In 2018 we packed up our house in the city and moved onto a foreclosed and abandoned piece of land on the edge of the Missouri Ozarks. The house on the property was not livable, but we turned an old workshop into a little home for our family of nine, and jumped into homesteading. 

Each member of our family has different skills and interests, and we worked together to slowly build up our fifteen acres, while developing community with others at the same time. 

We started with chickens, ducks, goats, and rabbits, learning as we went. Overall we tend to be “jump in first and figure out how to swim later” kind of people, so we bought chickens before we had a coop, and other animals before we had decided where we would keep them or how they would stay in. We made mistakes and learned from them.

One of the things we learned about was no till gardening, so we took a huge pile of woodchips from the electric company and began creating a garden. 

It didn’t take long for us to figure out that we are not goat people, so with the encouragement of a friend we sold the goats, bought a jersey cow, and began to milk her. 

In time we began putting to use the resources in the woods around us. We began forging and preserving medicinal herbs, and bought our own portable sawmill. 

Since one of our main goals for having a homestead is feeding our family, we began preserving foods from the garden by canning, drying, and freezing. And learned how to get all sorts of animals into the freezer as well. Poultry, rabbits, sheep, pigs. We bought beef cows, and hired a retired butcher to teach us how to better process them ourselves. 

Seven years after we first began, we are now a family of 13 and we are taking the skills we have learned and using them to help others begin the journey into homesteading. 

Providing for our own family, and building community with others at the same time is the vision God has given us, and we’re privileged to watch it happen. 

Jason and Julie and their eleven children live on a homestead in Missouri, on the edge of the Ozarks. They raise cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and rabbits on just three acres of their land, and have a 3000 square foot garden. They are passionate about helping people leave the suburbs and jump into homesteading with both feet,  encouraging them to take action on their passions and then perfect their skills along the way. 

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”