And so it begins!

I've got a bug up my butt! The bug is that I want the best of both worlds. I love me some technology; after all, I'm a tech major. I love my modern comforts such as a/c and heat, water heaters, lights, my gas guzzling 4 wheel drive. At the same time, I've also adjusted myself to living on a farm. While its not a fully working farm its land and trees and fields and lots of space. I've enjoyed raising a few Buffs (thems chickens), I've raised a garden and canned/froze food for the winter and even dabbled in making freezer jelly. I'm finding myself wanting MORE of this. More of the homesteader ways but I don't want to lose touch with reality so to speak. I have to work. I'm the sole provider for our family, plus I'm addicted to the Internet besides I'm working on my degree and need Internet access for classes.

So my new mission in life is to figure out how to do both without going crazy, broke, or without my spoiled comforts. I've started without even realizing it by having my few chickens, raising a garden and preserving the food for winter, and of course setting up home wireless network. Yes, the last sounds like spoil but I can now take my laptop anywhere around the house to look up recipes and direction on living a simple life. Now that's funny. Homesteading as I'm learning is not easy at all. Well not at first anyway. The baby steps I've taken I did without really realizing it so they didn't seem so hard at all. Now that I'm attempting to do this with planning ahead of time, it seems quite overwhelming. But baby steps will be how it goes.

My next big project is going to be attempting to build a wind turbine to help with the electricity. I found an awesome site that actually has a "how to build your own" step by step guide. I'm going to give it a go and see how I do. Hopefully I won't 1. burn down the house and 2. be without electricity. Intitally I plan to use it to supplement our electric and not completely disconnect from the grid. But I would love to be able to eventually sell excess power to the local electric company for a supplimental income. Yes these are big dreams but I would like to at least attempt a small wind turbine to help us out on our ever increasing electric bill.

So why this blog? Well, while I've been researching different methods for different things, I've found a ton of radical homesteading sites. Some of these are a big too extreme for me at the moment so I decided to make my own and keep track of my progress. (This also keeps me accountable for my homesteading movement.) So here it goes!

Long term goal: research and build a small home wind turbine (without burning the house down)
Short term goal: get the corn picked, shucked and put up for winter. Find some black berries and learn to make jam.

Thats all I'm starting with for now. Baby steps right? Wish me luck!