Our paths have crossed

I’m not entirely sure as to why, but I’m so happy they have! I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason.
Life is short and I truly try to make the most of it. The days are long and the years are short. We often find ourselves very busy and after I spent some time analyzing that, I realized that I am just a natural “doer” and we choose to be that way. I feel most fulfilled in life when I am bettering myself and providing for my family. It can be overwhelming at times but more importantly it can be true bliss! I started this blog just as I started my homestead and my goal is to document my journey for others to learn from and just share my experience. And if nothing else, just be able to leave something for my children.

Erica’s Most useful tips

I am a full time working mom of 3 boys. Currently, I am working 40 hours, 30 miles from our home while building our homestead. We are, without a doubt, busy but our life style is not unmanageable. Below I outline a few helpful pointers – head over to my blog to read more in depth

You can save a lot of time and money by doing a little research first. The internet these days can have a ton of quick useful information. You can literally google anything! I also have a pile of extremely trustworthy and helpful books. If you just start willy-nilly doing things with no plan, your going to run out of time, money and motivation extremely quick

I wouldn’t necessarily call myself frugal or a minimalist but I am always searching for a good deal. I rarely pay full price for things! I use FB marketplace/craigslist to buy things second hand. For larger purchases, we buy quite a bit from K-Bid (online auctions). Food wise – we buy in bulk and preserve – see next point

Cooking is one of my biggest tasks because I can’t usually enlist the help of others. Providing high quality, nutritious food is so important to me that I make this a priority. My biggest time savers are
1. Food Prepping on the days I have down time
2. Planning a menu and using grocery pick up (also a huge $ saver)
3. Buy food in bulk – cost savings. We love local farmers and Azure
4. Canning and freezing

Seriously. Right now šŸ˜‰ One of the best things I did for myself and my goals was no longer caring about other peoples opinions. Respectfully, I do what I want and what makes me happy. Don’t fall into the trap of the IG/Hollywood world of ā€œhomesteading for showā€ is what I call it. Homestead on purpose – who cares what it looks like if it works! You’re always going to run into nay-sayers and someone who can do it bigger and better but as long as its making you happy and is good for your family, really that’s all that matters

My husband and I do most things ourselves. We’ve only hired someone to pour concrete in all of our projects. Be creative with your time, plan your day based around your kids schedules. Nap times are GO TIME, we get up early and go to bed after the kids. Staying organized is extremely helpful time management skill so when you set out to do something, you can just do it. I know this sounds like a no brainer but it’s worth noting.

Have a specific question, comment or thought to share?

What you’ll learn

Willowberry Acres Vision

The name comes from our land. We have Willows to the east, berries to the west and everything in-between!
Our goal in life is to take as little from society, while adding as much as we can! We by all means don’t do or have it all but we have what we need.
The goal of this blog is to share what we learn along the way to either benefit your journey or in the very least, help understand ours so the world can become a more accepting place for all. We believe in Godly relationships, hard work, wholesome food and relying on others as little as possible.

The three little reasons behind it all

The first proclaimed pandemic of our adult lives really made us have some deep conversations on what we NEED vs what we WANT. We found ourselves choosing a path of least resistant. Looking into ways to reduce our footprint and provide the most wholesome foods and values for our family. I highly encourage every adult do this – what do you NEED and what do you WANT

If we can do it ourselves – we defiantly try. There is so much pride and satisfaction in creating it yourself. Most times it is also quite a bit cheaper (not always if you don’t follow #1 above) Our goal is to encourage you to give it a shot with our follow along, thought provoking DIY tutorials

The literal definition:
Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. It is characterized by subsistence agriculture, home preservation of food, and may also involve the small scale production of textiles, clothing, and craft work for household use or sale.
In my opinion – wide open! You define where you fall in there. Add a little at a time – it’s not going to happen over night. But if you keep learning and implementing, it’ll snowball into the most wonderful life you can ever imagine!

Even if homesteading seems a bit out of your reach right now, everyone needs to eat, Right?! šŸ™‚ My passion is cooking and it’s one of my love languages. I love to fill bellies with wholesome, delicious food handcrafted by me! My goal is to use as many home ingredients that touched the least amount of hands – it can be challenging at times but I haven’t had too many complaints yet!