Me and My Goals
Hello,
My name is Shannon, and it is my goal to one day own my own land and have a homestead. My life right now is practice for that big event. I figure that, if I learn some things now, I will have less to learn then.
I homeschool my daughter (and homeschooled her sister until last November). Though homeschooling is not for everyone, it was right for my family.
I am a single mother of two, one still at home. I own my trailer, but rent the lot that it sits on. I may or may not be able to take the trailer with me when I move, but I have no problem living in a shack as long as I am warm and fed.
I run a small daycare in my home, write, scrapbook and do some typing and helping others, and am really just trying to make ends meet while learning how to live a simpler life.
I also like to walk and read, and I am not afraid of a little hard work.
My goals right now are, in no particular order:
- To be able to make a sour dough starter, and to learn to make bread from it successfully.
- Make Curtains for livingroom: __Window 1 __Window 2 __ Door Window
- Curtains for the kitchen.
- Curtains for my bedroom.
- Curtains for the bathroom.
- Learn to quilt.
- Learn to make cloth napkins.
- Make cloth wipes.
- Learn to make “primitive” candles.
- Learn to make other candles.
- Learn soap making, using organic ingredients.
- Decide on seeds for next years garden.
- Create a garden plan for next year.
- Expand my garden next year.
- Learn to can.
- Create a pantry.
- Find more slowcooker recipes.
- Use the slowcooker more often.
- Learn vermicomposting.
- Try trench composting.
- Inventory food storage.
- Research where to get a grain mill and grains (in bulk).
- Research where to get dried beans in bulk.
- Learn to dry foods for preservation.
- To be able to sell some of the things that I make.
- To be able to sell some of the things that I grow.
And…
My Ultimate Goal:
To own my own land for homesteading, and to live off-grid.
Warmest Wishes
Shannon
Andi said
Hi Shannon,
I just found your blog. I haven’t had a chance to read much yet, but I’ll definitely be back! I’m a single, homeschooling mom, too, and I live in a trailer on my parents’ property. It looks like we have a lot of the same goals.
Andi
Ed Burley said
Hi Shannon,
My wife and I (and our 8 children) live in a mobile home park here in Michigan. Due to debt on our double-wide, it is not feasible for us to sell it and move to the country. Fortunately on our lot (where we have lived for 5 years), we have extra space because we are at the edge of our park. Since we are wanting to homestead, and are unable to move at this time, we’ve decided that we are going to “Trailer Park Homestead.”
That’s how I found your site. What a bunch of great links you’ve provided. We’ve spent most of today making plans, dreaming big. You’ve become a valuable resource for us, and I thank you for that.
BTW, we are also homeschoolers. I work full-time as a foster care supervisor at a private non-profit, and my wife stays home and cares for and homeschools the kids. We want to homestead to whatever degree we are allowed by our park management.
ed and dana
Shannon Buck said
That is so great! And I’m glad that my blog has been useful to you. What a great opportunity you have to do something good for your family.
Note that, if the landlord does not agree to you having a garden for food, you can always do container gardening.
Some great homeschool lessons:
Composting and building a compost bin
Vermicomposting
Herb gardening, and making the plans to do so
sewing projects like curtains, etc
Happy homesteading! Maybe you’ll consider creating a blog as a family homeschool project. If you do, please give me the link. I would like to follow what you are doing. And I will link to it from here.
Shannon
Ed Burley said
Shannon,
The other side of this homesteading endeavor is that our dear friends just qualified to buy a home on 10 acres out in the country. It’s our intention to approach them about raising chickens and Dexter cattle. I figure that we can put up the money, they can do the feeding and “harvesting” and when the time comes we can split the meat and eggs.
I am looking into energy saving devices for the double-wide; bikes and trailers for my wife and I (kids already have bikes, except for the two little ones, who would ride in the trailers) so we can limit driving our vehicles to inclement weather; solar, wind, and wood solutions for replacing the utilities we currently get from the government-controlled monopoly of “public utilities.”
We garden currently at a community garden across town, but are planting again our garden on our lot. We are also asking our Park Management about installing a greenhouse (or several small ones) in order to expand our growing season. My wife came up with some good ideas about re-routing our drain pipes off the roof gutters into rain barrels in order to provide water for our garden (rather than paying for the water currently supplied to the house), and a bunch of other ideas to break free, as much as possible, from the government-controlled corporate interests that mess with our economic future. Buying stuff at yard sales, Goodwill, and Salvation Army stores (rather than paying retail to the corporate giants) is another part of our plan.
There are just so many ideas that a family can use to get themselves free. I do hope to generate some income through writing a blog or articles for Homesteading magazines. Oh, and we could sell homemade shampoos and lotions, as well as some of our produce at the local farmer’s market.
Man, I’m excited. It’ll take a while to up and running like we want, but we’re getting off to a good start.
Shannon Buck said
That all sounds great. Will you be canning and freezing all of your food? I want to learn to can. Cold frames are also an excellent idea for extending the growing season, and are smaller than greenhouses and portable. Just in case management won’t allow even small greenhouses.
I shop yard sales as well as thrift stores, and I love the Goodwill.
Ed Burley said
We are looking into a variety of options. Dehydrating, canning, freezing, and maybe even vacuum-packing some food. We have both a community garden (on the other side of town), as well as a “garden” in our own yard; but, the rest of the stuff is still in the brainstorming stage. This might take a couple years to get in the full swing of it.
Getting the gardens up to speed this year (we have having horribly cold spring and early summer weather right now), as well as buying some used bikes and other used equipment is first on the list. We’ll prioritize the rest of the stuff as we are able.
Shannon Buck said
It sounds like you have a good plan. All of these efforts will be great educational experiences for your children, and they will have the necessary skills to survive in the world as adults.