Dear MOTHER
“I dream of a farm with livestock, but for now, I’m making the most of my land and abilities.”
Readers’ 50th anniversary letters are marked with a gold star.50
Homestead Hopes
For years, I’ve read and admired the folks who’ve appeared in MOTHER EARTH NEWS, Grit, and Backwoods Home Magazine. I’ve longed to live on a farm and be self-sufficient. I’ve dreamed of having the freedom to rise with the sun and go to bed when it sets. In the late 1970s, my boyfriend and I bought a 700-square-foot cabin that sat on 7 acres. The property had a small spring-fed pond with a cistern. We both worked for the Navy back then, so we’d commute the 50-plus miles to work. Life was good, and, eventually, I got to stay home with our children and work around the property. We grew our own food, raised chickens and goats, and even had a horse. But times changed, and so did we. By 2005, I was a single parent renting houses from other people, but my dream of a life on the farm never left me. I longed for self-sufficiency once again.
In 2015, I bought a single-family home on 2 acres of mountain land overgrown with trees and rocks. Since I was still about 60 miles from Washington, D.C., land was at a premium, so I couldn’t afford more land for a true farm. The land did have a year-round stream that fed into a small pond.
The first year on the property, I built raised beds with cinder blocks the previous owner
