Jenna of Cold Antler Farm (one of our favorite blogs) recommends that you write down your dreams on paper:
You need to sit at your desk, coffee table, etc. and write down on a sheet of paper exactly what your dream homestead or farm would be. Not on your computer. Not on your iPad. On paper. Write down the acreage, the house, the barn, and the animals you will share it with. Draw a picture of the layout, where the stables will be, where the garden will be. Be specific. If you are already at your farm or working your own homestead: do the same for a new project. Draw the way the new pork pasture will look, and write a description of the exact solar charger and line weight of the wire. …
Then fold up your piece of paper, put it in your pocket, carry it with you always. It will work miracles.
In our case it’s not just a homestead we’re drawing out but a way of life (which happens to include a homestead). So while there’s a paper drawing of a homestead in my back pocket, there’s a much longer list in my head. Like Jenna I know that putting this down so it’s tangible makes it more likely to happen. (My inner-psychologists says it has something to do with “accountability”.) So here goes:
- We want a home we built ourselves.
- We want to produce a large portion of our own needs – both food and energy.
- We want a piece of land, something substantial that we can pass down to our children and grandchildren.
- We want to live in a community of friends and family who share our values and our faith.
- We want time to enjoy these things and time to foster relationships.
- Which means we want jobs that afford us this lifestyle – that means part-time, work-from-home or self-employment.
The road forward is not clear at this point but it is becoming clear which paths are NOT going to get us there. Academia is not. We’re not even sure where to settle down just yet. Land prices and unavailability, distance from family, and culture and aesthetics have convinced us that we don’t want to settle down in Chambana but we’re not quite sure where we do want to go.