Homestead Engineer...

4 months ago we made an EPIC decision... Nate quit his job to become our full time Homestead Engineer,the title we give since "stay at home dad," doesn't quite do justice to what it takes to be at the mercy of a 100+ year old farmhouse, a hungry wood stove, 2 dogs, 10 chickens, 3 turkeys, 20 cows, oh... and  1 wide eyed little girl.

We had priced daycare... and the monetary price tag would be almost all of Nate's monthly pay, but the emotional price tag of a stranger with our child 9 hours a day, 10 months a year, with values that would probably not be the same as ours... that was not a price we were willing to pay! 


As I like to say... She's only going to be little once, we've only got 1 shot to do it right! Most importantly,I want her to live at a child's pace, not my pace!


To say we live on a shoestring is an understatement... it's more like used dental floss... a little frayed, and flavorless at times... but we get the job done!

I must admit though that every single sacrifice... every time I don't have even the change to stop for a coffee, 

or the car gas tank isn't just on E, it's on LOW E... 

I just need pictures like this to remind me why we chose this path.

Feeding Milk Cows with Gramp

Playing with Daddy on the Chesapeake Bay

Checking Tobacco with Auntie the Great

Feeding a new litter of pigs with Aunt Kelly

                                                                        

Helping excavate for the new silo.

I was a blessed little girl to know the love of my grandparents, and had I known then that they would all be gone by the time I was in my early 20's there is no doubt I would have re-prioritized. I want Ruth to know that love and that adventure that only comes from Grandparents... and lucky for her Great Grandparents too! In fact each week Ruthie has a lunch date with her Great Grandparents a treat she looks forward to while jumping yelling "MOM MOM, MOM MOM!" when she realizes that today is the day.

They always say that when you become a parent you want to give your child the World.... In my heart I am 1000% convinced that our sacrifices for her to be able to stay at home with Nate are giving her the world, allowing her to see the world, experience the world, taste, touch, smell, and laugh at the world... 

The chronicles of our journey continue and there is no way I'd rather spend it than here at 2950 with The Foreman (Ruth), & my beloved Homestead Engineer (Nate)!

Much Love!

AVR