By now we’ve settled into somewhat of a rhythm on the farm. Ranchito Alegre practices Regenerative Agriculture and the soil is of upmost importance here. Our host Roger has been doing this work for the past several years, but also has a lifetime of experience in other farm work in terms of raising livestock and homesteading. His current offering is broiler chickens (they are delicious – easily the best chicken we’ve ever eaten!), you can order at www.RanchitoAlegre.eatfromfarms.com

We’ll be making a return trip to Denver the week of October 15th and will be doing some family things and other business while there for two weeks. Let me deliver a chicken to you! I so want his business to succeed.

The kids are both officially in online school full time. While not their favorite choice, it’s what we can do in this season of unsettledness, and it’s not forever. The best part is that (ideally) they can be done with computer work in less than half the day and have the remainder of their time ready to help on the farm, to do some cooking or baking, to learn about music or other interesting subjects from Roger, or riding the four wheeler to collect wood for the never ending pile.

While nothing is perfect anywhere and we’ve yet to find utopia, things work relatively well here with our shared responsibilities and we all learn from one another a little more everyday. As we gain more knowledge regarding the business end of a homestead, it’s actually quite discouraging and feels very out of reach for our near future. We simply are not willing to go into significant amounts of debt to bring this dream into reality. It doesn’t mean we won’t keep trying or that the experiment is over and we’re coming back to city life, it just means that a creative solution is in order and we don’t quite know what that looks like just yet…unless of course this IS the creative solution for the time being. Juggling with the uncertainty of it all is my greatest mental challenge for sure. When ever I find my mind wandering into the future I remind myself to stop, look around, and appreciate all that surrounds me. This present moment is all we have every single day.

We have yet to move forward with any bus work – The Home Depot in Durango didn’t have the spray insulation we needed so we are delayed a bit due to the same thing everyone doing any remodeling faces – supply chain shortages. We do have a small diesel heater and piles of blankets, the kids enjoy their solo space in Flossie which also sports three different heaters. It still gets gloriously warm by mid-day and we are loving the changing leaves and crisp, cool mornings. I’m sure there is more I’m forgetting to share but we’re heading back into no cell service zone for a bit while the ranch gets a WiFi provider update.