We Are Doing This Thing!

  

The last couple of months have been surreal.  If you know us personally, you know we have been talking about and planning for this move for years. Like, literally YEARS!   We are leaving our home and property in Buies Creek (Go Camels!) in central North Carolina for our homestead property in North East, North Carolina. For the gardeners of the group, that's zone 7b to 8a...not a difficult transition as far as gardening goes. Our new property is a 10 acre plot that has been logged but is overgrown.  We are currently working hard to clear areas for shelters and pastures. 

Let me start from where we are right now.  In early August, our two youngest children and I (Jill) left Buies Creek for the coast so that I could get ready to start a new teaching job later that month. I'm teaching 4th grade again and really enjoying my new roll and new school. Shawn and the older two boys stayed behind to do extensive renovations on our little Buies Creek home. Since our children are homeschooled, there has been little disruption to their school schedule. Shawn is handling the big kids and I am handling the littles with the help of my parents who are keeping them during the day.

Because I love a good network of like-minded people, I quickly joined a few local homesteading groups and soon found a homesteader near me that was moving and needed to cut back on the number of animals she had.  She gave us all of her chickens!  It was a really nice gift and since all of our chickens, ducks and turkeys were still in the Creek at the time, these birds were a welcome and fun addition and made it feel like we were really doing this homesteading thing on the new property.

That Saturday, the kids (D, 8 and SM 5) raided the garage for whatever we could find to make a temporary coop.  I was so proud of those kids. They worked so hard, helping me build a fence out of industrial shelving panels, t-posts and cattle panels.  The result was a perfectly suitable (although temporary) coop that they were so proud of! The next day we brought home a nice variety of laying hens a few kind roosters. We were so excited to have animals to care for again... it just felt like progress.  

Our contact for the chickens turned out to be a really great connection.  She also breeds, sells and butchers Kune Kune pigs...the exact breed I had been studying for so long. We decided on this breed specifically for their gentle personalities (some pigs can be dangerous), their diet and their behaviors.   We have seen God's hand at work so many times and this was just another wink from Him. So, we started making payments toward bringing home our first breeder pig!  As I learn more about raising pigs, I will share what I'm learning, in the mean time, for more information on this breed, a great resource is the American KuneKune Pig Society

Our Breeder Pigs

This is Lady Mary Crawley. A very sweet, approximately 1 year old American Kune Kune pig! We couldn't be more proud to have her and are already learning so much from her. She is so important to this homestead because her future litters will fill our freezer with some of the best pork around and hopefully absorb some of the cost of the organic feed we choose to feed our animals.

A couple weeks later we brought home LMCs's future mate.  Meet, Mr. Matthew Crawley.  Mr. Crawley is a 16 week old American Kune Kune pig.  He will father the piglets, just as soon as he's tall enough to....well, you know. As we speak,  they are really getting to know each other.  Mr. Crawley is more interested in cuddles and comfort and Lady Mary is more interested in protecting her share of the feed. 

For the time being, these pigs will be in one spot on deep bedding.  When the family is all in once place, however, the plans is to rotate all the animals on pasture.  This will keep them on fresh grass as well as help break the parasite/fly cycle. 

So far, our chickens, turkeys, ducks and pigs are all living happily in close proximity to each other. Everyone is happy and healthy.  I'd like to introduce you to them soon!

How you can pray for us:

Right now are still living in two places as Shawn finishes renovations on our old home.  Please pray for safety as he works and stamina to work through  pain from old injuries and tiredness.  Pray that he can finish soon so that our family can all be in one place again soon! Pray for our kids as it is hard to be away from one parent or the other.  We are working hard to keep these separations as short as possible with lots of visits in between. We hope to all be in the same place by the end of November.

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Click to see what items we are planning to add to our homestead (Amazon)