Homestead Update 2024/10/07

Life is certainly full on the homestead! We have been hoping to have a slower time to write, but everyday comes with its own unexpected blessings and challenges. Being close to the land does have its own adventurous possibilities. Instead of waiting for a down time, we are learning to rearrange our priorities to create our new rhythm of country living. Hopefully, we can write more often to have time to reflect on and record what God is doing and what we are witnessing. I am always amazed at how God uses difficulties to push us to himself. What a blessing! Here are some of the updates on the homestead.

We are excited that Nainai (grandma) is coming to visit soon. Just wanted to have a brief update about our life to catch up even before she comes. Writing is another way to connect our life with whoever is interested in our lives. 

Quick Glance  – While we look forward to sharing about some of these in more detail, here is an update on the homestead!

• Moriah Crawling and Standing – Moriah (10 months) is everywhere and into everything. She also loves “Where is…”. I (Rob) will hide, recently in increasingly hard places, and say “Where is Baba?”. She will usually drop everything and persist in crawling around to find me, then having a big smile. It’s so fun to be able to play and see her excitement and discovery.
• Homeschool Co-op – We are so grateful for our homeschool co-op, Sycamore, and are amazed at how like-minded the group is. The heart of the co-op has proven to be discipleship. Christ is the focus of every class, and the peace and joy of Christ are very evident. We are grateful for this influence not only on our boys, but on all of us. We are all encouraged and challenged to grow in our walk with Christ.
• Silkies (which are the ultimate defenseless chicken and often raised as pets), though they also have a draw for our homestead: they are well known and loved in China for their good meat and benefits in bone stock with their unique black bones, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine. They are also very cute and love to be around people, and perhaps our number one reason, they make wonderful mothers. They will sit on eggs to hatch them with great dedication, be it their eggs (which aren’t many), other chicken’s eggs, duck eggs, etc. 
• Ducks – Oh my! We love our Pekin Ducks. The seven of them (6 girls and 1 boy) are always together. They are so kind to each other and the chickens and us. When our little kiddie pool was too small they would patiently wait for each other to have time to swim, etc. They are so fun to watch.
• Goat Shelter – Just today the boys (by themselves) built our goat shelter. We have been putting fence up and are hoping to get milk goats soon. We are grateful that the boys took over the shelter. Life has been so busy that I (Rob) haven’t been able to get to it. The project was on a limited budget and the boys built it largely out of free wood pallets. We’ve seen other’s basic, but someone more expensive, shelters, and after talking with a friend from co-op and seeing theirs, we saw that a very basic structure can work great and be somewhat mobile! 
• Losses (Death) – Life on a homestead comes with death, most recently a few of our Silkies, and one of our rabbits. We are not only learning from our mistakes, but also get to teach the realities of life. We had a raccoon attack and lost some hens this summer as well. Honestly, I am so glad that our boys have the privilege of facing death on a regular (though not too regular) basis. As one recently said (my paraphrase), “The first one was hard, but now we’re learning that it’s normal.” Death is to be hated, it is a result of sin. However, as Paul wrote, “to live is Christ, to die is gain”. Living on a homestead gives us opportunity to face death and see that it is not to be taken lightly, but is also a necessary part of life. Ultimately our very lives are dependent on death. Every animal food we eat came from something dying. Life requires death. Without the death of Christ, we would not have life. Living on the homestead has given opportunities to face these realities head on. We have been blessed with good meat by neighbors from their hunting or butchering. Our desire is to learn to raise our own meat soon so we can bless others as well.
• Gardens and Trees – We recently added Chinese Chestnut trees, thornless blackberries, raspberries and just yesterday a blueberry plant to our collection. We have also been busy chopping the ground to remove the many, many Missouri rocks and will soon be topping it with composted manure (we are surrounded by cows) and wood chips. Our goal is to have no-till gardens, so after this one time land preparation, should have limited need to till much again in the future.
• Greenhouse – We have been so grateful for how God provided for us to have a greenhouse. This has been one of our prayers and we have been working on figuring out the best way to make it happen. God provided in a wonderful way, and we have seen plants (and currently 16 chicks) enjoying the warmth and sun of the greenhouse. (I already wrote a longer update for here, but will save that for a separate post. :o)
• Mushrooms – Last fall we inoculated logs with Shiitake and Oyster mushrooms. A little less than a month ago, we started enjoying the fruit of that time. We should now enjoy mushrooms for several years from those logs. We had tried this in Strongsville but didn’t have a good spot for the logs, here we have a nice spot in the woods near a creek and pond to have shade and moisture. It has been exciting seeing the mushrooms starting to fruit!
• Bees – We were unsuccessful in catching a bee swarm this year, but are now ready to get our traps up early in the spring. We are going for a more natural way of beekeeping which isn’t as beekeeper intensive, instead setting the bees up to live more like they would in nature with minimal intervention.
• House – Our house is still a construction site and I’m sad to say that the pile of drywall leaning against the wall in the dining area has become a shelf. We’re working through some setbacks, but things are coming along, and we’re hoping the boys will have a bedroom soon, though they have been so patient for the past year of camping in the house.
• Church – We have been blessed to see the church grow from our being the only regularly attending family to now having three ages of Sunday School classes. Elyse and I are grateful for the opportunity to teach the Young Adults class. I also have the opportunity to be part of the teaching rotation for Wednesday evenings, as we go through the book of Psalms.
• Chinese Radio – For the past few years Elyse has been deeply involved in a Chinese Radio/Online program on TWR, focusing on Scripture Memory, broadcasting throughout Asia. The program will continue to broadcast with a 3 year loop, however the prepwork is transitioning to an end. Please pray for His will to be done using this program however He pleases.
• Elyse’s Family – Elyse’s family has had a hard year. A major area of prayer is for her aunt, with whom she was very close, who is very sick with cancer. She, and most of the family, do not have the hope of Christ. Our prayer is that this, and other situations, could be used to draw her and others to Christ.
• Trampoline – Our trampoline, which we bought even before Elyse and the younger boys moved down, has been a true blessing. We got it to give the boys a safe place to play before we tamed the yard a bit. Though they now have plenty of places to roam, the trampoline (specifically Gaga Ball on the trampoline) are a huge hit for all of the boys (including the biggest of the four).

