Becoming the kind of woman who picks up the nail gun and tries.

I’ve always considered myself pretty capable.

I can cook, bake, can, butcher chickens, run a restaurant, ride a horse, rope (sort of), drive a stick shift, haul a trailer, work cattle, vaccinate, garden, milk, and probably a handful of other things I’m not thinking of at the moment.

But as I’ve stepped into my latest life transition, I’ve realized something quite humbling:

There are many, many things I don’t know how to do.

Not because I’m helpless or weak… But because for many years, I simply delegated.

It worked well for a long time. We all divide and conquer in relationships, families, businesses, and households. That’s normal.

But I’ve since realized I have a considerable gap in my skill set. And for a while, I mistook that gap for a wall.

Actually, if I’m being painfully honest, it greatly muddied my decision-making through this difficult process. Because somewhere along the way, I had quietly started to believe I was incapable of certain things. I looked at the practical pieces of life — the money things, the house things, the fixing things — and I felt frozen.

But you know what I’ve discovered? Very few things are as mysterious or impossible as they seem from the outside.

And while I may not know much (err… anything) about mechanics or carpentry, I’m starting to realize those things can be learned the same way I’ve tackled sourdough or even roping over the years:

Learn the basics. Try it. Mess up and embarrass yourself. Then try again.

So now at the ripe ol’ age of 41, I have started a new note in my phone called my “Figureoutable List.”

It’s not full of fancy goals like “write another book” or “build a million-dollar business.”

It’s a list of simple, silly things I’ve recently tackled and completed. And every time I add something to it, I feel ridiculously proud.

Dopamine for DAYS, y’all.

So far, the list includes:

• Building my credit. (Funny story: I’ve built several very successful businesses and have no debt. But when I went to apply for a home loan, I was told I had a nonexistent credit score, and on paper, it looked like I had zero earning history. Lesson learned.)
• Opening my own bank accounts.
• Buying a house and getting a mortgage by myself.
• Shopping for and securing homeowners insurance.
• Finding better insurance for the Soda Fountain (and saving over a thousand bucks!)
• Buying a stock trailer all by myself.
• Installing a new shower head.
• Adjusting the temperature on my hot water heater.
• Getting my Starlink running.
• Pulling porcupine quills out of my stupid dog (without going to the vet).
• Finding someone to fix my well after the water quit at 10 pm the other night. (Water issues stress me out sooo much. Thankfully, it was a minor issue, but I watched the well guy fix it and asked a million questions so I’d be better educated for next time.)
• Installing wall sconces with wall anchors, which required me to literally Google, “What are the plastic things you hammer into sheetrock?” so I could figure out what they were called. I have no shame.
• Learning how to use a stinkin’ drill. I mean, I technically knew how. But not very well.

Next up on my list for the summer and beyond?

• Setting up my chicken run.
• Setting up electric fencing for my horses until I figure out where I want the permanent fencing to be.
• Getting more familiar with power tools (skill saws, miter saws, nail guns, etc)
• Learning how to do baseboard trim, molding, and paneling (I have soooo many ideas for my house!)
• Learning how to install wallpaper.
• Learning how to change out a light fixture.
• Finding and buying a truck on my own.
• Refinishing my shower with tile paint.

Don’t worry— I do have a support system. And I have friends and good people around me who are willing to help.

And I will absolutely hire out plenty of things, because I have no desire to become a martyr with a tool belt.

BUT.

There is something wildly empowering about looking at something you once believed was off-limits and deciding, “Actually, I can do this.”

It’s supremely healing to prove yourself wrong in the best possible way.

I’m not saying every woman MUST know how to fix a well or pull quills or change a light fixture. But I do think every woman needs to know she can learn.

If you have someone in your life who handles these things, that’s wonderful. But learn beside them anyway. Pay attention. Ask questions. Try.

Not because you need to be fiercely independent every second of your life, or because accepting help makes you less capable. But because understanding how the pieces of your own life work is powerful.

