Welcome, y'all!

Hello!

Welcome to Bell Tree Homestead.  We are so close to finally being able to start this new stage in our lives, and we're so excited!  We've been working on buying a little 7 acre farm in East Texas since the end of November last year.  Here we are closing in fast on April, and we're still sitting in a temporary apartment with our fingers and toes crossed that there isn't anything else to crop up at the last minute.  I confess this has been the most stressful experience of my life, next to becoming a mother.  But our lender says he's ready to send the documents, and we're looking at being on our farm in just a few more days!  Woohoo!!

Our goal is to live as sustainable a lifestyle as we can manage.  I know, there are a million other sustainability bloggers out there, farmers, homesteaders, preppers, off-gridders, you name it.  What makes me think anyone is going to want to read my little old blog?  I don't know about any of y'all, but when I read through all these blogs with their beautiful pictures and their wonderful success stories, I am sometimes a bit discouraged.  I grew up on a small farm, yes.  I helped my Gramma can, pickle, jam, jelly, dry, and freeze.  I harvested rocks, skinned squirrels, and gigged frogs in the pond.  I'm not a stranger to a lot of the work that goes into farm life, but that was many and many a moon ago.  And my husband has never been a farmer.  He's been a soldier, which is how he wound up disabled.  I'm sometimes bitter about that, but his disability retirement has allowed us to pursue this dream we've always had about having our own little farm.  And we know there are going to be a lot of stumbles along the way.  I am having to relearn old skills only half learned to begin with.  I helped my Gramma, but mostly with prep work.  She was the Queen of the Kitchen, and she ruled the canning season with a rubber spoon.  Papa B is going to have to learn a different lifestyle altogether.

That's why we think y'all might want to follow along with us.  I know we can't be the only folks out there who are trying to start down the road to a more sustainable life, whether for health reasons, financial reasons, or preparedness reasons.  And we know that you don't just start skipping down a yellow brick road, meet up with a helpful scarecrow, and suddenly everything turns up poppies.  We're expecting some of those apple throwing trees, honestly.  And so many bloggers only blog about the good things, the successes, publish the pretty pictures.  We want to share our whole journey with you, ups, downs, goods, bads, even the uglies, because quite frankly, my photography does leave much to be desired.

So come along with us!  We've got so much to do!!

Ma Bell