[ḐᥲɳᥲḐ𝔦ຣຣᥱɳꞎ]

Overwhelmed!! But hopeful. That's me right now. I'm in my forties, disabled, and moving from a large home in a town (with all of the "civilized" comforts a life during these times provides) to a cabin in the mountains with my husband. My daughter will be with us half of the time, so 2 weeks on/2 off. We'll be commuting from the beautiful mountains in Kentucky (Greenup, to be exact) to Eastern Pennsylvania to pick her up and take her back every 2 weeks (that's a bit rough on me, as I have chronic back pain and neuropathy) but we feel living in Kentucky is the best thing we can do for her, and ourselves, so we'll get through it. We're basically beginners with everything homesteading. Both my husband and I have had some experience with farming/living in the woods, but that was ages ago. We want to become self reliant. We want to grow our own food/medicinal herbs/mushrooms, raise chickens for eggs, and possibly keep bees. Right now, we're living off of solar power and rainwater from a cistern, and nothing else is set up yet. The solar power doesn't give us much, so we're basically camping, but in a beautiful, small cabin. I want to wash our laundry by hand, make all of our cleaning products and soaps, and can/jar/preserve our foods for the winter. My husband wants to try to build some buildings with the wood we have on our property, and may take up hunting deer for food (we will use everything we can). We got some books, and I'm making my way through The Encyclopedia of Country Living right now. I'm so in love with all of the future changes, but not disillusioned. I know it's going to be hard. I know it's going to be tough on my body. I know I'll spend days in tears and wondering why we left the comforts we had in our Pennsylvania home. But, for spiritual, emotional, and health reasons, we want to start living self-reliantly. If anyone has any suggestions for anything, any tips, tricks, recipes, links, or anything helpful or positive, I'd love to hear it! We're open to most anything, and appreciate the help others - who have experienced and lived through these types of things - have to offer. Thank you, in advance!!

 

[CKelly78z]

That's neat that you are following a dream, and plunging ahead, I wish you good luck, and good health.

There are lots of helpful hints, and tips on this site, welcome !

 

[crehberg]

First of all, welcome to HT!

Wow, what a move to make. The best advice I can give you is: be patient. You're like most of us, in that you've got a long, long list of things to do...and you're like me in the fact health problems will interfere with some of that. It's ok to not get it all done at one time! I've lived in the same place my entire life (3rd generation) and I promise my list now is longer than it was 10 years ago!

Be patient, stop and smell the roses, and never let it become all consuming. You can lose the reason you moved if you overwhelm yourself!

As far as resources: HT, YouTube, your local library, and your local county agricultural extension office will all be of help. Neighbors can be too, so long as you get along!

All the best in your new journey!

 

[Wyobuckaroo]

Greetings from the far north west Canada..

 

[kinnb]

welcome!