The Romantic Allure of Homesteading

The romantic allure of homesteading has drawn me in, and soothes my soul.

All homesteading is not romantic and glamorous. There is loss, and frustration, but there is also so much beauty when we slow down our pace and look around.

The mornings don’t start off slow, there is milking, feeding, watering, weeding, bread to bake, and cheese to make.

Once a handful of my necessary morning tasks are complete it’s time to sit and spend time with the Lord.

“Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the most high.” Psalm 51:14

I really struggle with my balance of being a Christian and living in the world. I can paint this beautiful perfect picture where I sit down with the Lord. But to be honest my sit down isn’t always rainbows and beautiful.

It is filled with hard questions, its frustrations, and sometimes disbelief. Being a Christian is hard, it’s messy. But it’s messy, because people are messy.

I know for me my day has to start in the word, even if I’m wrestling with God in that moment. His grace is more than my messiness.

So when I share my day starts with the Lord, it does, but it’s hard sometimes. He is always kind to reveal beauty around me even when I have a bad attitude or disbelief. So if you too wrestle with God, don’t be discouraged because he meets us where we’re at.

Beauty Abounds

How often we become entangled in life’s commitments that we forget to sit down and show our gratitude to the One who created it all. Let us settle into the romantic allure of homesteading that exists if we just sit long enough to see it. Grab your morning beverage and come along with me.

First let’s sit down and journal our thanksgiving to the One who created all.

The sun is slowing coming up, the temperature is perfect, the bees are buzzing. The sweet fragrance of honeysuckle permeates the entire farmyard.

A fluffy, gentle giant lays at my feet, the animals are silent as they fill their bellies.

Even the animal feed is pleasing to the eye.

Homemade Animal Feed

In our quest to feed the animals higher quality food, we purchase our grains in bulk from Azure Standard. Mixing a beautiful blend of all the good things to sustain them.

It’s therapeutic digging your hands into a bin of different grains. Reminds me of the days of my children’s occupational therapy activities.

Homemade Tea Blends

Let’s grab our basket and begin our morning harvests. A lover of tea, not for it’s flavor more for its soul reviving qualities. It’s time to begin our first harvests for our homegrown tea blend.

Purple, pink, yellow roses give off a beautiful scent, and fill my harvest basket with an array of colors. The raspberry leaves are young and at their prime for harvest. Let’s harvest extra for our rose infused bar of soap.

The Bent Barbell Apothecary

With Millie in milk it’s a busy time to blend up all the apothecary orders. It’s romantic, and dreamy to harvest from the yard and make healing concoctions, and soap bars.

The herbs are reaching epic proportions needing a trimming. Roses are in full bloom, everywhere I look I see an opportunity to create new items for our homestead apothecary.

Rose infused oils, oregano infused soap bars, calendula infused chapstick, it’s dreamy and romantic isn’t it?

Summer Break is Upon Me

The children are still asleep, these slow summer mornings give me extra time for myself. I love getting up before the sun is up, enjoying quiet, solitude that can only be found alone.

Summer break is fabulous, spending our days outside, a slower pace than during our school year.

The romantic allure of homesteading does not always exist, there are dirty chores to complete.

However, it’s beautiful when we slow down enough to acknowledge and show our gratitude for even the smallest of beauties.

The beauty and freedom in homesteading is what fills my cup, my retreat from all the strangeness that exists outside my homestead gates.

I’ll be spending my day cutting soap. Reveling in the romantic allure of our small little homestead here in nowhere Nevada.

May your day be filled with blessings, and small beauties.

Danielle