Well, hello there. I’m Jill.
I help people leave the herd and grow their homestead dreams, no matter where they may live.
In a million years, I wouldn’t have guessed my life would look like this. (You know, with milk cows and chickens and stuff.)
My husband Christian and I didn’t grow up in the country, but as newlyweds, we knew we wanted more than the standard American life. We craved a more meaningful, purpose-driven existence and were determined to not become robots in the rat race. But we had zero idea what that would look like.
After we impulse-bought a neglected old farmstead 40 miles away from the nearest grocery store (complete with 67-acres of prairie land and a dead washing machine in the front yard) we were faced with some questions such as “Holy cow, what have we done?” and most notably, “What on earth are we going to do with this giant pile of horse manure in the backyard?”
Enter the compost pile.
What started as a simple way for us to manage manure ended up being the gateway to an intentional new lifestyle. After the compost came the chickens, goats, a garden, milk cows, pigs, beef cattle, three wild prairie children, a bigger garden, and well, here we are, ten years later:
However, this old-fashioned, unorthodox way of living didn’t just stay in the barnyard for us… You see, once we realized we could think outside of the box and didn’t have to float along with what modern culture told us we should be doing, we were hooked. What started with a passion for growing our own food eventually translated to Christian and I becoming serial entrepreneurs, living 100% debt-free, homeschooling our three children, and ultimately finding ourselves in the thick of creating a life we only could have dreamed of before.
For our family and so many others, the modern homesteading movement is a way to slow down and create a healthier, more wholesome lifestyle. It’s about the satisfaction of work worth doing, the gratification of cultivating your own food, the pleasure of relishing in a home-cooked meal, and the joy that comes from watching children learn life lessons in a barnyard.
It’s my mission help modern folks leave the rat race and create a richer, slower, more meaningful life through this crazy-beautiful thing we call modern homesteading. If you’ve stumbled across The Prairie Homestead looking for advice on how to cook from scratch, or grow something in the garden, or keep chickens, you’re in the right place. I’ve devoted the last eight years to creating hundreds of posts and resources for folks just like you. My style is personal and practical—which means you can expect lots of real life stories from our homestead, but plenty of hands-on information too—because stories only go so far and eventually you need to know how to do the stuff!
Know this: in your quest to how to learn to can pickles and keep chickens, you might just find yourself on the wildest adventure of your life as you learn to dream bigger and break out of the ruts. The homesteading mindset has a beautiful way of creeping into every other area of your life… That’s exactly what happened to us, and I pray it happens for you as well.
Happy homesteading, my friends!
Randomness:
- I’m tall. (like 5’11”) It always surprises people when I meet them in person.
- I was homeschooled K-12 and I love to run into folks who think homeschoolers can’t be successful in life. Heh heh.
- I initially met Christian (my husband) when I was scraping liquid cow manure out of an arena at 6am. Super romantic.
- I’ve never met a potato I didn’t like.
- I’m a pretty intense, high-energy person, but I tend to be quieter in large groups. I like to sit back and observe.
- I show my mare, Kate, at Ranch Horse Versatility shows on weekends. It’s my therapy.
- The only thing I could cook when Christian and I got married was frozen burritos and broiled Spam sandwiches.
- I created my very first blog back in 2000. I taught myself how to code it from-scratch and used FTP to get it on the web. This may or may not fit into the nerdy homeschooler stereotype… Hey, it paid off.
