the wonderful time we had there in the valley and all the many things we learned and did. It was hard to leave, after living on the same dirt road for over 21 years, {in two different farmhouses} but we have many wonderful and fond memories. We met many wonderful folks from around the world, hosted events, made instructional DVDs, did herb walks and garden tours. Singing was always heard around the homestead, whether it was a common work song, hymn or ballad. We sang in the fields, on the porches and a lot of singing in the kitchen!! What a blessing when other folks would join in!!
We were able to thrive and successfully homestead the farm there by cultivating the gardens, tending the orchards, building the fences, growing herbs, and raising sheep, goats, horses, chickens, dogs and cats. We had many friends and families come out to the homestead over the years to help with various workings and farm chores and we are so grateful for that! We wouldn't have been able to manage without their support. When we moved, the herb gardens, raised beds and greenhouse were lost and left behind. We had to sell our work horse. Our cows and other horse have been divided up between two different farms where our friends have so graciously helped keep them until we can get a more permanent situation. This move has drastically interrupted our lifestyle on which our living depends. But thank the Lord, He provided a temporary living situation for the last 10 months in a borrowed travel trailer on borrowed property. To our surprise we are still able to grow and homestead quite a bit; although, it was quite a change from the farmhouse we had from years past.
We gratefully count our blessings. We have learned many things by growing a tiny garden and living in a tiny space. What good news to know that we can creatively homestead with whatever the Lord graciously gives.
It has always been the dream and vision of our family to own our own piece of Tennessee soil-land we can work, love and live on while continuing the art of homesteading.
After three years of time intensive filming, pouring our hearts, visions, and original ideas into 11 DVD's that we hosted and created the content for, we thought we would be able to buy our own little homestead with some of the means produced from the sales. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances that we had no control over, we did not benefit from those three years of work as we had hoped.
We are grateful for the many folks we have been able to meet and be blessed through the films and we do continue to share our homestead blessings with many through our website and blog. We are very grateful to all of you who have faithfully followed, kept up, and supported our small home business! May the Lord bless you all abundantly!
Our time here at this location is quickly coming to an end. By October 1st we will no longer have the travel trailer so we will need a home to move into! We are eagerly looking forward to having a place we can call home and carry on the work the Lord has given us to do. Some wonderful friends of ours have graciously offered for us to build a cabin/home on their property where there is spring water, a bubbling creek, a barn, pastures that are fenced and crossed fenced, garden spots and some fruit trees. This is a place where we can truly see our family prospering on and continuing our homesteading call. Folks are coming together from our church to help get an online fundraiser going to raise up the sufficient means needed for us to build an off-grid cabin that we hope to call home. Local community and dear friends have offered labor and work days for the building project.
We thank you so much for your kind consideration and prayers! We have a lot of hard work and monetary goals to accomplish in the next few weeks, but the Lord is truly bringing great things together for us!
If you would like to donate and support us in this new homestead quest, just visit https://www.youcaring.com/thewestladies and please spread the word with all your friends and family! Over the next few weeks we will keep you all posted. Keep visiting our blog, Facebook, and the fundraiser site mentioned above, to stay updated on the progress of our building project.
Blessings,
The West Ladies- Vicki, Jasmine, Cecilia and Hannah
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