I lived in my own little world for a long time, and there were things I simply didn’t pay attention to. I don’t say that with shame or blame toward anyone. It’s not right or wrong. It just was.

But I’m making sure my daughters know these things sooner than I did. Not because they’ll need to do everything alone, but because I want them to know they can.

So tell me: What’s on your own “Figureoutable” List?

-Jill

The post My Figureoutable List appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

Shedding the old identity but keeping the living parts…

I thought the homesteading part of me had gone quiet. Maybe even died.

I suspected it was burnout. Or at least, I thought that’s what it was.

But I now realize there was something deeper at play… Less about tomatoes and chores and old routines, and more about identities—the ones we choose, the ones that choose us, and the ones that fit for a season until suddenly, they don’t.

Those of you who are newer to me and my writings may not know that homesteading, and sharing it online has been one of the biggest identities of my adult life.

I didn’t set out to become a homestead influencer. (Honestly, the term “influencer” still makes me want to barf.) I was just a young mom on the Wyoming prairie who felt lonely and restless and hungry for something real. I wanted to raise my children differently. I wanted something more than the shallow facade of modern life.

Homesteading was exactly right for me at the time.

But it wasn’t cool back then and people around me didn’t understand it. I often felt dismissed and even judged. We got raised eyebrows when we brought home chickens and goats, and “Ew, gross!” comments when I talked about making homemade yogurt. But I was so excited by what I was learning I needed a place to talk about why these skills mattered to me.

So I started a homesteading blog—one of the first of its kind, way before “homesteading” was a polished Instagram category. Back then, there were a handful of us with clunky Blogspot sites, fuzzy photos, and an insatiable craving to live differently.

And my little blog grew. Over time, it branched into social media accounts and books and courses and a YouTube channel and a podcast and all the other things.

And I loved it. ALL of it. Both homesteading and my newfound penchant for entrepreneurship. It changed my life in nearly every way, and I’m profoundly grateful for all of it.

But something happens when the thing you love becomes the thing you’re known for.

At first, it was just life… but then it became content.

Then content became a business.

Then the business became an identity.

Then the identity became an expectation.

And that’s when things start to get muddy.

Because when your life becomes your work (which is a gift in many ways) it’s easy to lose track of where your real desire ends and the public expectation begins.

Suddenly, every season and project and experiment had the potential to become a tutorial, a photo, a podcast, a blog post, or a video.

A garden wasn’t just a garden. A loaf of bread wasn’t just a loaf of bread. A chicken coop wasn’t just a chicken coop.

It was all part of the story people expected me to keep telling.

That’s not right or wrong… it just is.

Now at this point in the story, people might accuse me of mere performance or of only living this lifestyle to “make money.”

That was absolutely not the case. I loved the skills and farming and food with every fiber of my being.

But it became increasingly heavy under the weight of producing content and providing more, more, more for the public. Plus the constant wondering if people would be disappointed if I wasn’t constantly expanding, producing, building, growing, or proving.

And of course, as more homestead influencers came onto the scene, and the whole thing became even more crowded, more performative, and more loaded. Homesteading became tangled up with aesthetics, politics, purity tests and internet scorecards.

And whatever affection I still had for the “movement” took a steep nosedive.

I started wondering: Am I done with this? Was that just a season? What remains if that identity falls away?

For a while, I was okay with not knowing. I explored other parts of myself. I wrote about deeper things. I let myself outgrow the box a little. I stopped forcing myself to care about things simply because they were “on brand.”

I gave myself permission to be more than just the “homestead girl.” And that was necessary. Oh so necessary. But just when I felt at peace with laying the whole thing to rest—maybe even forever—something interesting happened.

I moved this spring.

And as I was packing cabinets and drawers, I was confronted with so many artifacts of my homesteading identity.

Soapmaking supplies. Sprouting lids. Cheese presses. Fermenting crocks. Jars. (SO many jars.)

I hadn’t forgotten about them entirely, but they’d been buried under layers of burnout and the low-grade blah that had settled over so much of homesteading for me. Once upon a time, those tools had represented possibility, but over the past couple years, they’d become just one more thing I was supposed to care about.

