Why A Farmstead?
Sometimes a vague longing is all you need to move forward with a big change. EB Ranch Farmstead is a result of that vague longing with a heavy dose of nostalgia and defiance. My partner Bob, and I moved back to my hometown of Ridgeland, WI in 2009. The solid plan was to have enough land for a garden and easier access to harvest wood to heat with a wood stove. We ended up buying a 16-acre dilapidated farm with a possibly haunted past. We moved to a new location down the road with 40 acres and a much less haunted-feeling chunk of land in 2015.
Moving back to a small community made me anxious. The stereotypes, while can be real, are also utter bullshit. I was nervous about moving back to an area where I had been bullied and threatened. Only to find other layers of a small community I had never known existed. And realistically, dealing with bullies as an adult no matter where you live is a real part of life. It doesn’t just happen in rural areas.
Layers and nuances.
As mentioned, the reason for moving back to the country was minimal. Though I dove into planning and planting a rather large garden, and Bob started harvesting wood from our own property as well as off the property of family and neighbors. My Gram, Millie was a huge catalyst in introducing me to all these other layers of community I had overlooked. She was on the board for the local Hay River Review paper and suggested I introduce myself to some of the other board members and community members who contributed to the paper.
I came to find people like Kate Stout, who ran North Creek Community Farm. A CSA-style farm that had been around for at least 20 years. Kate was a mover and shaker, enthusiastic about building community and finding ways to participate and organize.
I think Kate Stout heavily influenced me as to WHY I think being a farmsteader is not really about self-reliance but about community building, about learning and teaching. Rather than farmsteading because of scarcity or some fear-based reason. In the grand scheme of “things” many systems are broken in our society. Blaming people for their situations rather than the system has always irked me. I think farmsteading can allow for opportunities to discover, organize, and plan. I’m not hoarding food in hopes of an apocalypse so I can prove to everyone that I’m right and they’re wrong. I’m involved in my community and trying hard to engage and share.
Out of defiance of being told by some significant people in my past life, that I need to buckle down and focus on ONE thing to be good at. I have gleefully followed my intuition to dive into whatever the hell I want to learn or do. Granted, I have honed my skills on certain skills or knowledge bases over the years. But I’m excited to possibly pursue basic animatronic skills in the new year and take up hide tanning again. Recognizing that staying away from people who want to dampen your flame rather than encourage it has been a valuable life skill.
Over the years I have grown massive gardens, preserved food, butchered, fermented, canned, dehydrated, cried, bled, been financially stressed (a lot!), figured things out, given up on other things, changed my viewpoints and practices, embraced discarded and embraced magic again, and in a nutshell have more recently stepped away from a lot of food growing and preservation labor.
Life changes. And that is okay.
