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I am so excited to begin my blogging adventures!! I LOVE learning new things, sharing ideas, and encouraging others to live their best life! I hope this blog will be educational, fun, and entertaining for my readers.
My name is Donette Koelzer. I’m an architect with an electrical engineer husband and 3 beautiful daughters. Both my husband and I grew up in a small rural Kansas town and longed to live on an acreage one day. We have met that goal, living on a 75 acre small farm in the house that we designed and built. And by built, I mean blood, sweat, and tears kind of built. There were plenty of all three! Of course, we hired out some of the work (does anyone really enjoy drywall work??), but I’d say we did the majority of the work once the concrete was poured and the framing was complete. I can’t forget the help from our families. They were amazing and would answer the call for help when they could. It took us nearly 2 years, beginning in August 2011, to complete it enough that we could move in. And just a few months ago we finished the bathroom upstairs. There are still things to do, but who doesn’t have a to-do list, right?
Something that seems to go hand in hand with the small farm is homesteading. Homesteading and doing things for yourself can be so rewarding! It is so satisfying to see a project that you’ve been working so hard on come to life. My husband and I enjoy this way of living. We enjoy having more control over the foods we feed our family, seeing our ideas come to fruition and sharing the rewards of our hard work with others. On this blog you can expect to see posts about our adventures with our growing Christmas Tree Farm business as well as many other posts related to farming, gardening and do-it-yourself projects. I enjoy cooking and baking, so I’ll be sure to share any great recipes that I find as well as ways to preserve your bountiful harvest!
Of course, things don’t always work out as planned. We’ll be sharing our mistakes, too. Don’t you just love looking at the pinterest fails? It always makes me feel better!! But seriously, we believe that you learn the most from your mistakes, so it’s important to share those with others. Not only does it help others to avoid them, but you may find someone who has “been there, done that” and can give you advice on how to move forward in order to reach your goal.
One of our goals has always been to “retire” early. By “retire”, we are thinking of farming full time, with the option to reduce the amount of work we do on an as needed or desired basis. And by early, we are thinking 55. Not quite as early as some in the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) realm, but early enough that we hope to really enjoy our retirement while also giving back. We are currently headed in the right direction, and we both feel that the sort of homesteading lifestyle we have led has helped us to reach this point. We plan to share some of our strategies and provide other resources for you to check out in case you’re interested in this movement.
If you want to learn a bit more about us and how we began, please visit the Our Story page. I hope you enjoy, but most of all, I hope you learn something!!