But that day, instead of feeling the usual blah, I felt the most unexpected spark.

I started thinking about sprouts on the counter. About keeping chickens on a smaller scale. About rendering a fresh batch of tallow. About organizing the new barn. About making my new place feel alive and rooted.

And I realized that maybe I wasn’t done with homesteading after all… Maybe I was just done with the bloated, complicated version of it.

I’ve been in my new house for nearly three weeks and I’m feeling a buzz of excitement I haven’t felt in years.

Yes, part of it is the new place. But more than anything, I think it’s the size of it.

It’s smaller. More manageable. Less grand. Less impressive.

And it feels strangely wonderful.

The big, fancy stuff I had was a gift in so many ways. The expansive gardens, the sprawling greenhouse, the fancy milking parlor, the big beautiful life I built around all of it. I’m profoundly grateful I experienced it for a time.

But there is a burden that comes with maintaining something large, especially when that “something” is not just physical, but public.

And frankly, I don’t want that right now.

I just want humble, simple, and enough.

I want to come back to the reasons I started chasing this lifestyle in the first place: the old skills, the good food, the satisfaction of figuring things out, the respect for seasons, the belief that convenience isn’t always the highest good.

Those are the parts I’m keeping. And I’m walking away from the titles and labels, the pressure to do everything huge, the belief that I must be one thing forever, and most of all—the fear of disappointing people by changing.

I will no longer be trapped by a version of myself that once fit but has now grown too small.

I think most of us carry identities like that. Not bad ones, necessarily. They may even be beautiful identities— roles and labels that were once deeply right for us.

But at some point, they start to feel tight. And sometimes they need to fall away— not because they were false, but because you outgrew them.

Right now most of all, I’m reminding myself that identity shifts are not always failure or regression. They can be growth and discernment and what happens when you give yourself permission to become more honest.

So I guess I’m not burning down my homesteading chapter after all. At least not completely. I’m simply letting it become right-sized again.

It will be a piece of me, but not all of me. A practice, but not a prison. A passion, but not a performance.

And I’m excited— for the first time in a long time.

My new life is small and humble and simple, but it feels so me.

And yes, I’ll bring you along for the ride. But not in an “I know everything, let me teach you all my perfected systems” sort of way. More like: pull up a chair and let’s chat while I figure this out.

So I’m bucking allll the labels right now— especially the “homesteader” and the “influencer” ones.

I’m just doing me, paying attention to what makes me feel alive.

And right now, that is more than enough.

-Jill

P.S. Yes, I read Yesteryear and was entertained by it, even though I rarely consume pop fiction. I have thoughts— maybe I’ll share them in a future podcast episode.

More Deep Thoughts on Identity Shifts:

• When Good Identities Become Cages (and how to break free)
• The Cage Was Never Locked
• The Gift of Not Belonging
• Before the World Told You Otherwise

The post How I Unbecame a Homestead Influencer appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

How I’m building a new garden for my new life…

I planted seeds before I knew where I was going.

I knew separation was likely. I knew life was shifting under my feet. I knew the future would probably look wildly different than the one I had imagined.

Yet there I was one blustery February morning, pressing tomato and pepper seeds into damp soil like it was any other year.

But it was not any other year. And my gut knew it.

I’ve talked here and on my podcast in recent months about how our sense of self morphs and shifts over time. We shed old pieces to make room for new layers. We outgrow versions of ourselves we once thought were permanent.

But no matter how much my life shifts, I suppose I will always be the woman who starts seeds in late winter.

Even in the midst of deep uncertainty.

Maybe especially then.

There was something steadying about planting that day, but that’s how I always feel when I’m knuckle-deep in soil. The trusty seed trays I’ve used for years. The crumpled seed packets tucked away from last season. The damp potting mix. The ordinary rhythm of it all.

It was comforting and familiar in the midst of so much unknown. And while I didn’t know what my life would look like by the time the seeds were ready to transplant, something deep inside me knew I needed to trust the promise of new life.

