Your story is interesting. My mom was the youngest of 11 children and grew up dirt poor. Her abusive dad died when she was three, her mom was a mental case, and it was up to her siblings to run a farm. They grew and raised everything they ate. If they didn’t have it, they didn’t eat.
As a result she (understandably) wanted to completely forget that life, and married my engineer dad. So I never learned from her how to live off the land, cooking, gardening, canning, farming, etc. I am 100% book taught, and started 12 years ago. It has been hard with a lot of trial and error as to what works here in GA and what does not. I started with a small garden and a few chickens. Chickens are a “gateway drug” for farming by the way, lol. What I do still pretty small but what I do provides about 75% of my family’s food.
Unlike my mom, for whom this life would be cause PTSD, I love doing it. My husband’s job provides enough for us, but this way of life is fulfilling for me and brings in a small side income. It fit nicely with homeschooling, and my kids grew up knowing what physical work is. Their friends had no clue what it was to muck stalls before school lol. My oldest still loves physical work, made a career out of it, even though he was accepted at every college he applied to. He picked a trade and now is in a very niche career.
My mom died of ALS about 22 years ago, but she always knew with my love of the outdoors and animals that I would be doing something like this. I have a MA degree in a completely different field, lol, but it did get me through my 20s.
Sorry, I’m rambling. Waxing nostalgic.
Love your story.
Thank you for sharing.
Inspirational, on many levels.
There is something really nice about living close to the earth. My grandmother was married to her 3rd husband (widowed twice, poor lady) for nearly 40 years and he was a Tennessee dairy farmer near Jackson who also grew some crops and beef cattle on the side. Very industrious man. I made quite a few brief summer visits to their old farm house, but I was more of an observer than anything. It was a very professional operation.