Homesteader Milestone

At Rural Ways we have The Homestead (where we live and pay high taxes) and The Farm (where we just pay high taxes). Despite these rustic appellations, we are plainly not hard-core modern homesteaders. We live in town, and the two properties combined are less than one acre. We buy power, water, and sewerage from the municipality (at high rates), and buy most of our food from the grocery store.

My sister and brother-in-law, on the other hand, have gone a greater distance down the road to the Jeffersonian ideal—yeoman farmers all. They have 30 acres, their own well, and a flock of chickens. While they still buy food, Rural Ways is taking a moment this week to acknowledge a homesteader milestone:

At the weekend, my nephew visited the field behind the family (log) home with a couple of friends. Within one hour he had shot and killed his first buck. (My brother-in-law would like his son to know that things in life are generally not that easy.) That night the family dined on venison backstrap—evidently the finest cut available. During dinner, my sister looked around the table and noted that every dish—every crumb of food—had been grown, raised, or hunted on their own land. Congratulations.