Swiss Family Robinson, Little House on the Prairie, Wilderness Family, Goldilocks and the Three Bears – we could relate to all these stories during our time on the homestead. Wait – Goldilocks? Oh, yes – porridge for breakfast every morning… Continued from Episode Eight: Exploring the Land Cornmeal gruel, to be exact. Honestly, we couldn’t…
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Pitching the tipi
Continued from Episode Three: Smoking Angels Our campsite, chosen with the help of our neighbor, was 1/4 mile from the road, up on the highest meadow on our property. Here the meadow wrapped in fat “L” shape around a point of trees (hereafter referred to as ‘The Point”), which contained the remnants of an ancient…
Continue ReadingYou lived in a tipi? Are you crazy?!
People always ask us why we chose a tipi. Sometimes we still ask ourselves that question. 🙂 I was discussing it with my father and mother the other night, and we came up with several reasons, though some of them hardly make sense in retrospect. My father had seen and been inside a few tipis…
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Homestead Bouquet
Last week, on their way through Norwich to another destination, my younger sister, Anneke, had the privilege of a visit back to our property that we lived on for the first 9 years of her life. She and Judah ran around in the now over-grown yard, marveling at the changes three years of our absence…
Continue ReadingSmoking Angels
How many of our days began like this on the homestead? The morning would be full of promise, but sometime along the way, the task we faced for that day would bring us to the end of our resources, and cause us to cry out to God. The unique and wonderful ways He answered those…
Continue ReadingTipi Tales, Episode 1: The Adventure Begins
When I was 13 my family moved to a tipi in upstate New York to homestead. For years I have longed to tell the stories of our adventure on top of a hill in the country, carving out a lifestyle that belonged to another century, but I have never known where to start. What day…
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Looking Back Again
Only further this time. Twelve years ago this month, when I was 13, my family moved into a tipi on the top of a hill in Chenango County. I thought you would enjoy seeing some old scrapbook pages of that year. As the pictures show, we cooked over an open fire, got our milk straight…
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