Our Story

Hi and Welcome to our Homestead!

I’m Melissa. I’m married to Nathan, and we have 5 lovely children. We homeschool, homestead, and…thanks to the military, recently MOVED to Southern Maryland from our home state of Alabama, where we’ve always lived.

When I started posting on Instagram, several years ago, we were living in what we thought was our “forever home” in Alabama. We had just added chickens to our backyard…but not long after that, we decided we wanted to sell our home and move to a more livestock-friendly place. At the time, the housing market was booming and it was really the perfect time for us to make a change. We found the loveliest, quietest piece of land and settled in. We loved our new place and never wanted to leave.

But then life, as it often does, took a turn, and had different plans for us.

While we are an active military family, our situation is a little unique in that we’ve got a lot of years in, but this is our first move. When we found that we’d be moving to Southern Maryland, we decided to pick up as much as we could and take it with us. And what we couldn’t pick up and take, we’d just figure out as we went. We just knew we wanted to continue homesteading as much as possible. So we found a home with land that we rent from a most generous landlord, who is happy for us to make ourselves at home with our children and livestock.

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Just kidding. 🤨 Also, he’s back in jail. (See my previous post to know what I’m talking about. The reunion lasted 3 wonderful days. 😑)
Look who can happily hang out with the big girls, now! Since we did not steer Copper when he was small, we haven’t made it a habit to handle him. But since we weaned him at 6.5 months old, he’s just been hanging out in a large pen beside
A few weeks ago, I decided that 2 of our goats - Karlee and Lelo - were not really a great fit for our herd any longer. We have a mix of goats (I’ve never settled on one breed I just love more than others) and the majority of them were just th
Homestead Happenings as of late: 1. William is such a good help. And we’ve got Copper sharing a fence line with his mama and “auntie.” It’s not perfect but it works…most of the time. 2. These gals are old/big enough
If you’re curious where I’m getting all the cream for this butter I’ve been making lately, take a L👀K at this cream line on Fiona’s milk! ❤️❤️❤️ In a gallon jar, we are getting anywhere between a quart and a half gallon of c
Back when we lived in Alabama, we had 2 pear trees that had been very neglected in the years prior to our living there. We had moved in over the winter and the trees looked terrible with their fire blight. But then spring happened and they became be
Making butter is a once (sometimes twice) weekly occurrence. I’ve got it pretty much down to a well-timed science and make a couple gallons at a time in my Bosch mixer (well, not ALL at once - I do 3-4 consecutive half gallon batches….e
Another batch of goat’s milk soap — this time, I tried a different method and really liked it. A couple more batches to tinker with the recipe — and I think we’ll start offering this on our website. 🎉
Yesterday, I posted in a local homesteader’s group, asking for someone to come hold my hand so maybe, just MAYBE I could have success making mozzarella. You may remember that I have tried (and failed) to make mozzarella four times. It has be