Where art though Spring?

Like most of the Midwest, we are anxiously waiting for Spring to arrive. It seems like we've been dealing with mud and snow and firewood forever. Finally, things really felt like spring this weekend.

Deer love strawberries. If there's one thing I've learned since starting homesteading is that deer love strawberries...the leaves, to be more exact. Last year it took me awhile to realize what was gobbling our strawberry plants--right down to the ground. Our crop really suffered until I got an electric fence up. Unfortunately, because I stopped running the fencer over winter, the deer got used to going over or through the fence. After adding another strand failed, I resorted to using some heavy chain link gates and corn crib panels, which seems to be doing the trick.

I also got the dead tops from the asparagus cut off, and a couple days later the new shoots came through. Here's some recent pics.

I Kant do this anymore!

The move to the homestead has gone relatively smoothly, but it seems to have been the most challenging for our 3 year old, who says "I can't do this anymore" to absolutely everything that bothers him, whether it's his new bed, or picking up his clothes, or eating his lunch, etc.  This is largely his age and temperament at work, but I'm sure the move has been hard for him because it's something new.

I studied philosophy in college, and it really wasn't until I was in lawschool and practicing as an attorney that I started to understand some of those things that made absolutely no sense to me in school. Oh if only I could go back and re-take some of those tests!

One of the philosophers I couldn't understand was Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher from the 1700s.  But one nugget I think I understood was his ethical concept of universability, which basically says for an action to be moral, it must be possible for every person to permissibly perform the action.

One of the ideas that has driven me in my adult life, particularly the journey toward homesteading, is to seek a live that can be attained by many, not just an exclusive few.  I've been blessed with a good education and the capacity to make lots of money.  If I was more devoted to my profession as an attorney, I could buy a large farm, build a very nice house, drive new cars, and have many things that most people cannot afford.  But that's not what interests me.  Instead, I'm profoundly interested in finding a way to live that others can follow, whether they're attorneys or doctors or teachers or janitors.  

While I can't say I've been perfect in applying this concept to our journey or our homestead, I think you'll find that most of what we do is fairly basic and straightforward.  Our cabin is built with utility and efficiency as the primary goal, not appearance.  We are a family of 7 (so far) in a small home by most standards, but a home that can easily be built by most anyone if they have the desire to work hard.

I hope that the things that we continue to do will prove helpful to others that feel the call to a homesteading way of life, irrespective of our respective vocational or financial situations.  My dream for the future would be to see the landscape dotted with 3-5 acre homesteads, with modest houses, a functional set of outbuildings, large gardens, a small orchard, chickens in the yard, clothes on the line, and children in the yard.