Fast forward a few months, those seedlings have followed me into a chapter I couldn’t have fully imagined back in February.

Last week, I gave you a glimpse of my new garden area.

It’s quite different than the one I left behind.

Smaller and more humble.

Three tiny wooden raised beds instead of twenty shiny metal ones.

An itty-bitty red greenhouse instead of a sprawling commercial building.

And while I feel the occasional twinge of shock at how different it all is, more than anything, I feel relief.

I didn’t realize how burned out I had become on gardening.

The last few years had started to feel obligatory and monotonous, which are two words I never wanted to associate with one of the most fundamental needs of humans: connecting with our food and the soil.

But that’s where I had landed, for various reasons.

I had planned to address my burnout by taking a rest year in my big raised-bed garden— not necessarily by moving to an entirely new place. But life has a funny way of sorting things out sometimes.

So here I am: On new soil, with new views, and new beginnings.

With a very unexpected, yet welcome, excitement to plant and cultivate, even in the midst of grief and paperwork and boxes and the million other details that come with unraveling an old life.

Today, I want to share what starting over looks like on this little patch of prairie soil.

It’s nothing grandiose. At least not yet. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I’m okay with not having it all figured out — either in my garden or in the rest of my life.

Over the years, many of you have asked how I’d start a new garden if I had the chance. I’ve written blog posts and recorded podcasts on the topic, but it’s always been theoretical. Now I get to live it. And you get to come along.

I’m sure my plans will shift a lot over the coming months, but right now, this is my starting point:

(Btw, this post is sponsored by True Leaf Market, my longtime source for vegetable seeds, cover crops, and more. I’ve had a long-standing relationship with them, so it felt like such a full-circle moment to have them sponsor this new season of mine. But even when they aren’t sponsoring, they are still where I get all my seeds.)

First, I’m going to observe the spaces before I overhaul them.

I want to watch where the sun hits and where water collects. I’ll pay attention to my walkways and how I naturally move across the land as I add chickens and horses and cows back into my daily rhythms. I want the land to talk to me before I start locking myself into permanent infrastructure. In my previous homestead I made the mistake of building too fast, which resulted in moving fence lines multiple times and other fun ventures. I’d like to avoid that here if possible.

Next, I’ll test the soil so I know what I’m working with. From my initial walks through the pasture, I think the composition is more sand than the heavy clay I had in my last gardens. I don’t think this new plot has been planted much, so I’m guessing the nutrient levels will be decent, but I want to know for sure.

I’m going to keep the little wooden beds. They are crooked and quaint but I don’t care. I like them. I’ll loosen the soil with my broadfork and probably add a few bags of garden soil this year to top them off. Nothing fancy— just enough to get us going.

This year my vegetable list is far more minimal than usual, but it feels good.

I had quite a few seeds left over from last year’s stash, but I placed a small order with True Leaf earlier this spring to fill in the gaps.

I started a few San Marzanos (because I am still me…), but I don’t feel the need to can dozens of jars of sauce this year, so I also planted the fun varieties I usually ignore when I’m in “must grow 400 lbs of canning tomatoes” mode — Isis Cherry, Black Krim, Brandywine Pink, and a couple others I forgot.

And I’ll transplant my bell peppers, jalapeño, and Anaheim starts to the beds as well.

If there’s room left in the beds, I’ll tuck in Butter Crunch lettuce, spinach, and arugula for garden salads. (Maybe with a bit less overwhelm, I’ll actually remember to harvest them before they go to seed this year…)

There’s a lot of possibility around the little picket fence, but I have no desire to rototill, so I’ll use my broadfork to loosen the soil, then hand-dig small pockets for the things that want to sprawl. I ordered Early Silver Line Melons because I’ve never tried them before, and I’m curious to see how they’ll grow here. I’ll plant Sugar Pie Pumpkins too, because I have a hunch making pies will feel good this fall. I’ll find a spot for a few potatoes and onions too, because they are my emotional support vegetables.

