City to Gritty

I started this post back when we originally recorded the episode in October 2022 and then got distracted and didn’t finish it until March 2023. I thought about apologizing, but you know what, this is who I am, and it’s important you know what I am bringing to the table here… xoxo

Steve set out for his epic hunting trip on September 29th and came home on October 5th, sadly, meatless. While his hands were empty, his brain was full. He learned so much from his days at the property. Most importantly, was that a very specific part of our property is a deer super highway. They seem to have a routine, and now we know it, albeit with this hunting season in the rearview. He spent a lot of time on the BLM land with nothing more than stunning scenery in the view of his binoculars. He did stumble upon a pretty large elk skeleton which was cool. He kept convincing himself that there would be deer in other places because it made sense, but the truth was, he saw them on our property, so he should have just stayed there and watched their traffic patterns. He said mostly doe were traversing during the day, so the hunch was that the males were traveling at night. The weather was unseasonably warm this week, an important note that we believe all hunters struggled with this year. Make sure you listen to our episode where he deep dives on the little things he learned from his time here, the biggest thing he took away was stay where you see the deer.

Outside of Steve’s first solo, adult, hunting adventure, there are more developments for the Phoenix family in the coming months! After so many deep discussions starting around July (2022) we decided it was time to take our snow globe life and… Shake. It. Up. As it is currently, Steve works M-F leaves at 6am and is home at 4pm, one of his primary work functions is sales so he spends 95% of his day driving. He complains a lot of his back and feet hurting regularly and has made comments of missing the kids during the week. He gets three weeks of vacation a year, which means that is the amount of time, outside of weekends, we have to develop our homestead is pretty tight. On the other hand, I am home with the kids full time homeschooling and socializing them, running the house, and side hustling to keep my toes in the bookkeeping pool. I definitely did not think that homeschooling would be so emotionally draining for not just me, but for Greyson too. So there we were, both silently struggling, and pushing through because “that’s just what you do…”

No. I refuse. How do we fix this? The problem is we need money and time up there to keep the homestead progress moving, but Steve’s income requires our time to be restrained and limits our progress.

The solution we landed on? Steve is going to “retire” from the workforce and I am going to take my remote contract bookkeeping company full time to replace his income. In theory, the same money keeps coming in and the time we need is now available to us. Yes, with some gymnastics of course. He is going to try his hand at house, kid, and school management. I need to bill 40 hours a week which is a lot considering I don’t even bill that in a month at the moment. It is a terrifying jump and the thought of doing it around the holidays adds a layer of anxiety, but the only way to grow is through challenge and change, so we decided to pull the trigger. Next time we post we will be in the depths of it, stay tuned!

In 2023 we will be moving forward, fingers crossed, with applying for our building permit and putting up a structure. We are just a bit worried about the state of our economy and want to make sure that we can fulfill this building permit requirement to permanently change the zoning well before the deadline. If we don’t the implications are a big deal to us. I have all but convinced Steve that we need to get a big fully functioning yurt and use that to fulfill our residential building permit. Pros to this is that a yurt is a kit, set price, does not require major machinery, and is just a fun idea! Pros to a stick built house is that you can pay as you go, Steve has extensive construction experience, and it will likely last longer. Today it is a yurt, but let’s face it, this decision will only be fully made when we actually apply for a building permit.

Wrapping up the summer at the urban homestead means that we are doing the final harvest of most things and starting the canning hustle. I canned about a dozen quarts of tomatoes in water to be used a base for anything over the winter. Over the summer I have also put about a dozen pints of pickles, a couple jars of green beans, and a few various pints of fruits. The chickens are starting to molt and as they get older they molt harder, poor Hey Hey is down to just a few feathers. She look so uncomfortable!