Our homestead is in SE Oklahoma. It sets on 40 acres whereas, only 5 acres are actually ours. The other 10 acres belong to my hubby's brothers (5 acres each) but neither plans on ever living out on their properties so we kind of utilize it all for now.
We live in a very rural area and that is exactly how we like it. The nearest town has a population of only 1500 people and we sit in a valley surrounded by "mountains". The nearest Walmart is 45 minutes away and the nearest mall is in the next state (Arkansas) and is 1 1/2 hours away.
Among the meadows and
woods we have many wild medicinal plants and herbs growing. I went to practical nursing school (and graduated) but never went and took my license. I worked in the medical field for over 10 years and know quite a bit when it comes to medical care. Now that I have a family and we live so far out in nowhere, getting to a doctor is not always the easiest thing to do. I started learning all about homeopathic remedies and finding out what plants that we have access here can do for us and was so pleased to learn how much we can do with the plants and herbs we have on the property.
One of the medicinal plants we have on the property is Yarrow. All of the ground parts of Yarrow medicinal.
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| Yarrow in the early budding stage. |
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| Yarrow flowers. |
We have learned
to look to the
woods to see what God designed and how it works without our
interference. We watched “Back to Eden”
and were inspired. Think about it: we do not go out into our woods and fertilize
the trees or plants. We do not go out
and rake up the leaves and groom it all to encourage it to grow. But you know what? Out in our woods, where man really has no
hand in it, the woods are thriving.
There are wild fruit trees, nut bearing trees, mushrooms, super tall
trees, shrubs, and vines and they are all growing wonderfully and thrive
together. We are trying to mimic what is
going on out in
our woods in
our gardens and land. We want it all to be productive and yield us
everything we need for medicine and for a lot of our food. We want it to grow and flourish without a
whole lot of work on our part. That is
our goal.
Fruit trees and bushes and nut trees we have growing on our land include: peach trees, an apple tree, a lemon tree, crab apple trees, sand plum bushes (tons of them),
blackberry bushes, a lime tree, an apricot tree, an orange tree, a giant raspberry bush, beauty berries, 2 mulberry trees,
persimmon trees, walnut trees, hickory trees, and oak trees, and
all kinds of flowers. We are striving to have a sustainable landscape and to increase biodiversity on our plot of land.
Other things we have growing out here are: honeysuckles, catalpa trees, birch trees, honey locust trees, willow, sycamores, sweet gum, prickly pear cactus, pine, cedar, elm, Bradford pear, and elm trees.
We have seen all kinds of wildlife that include: squirrels, skunks, rabbits, fox, opossums, armadillos, moles, bobcat, mountain lion, black bears, raccoon, coyotes, deer, wild turkeys, wild ducks, geese, otters, beavers, turtles (box and snapping), many kinds of snakes (copperheads, water moccasins, coach whips, etc.) and all manner of birds.
We have a small pond and a branch running through the property and we have a free running creek that runs right behind our home and a watershed lake is about a mile away, definitely within walking distance. We do what we can to conserve our precious water resources. We do not use chemical herbicides or pesticides.
We also have 3 wells and a large sustainable garden with permeable soil and grow beds. We are all about going back to the basics and to our natural roots. We try to forage our land and grow what we can so we don't depend on the supermarkets for our needs. We also
raise dairy and meat goats, chickens, turkeys and ducks. Life is good in the country and I am so glad we live here!
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| Bambi, a pygmy goat, shortly after being born. |
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| Ellie Mae, 3 days old, pygmy fainting goat. |
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| Sugar, a pygmy goat, 5 days old. |
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