And I’m sprinkling in flowers wherever I can.

At the other house, I had a lovely rhythm of self-seeding calendula and marigolds. I brought some of those saved seeds with me. I also bought a zinnia collection from True Leaf that made me ridiculously happy when I opened the package, but I think I’m late for planting them this year. So those will wait until next spring, which is okay. Not everything has to happen immediately (which I’m reminding myself of a lot right now…) Some beauty can wait its turn.

Since the garden itself is simpler this year, I’ll also have more bandwidth to think about the soil after the main season is done.

You’ve heard me talk about cover crops for years, and that’s one place I’m especially excited to be more intentional this fall. Depending on how the beds feel and what the soil test shows, I may use winter rye if things seem compacted, red clover if I need nitrogen support, or one of the all-in-one cover mixes if I want to cover all my bases.

Oddly enough, I found my sprouting kit while I was packing and felt the strangest spark of inspiration to use it again. Normally, I don’t touch sprouts during gardening season because there are enough green things to care for outside. But I feel like I need something alive and growing inside these unfamiliar walls while I figure out how to make this house feel like home. So I’m starting up a small jar of sprouts on the counter for salads and sandwiches.

Perhaps that’s the theme of this whole season for me: small, living things. Not giant harvests. Not impressive systems. Not a performance or a productivity project or a test of whether I’m “homestead enough.”

This year, the garden is for me.

For steadiness. For beauty. For a reason to walk outside in the morning.

For the reminder that even after endings, life keeps pushing upward.

I am not trying to recreate the old garden.

I am not trying to force the old life into the new space.

I am not trying to prove I’m unchanged.

This garden gets to be different because I am different.

I don’t know exactly what these new spaces will become yet.

But then again, I don’t know exactly what I will become yet either.

And maybe that’s the whole point. 

More Gardening Tips:

• The Best Mulch for Your Vegetable Garden
• How I’m Letting My Garden Be Easy This Year
• 5 Biggest Seed-Starting Mistakes Homesteaders Make
• The Best Garden Trio for Building Healthy Soil

The post Starting Seeds & Starting Over appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

Sadness and hope can live in the same room….

I’m okay.

I’m saying that a lot lately.

Sometimes I say it to other people. Sometimes to myself.

Of course there is sadness and disorientation and all the feelings I wrote about last week.

But in the midst of it, there are other feelings too. And those feelings are, dare I say, a little trickier to express right now.

Ever since I shared my last two essays, I’ve received so many kind, caring messages from people expressing sadness over my life change.

I so appreciate their care.

I know why people say “I’m so sorry.” I’ve said it to others in the past. It’s hard to know what else to say when someone’s life has cracked open in a way you can’t fully understand from the outside.

Sometimes in public, I sense people looking at me with pity. And when they talk to me, I hear the same words over and over:

Sad. Sorry. Sad. Sorry. Sad.

And while I know the intentions are good, sometimes those conversations leave me feeling heavier than I did before.

Because of course there is sadness. But it’s not only sad.

There is also hope.

And relief.

And little flickers of joy that show up in the middle of the hard. Sometimes within the same day. Sometimes within the same hour.

And I’ve been scared to admit that publicly.

Because I’m realizing many people are uncomfortable with any emotion besides sorrow in the story of divorce.

There’s a script society expects you to follow:

You’re allowed to be devastated.

You’re allowed to be angry.

You’re allowed to fight with your ex.

But relief?

Hope?

Wanting to get along as much as possible?

Admitting there isn’t much drama?

Those seem to confuse people more than the grief does.

And I’ve been met with a lot of deer-in-the-headlights stares when I say them out loud.

Even now, I’m nervous to publish these words. Because I know there are some who will think even an inkling of relief in the ending of a marriage is inappropriate. Or those who will assume that if I feel hopeful, I must not be taking this seriously.

But those people could not be more incorrect. Because grief and hope are not opposites. They surely can exist in the same space at the same time.

And right now, that space happens to be a new old house on a dirt road somewhere on the Wyoming prairie.