A big theme of this year has been “Setbacks”. With not having a reliably working car for quite a few months, things slowed way down. However, it also had many blessings and we learned greater dependence on Christ, had more forced time at home instead of constantly running around, and also learned to humbly receive rides from friends and neighbors for church, shopping, looking for a vehicle, etc.

One reason for moving was God’s nudging us to leave the suburbs and move to the unknown land in the country. He guides us and teaches us to trust Him one step at a time as we answer His call to learn more about land stewardship. Being closer to the land, our family gets a front seat to see Christ through His amazing creation. We are blessed with great freedom and responsibilities. Just like homeschooling, homesteading is not for the faint-of-heart. It is rewarding to see the great difference after or even during the toil. We are also blessed to see our place is starting to become a place where others can come to know him more and fellowship with each other. We have been so grateful for his provision in these ways, and look forward to seeing what he has around the corner that we still don’t see.

How are you? Is God leading you to a new uncharted area? How can we pray for you? Any setbacks in your life? Another answered prayer is that we were able to connect with friends from Ohio through text, email, mails and even visits!! We are grateful and looking forward to deepening our friendships over the distance and years. Let us know if you travel this way. We didn’t know when we first moved here that where we are is a tourist area with caves, restaurants, hiking, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s home, Sight and Sound Theater (and all the theater and entertainment of Branson), Silver Dollar City, One of America’s largest aquariums, Bass Pro headquarters, etc. It’s quite interesting that all of this is surrounded by a large and growing homesteading community that are looking to simplify and learn to live with the land, faith, hard work, and the local community, not dependent on the fragile systems of the world.