So the new issue of Backwoods Home Magazine is starting to show up in mailboxes nationwide, with a little writeup by Yours Truly. It’s not on the website yet, but check at your library. I’d love to hear your reaction, both positive and negative.* If the horde shows up with tomatoes and rocks, I’m ruined! My anonymity is destroyed! Now everybody will know who I am, with my brazen inexperience and my wacky sense of humor!
BWHM actually invited me to write an article for them and I thought, what on earth could I say up against the likes of Jackie Clay?! (We’re terrific fans of hers, and Jess takes her word on canning and gardening as gospel.) Truth is, we can’t compare to people like that—or possibly even to people like you. We don’t have the benefit of decades of experience homesteading. We love our homestead on the mountainside, but we don’t go about it necessarily in the same way others might. We’re still on the grid, for instance, and I still have a 9-to-5 job for the time being. We can only write about what we’ve actually done, and that is our angle.
We hope that this article and future ones, together with my daily reports and musings in this blog, provide inspiration and help for those of you who are thinking about homesteading someday, or who can only dream of breaking free of city life to start over again in the country. We’re glad if you can learn from us. Jess and I are never afraid to try something new. We do our research, talk to folks, draw up plans, and dive in with both feet. We make our mistakes, report on them, learn from them, and move forward. Hopefully you can learn from our mistakes, or at least have a good laugh.
As for my writing style, well, I’ve tried a stuffy formal tone and I think that’s best suited to stuffy formal subjects. My style’s a little wacky, I know, but pshaw, this is how I talk. I said right from the get-go that I would be myself on this blog, and that’s what I’ve done. Like it or lump it.
Drop me a line and let me know what you think. And if you like it, pass it along.
*Please keep negative comments constructive. Remember the Golden Rule, y’all.
Hmmmm . . . if I know you, your publishing future is getting off to a good start.
) I hadn't heard of Backwoods Magazine before (or at least I didn't pay attention). I'm going to have to look into it and see about a subscription. It looks like the N Idaho version of Countryside Magazine.Can't wait to see what it was you wrote . . .
Great article about the root cellars. Got me re-drawing house plans. I think would like a concrete roof on top as we live in tornado alley and could also use it as a storm shelter. Keep up the great work, you guys are great inspiration!Found your blog in backwoods home. Great stuff!!!
I,too, found your blog in the magazine. I liked your article and thought it was well written-not wacky.
I would like to start homesteading so keep filling us in on what you are doing and inspiring us! Thanks!
Annalea, BWHM is the only magazine we've ever read that will draw us in for an hour at a time. It's real people doing real homesteading, which is why I wasn't afraid to dive in and write about our root cellar. I hope to write more for them in future.John and Anonymous, thanks for your encouragement! I'm glad you liked the article.
I was just re-reading my BWHM (love it) and re-read your article. It was well done, and very entertaining. Enough so that I looked up your blog site. And here I am! I am curious as to where you’ve build your little homestead. I would love nothing more than to be in an area where we could live off the land more, and my husband could still have his day job in the city. Right now we are in lovely PG (great place–but no land to afford) and I have half my 1/4 acre lot in garden, and would like to try chickens as well. We just do the best we can with what we have. I love magazines like BWHM to build and learn as many skills as possible, even if I can’t do them in a homestead environment. I figure one never knows when you’ll need to know something.
Thanks, Kathy. We enjoy BWHM as well; one of the few magazines we like. We’re in the woods of north Idaho. Where is PG?