My last two essays have been heavy, so today, I want to share one of my recent joys.

The house.

My house.

Even typing that feels strange.

But before I go any further— I want to say this: I know I am deeply fortunate.

I know there are women leaving marriages who are facing terrifying financial realities. I know there are brave women who start over with almost nothing. I know there are women who don’t have the options I have right now.

I don’t take my situation for granted.

I am profoundly thankful that I’ve spent the last sixteen years building businesses that have provided me a way to walk through this chapter with an element of stability. That doesn’t erase the difficulty, but it does give me choices. And I am grateful for that.

Now to the house.

This house is not my other house.

It is not the homestead I built over the last decade-plus.

It is not the same land, the same kitchen, the same barn, the same view. It does not carry the familiar grooves my life had worn into that place.

So I need to say this gently but clearly: please don’t compare them for me.

I know what I left…

The gardens that ended up in photos all over the internet. The corrals that held my doe-eyed Brown Swiss calves. The kitchen featured in two cookbooks and national press articles and countless Youtube videos. The work that went into that soil, that barn, those pens. The memories layered into the walls.

I know it.

I feel it.

But somehow, in the middle of the things I left behind, this new place has provided other things I’ve always wanted but didn’t have there.

A quiet dirt road.

Productive apple trees.

A big red barn.

…with the most romantic hay loft.

An actual root cellar.

A house that felt cozy before I’d even made it mine.

The kitchen isn’t me yet.

But it will be.

Oh, it will be.

I have a hundred ideas. Paint colors. Wallpaper. Light fixtures. Little ways to bring warmth into the rooms. Places for cast iron and sourdough and stacks of cookbooks. Ways to breathe myself into the space like I do with every property I’ve ever touched.

It won’t happen all at once, but I trust that process more now than I ever have.

Because this is not my first time building a life. I’m not starting from scratch. This time, I’m starting from experience.

The first time I built a homestead, I was younger and scrappier… I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so I just learned it the hard way. I planted the wrong things. Bought the wrong equipment. Built fences in stupid places. Figured out what mattered by first figuring out what didn’t.

Those mistakes were excellent teachers.

They taught me what I want in a kitchen and what works for garden layouts and where gates should go.

They taught me that beauty matters, but so does function.

They taught me I can learn anything I put my mind to.

And they taught me that I am capable of taking forgotten places and making them beautiful and loved.

So yes, this place is new. But I am not new.

I’m older now. Slightly wiser. A little more bruised.

I know things I didn’t know before.

And this place?

This place holds me. I felt it the first time I walked through the door with the realtor.

It whispered, “Here. You can land here.”

My life has felt loud and harsh in the last few months. Loud with decisions. Loud with other people’s reactions and projections. Loud with logistics and paperwork and the endless tasks that come with untangling one life and beginning another.

But here, there is quiet. And a softness.

Not necessarily externally… There are unpacked boxes and paintbrushes and children running through and my ornery little red dog and countless lists and messes.

But underneath all that, there is steadiness. And peace. This place feels like it can hold the complexity of this new season.

It has enough space for me to be sad in the morning and excited by afternoon.

Because that’s the nuance I’m living in.

Two things can be true.

I am grieving. And I am hopeful.

I am sad. And I am excited.

I am tender. And I am capable.

I have lost things I loved. And I am building something beautiful.

Each does not cancel out the other.

So don’t worry— this isn’t me rushing ahead to the “thriving” or skipping over the ache.

It’s still there.

But so is the quiet knowing I can build again.

Because I’ve built before.

And because somehow, in the middle of all of this, I’m okay.

-Jill

P.S. Next week I’ll tell you more about my garden plans. Yes, it’s a big change to go from 20 raised beds and a monster greenhouse to what I have now. But I’m at peace with it (and even excited?!) to start over in a new growing space and I’ll explain why.

Recent Updates on My Life:

• A Hard and Honest Update
• Walking with a Limp
• The Cage Was Never Locked
• A Reintroduction, Of Sorts

The post The New Old House appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.