We Graduated!

I have been trying to write this post for over a week. I just don't know what to say other than we graduated! A chunk of our lives is over but we're so ready for the next.

Scotty now has a Bachelors in Small Scale Sustainable Agricultural Development and I have two! I double majored in Ecology and Environmental Humanities. I feel like we have the perfect combo to create a sustainable, environmentally friendly, productive homestead.

Scotty & I at Umbagog Lake, NH during a college break.

In some ways it's exciting to be done and yet this also feels like any other Christmas break. It's almost unimaginable that we won't be going back to school in January. It's also a little terrifying. All of a sudden there is tons of new stuff to do.

We're back in West Virginia now and have been getting settled in. We've unpacked, weeded our garlic patch, cooked in the wood stove for the first time, and started working on our truck. Soon we'll be clearing our new house and garden/pasture areas, planting more garlic and experimenting with cold weather greens, ordering seeds for this spring, and moving our chicken and duck fence.

There's so much to do but I already feel better about being home. Once again we're making our own food, spending time with our animals, tending gardens, and being physically active which I think greatly improves my mood. We're finally "real" homesteaders. I mean I have always felt that we were homesteaders but now it finally feels like we are actually making our homestead dreams come true.

Though it's been several years since we have really experienced a traditional Christmas and we didn't get one this year I am really looking forward to starting our own Christmas traditions next year. We were actually on the road to West Virginia Christmas day. 

I am sorry to say that I didn't get to do any holiday posts but in the near future you can expect to read a lot from RRF. Own of my goals for the new year is to increase my blogging productivity and hopefully (fingers crossed) make it a little more profitable. Tomorrow I will be writing some scheduled posts on my new calendar!

The woods near our new house site.

Stay tuned for more details about our 2016 plans including information about building our new house, planting our new orchard, garden varieties for this year, additional frugal homesteading advice and much more.