Homestead Trailer Trash

We were living in a 5th wheel trailer on a friend’s homestead, about 30 minutes away from our new land. With one wound-up border collie and a cat that hated every minute of it, space was a bit cramped.

To be fair, it wasn’t all that bad. It was 34′ feet long and had two slide outs, and probably larger than some NYC apartments, but trying to use a trailer kitchen to process your own food, store it, and eat healthy home-cooked meals was harder than I would have thought.

We had bought the 5th wheel to temporarily live in while building our house, so we were ok with all this for the time being. However, raising a newborn or spending the entire winter in it wasn’t part of the plan.

Now, just in case you think we have it too easy thus far – on top of all I’ve already mentioned (you know, the two huge things of developing bare land and becoming a new dad?!) I was also in school attending the Ecological Landscaper Immersion program, at the Permaculture Skills Center. Meaning. three days a week I commuted 3h+ from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the CA coast in Sebastopol.

So, that left 4 days a week to build our dream permaculture homestead, making a little spending money, and daily life. In less than 9 months. Yikes.

Our one saving grace was that we had recently sold our rental property and all the profits were going to be put into this land development. Really, it’s the only way we were able to attempt the crazy adventure. These funds afforded us the time so that I only had to work a few hours a week, and Beth was worked part-time.

While I was busy with all the manly, brute physical side of the home construction, Beth became our ruthless accountant on a strict budget, a master DIY researcher, and secondhand deal-finder extraordinaire.