The breeze was surprisingly still as we traversed over sedimentary limestone in all its southwestern striped color and glory. The iron oxide rich red rocks shining in the early morning sunshine as we walked through junipers and scrub oak just coming alive in the spring air, their infant leaves peeking through stems. I will harvest and use them later in lieu of witchhazel.

We stopped to listen to birdsong and I think I heard the distant chirping of a mountain lion, but could not see her tracks in the sand so we kept going, sending her love and peace as we looked for medicinal plants upon the path. We left tobacco as we quietly harvested a few.

From the top of the world, along the plateau looking out across the breathtaking lands around us, we saw glimmers of dreams, and images came to mind of how we want to live out our lives. We chatted easily- as those that have been together twenty-four years do- and painted an image of a roadmap that we intend to follow.

Freedom.

We homestead to supplement our food, to know where it comes from. We homestead to grow our own medicines and those we use to serve our community. We homestead to be somewhat (but never completely) self-sufficient and for the joy and pride that comes from creating your own life. Making fresh pasta and bread, picking a delicious salad from the garden, and canning vegetable broth or windfalls of apples. There is a good life here. Eating alfresco by the gardens and watching the seeds of life grow. Every homesteader still needs a job, and ours is as healers and creators and we work side-by-side to achieve a life close to the earth, serving our community, making our own schedule, and loving our days together and with our family.

Homesteading is more than just chopping wood for the wood stove, it is a lifestyle, a dream, a back-to-the-land idea and taking control of one’s life so that time here on earth is a magical one.