I was one of those Breyer horse girls.

Surely you’ve known one. Maybe you were one.

My obsession ran deep. At my peak, I had hundreds of models. I showed them, traded them, painted them, and arranged them. It was intense, to say the least.

I was loading a beat-up old icebox into the back of my car the other day and had a déjà vu moment. There it was again: the same ridiculous thrill I used to feel when I’d find a Breyer horse at a garage sale.

Not a brand-new one in a box—those were boring. I liked the ones with scuffs or chipped ears. They were usually stuffed into a toy box with a bunch of other castaway things, but I could spot them immediately. I’d snatch them up and get the biggest thrill from cleaning them up and giving them a place of honor on my shelves.

And standing there that day, huffing and puffing with this old icebox wedged halfway into my car, I realized that part of me hadn’t disappeared.

She’d just been waiting for the right time to come back around.

I saw a post slide past my Instagram feed recently and it stopped my thumb mid-scroll.

It said, “Midlife is just coming back to who you were at sixteen and learning to love her again.”

I find a lot of truth in that… to a point.

You see, my sixteen-year-old self was wildly dogmatic, highly self-righteous, and convinced she had most things figured out. I’m not interested in ever returning to that version of myself.

But I also don’t believe that was actually my true nature—it was conditioning. The product of years spent trying to be the right sort of girl for the rigid religious environment that shaped so much of my youth.

No, the sixteen-year-old I’m talking about returning to is the girl underneath all that.

The one who loved horses since she could walk.

The one who constantly created.

The one who spent hours rearranging her room, writing stories, dreaming up little worlds, and seeing possibility in things other people overlooked.

The girl who was drawn to the old, the worn, and the forgotten.

I’ve talked a lot lately about shifting identities and what it feels like to shed old versions of ourselves. But I’m realizing I never really lost myself completely. Some of the truest pieces were just buried—under expectations, obligations, and the cages we so often build for ourselves.

But they’re still there if we dig a little.

And one of those pieces for me, as silly as it sounds, is my deep love of old and well-worn things.

There are various reasons that part of me got quiet for a while, but one of them is that I thought I needed to make things look more polished and professional. Unfortunately, somewhere in the pursuit of “put together,” I drifted away from the part of me that so loved the mismatched and imperfect.

Yet, as I set up my new house, this old love is coming back with a vengeance. And it feels amazing.

I’ve dragged home more old, tattered, chipped, worn, forgotten things in the past three weeks than I have at any other time in my life. And even though I haven’t started painting or wallpapering yet, this little house of mine is taking on the coziest, most eclectic feel.

And I’m saving so much money—even on the practical, unromantic stuff. (I found a super nice garden hose for $10 last week and it made my whole day. Because I am a nerd.)

The thrill of the hunt is addicting as it was back then. But now, instead of beat up model horses, now it’s a dining room table painted an awkward baby blue that’s begging to be refinished. The world’s coolest (and heaviest) antique ice box. A nondescript lamp waiting for a coat of emerald green spray paint. An old rocking chair with a lumpy cushion that will shine after a quick fabric swap.

The possibility is thick.

If you’ve listened to my podcast for any length of time, you know railing on the Industrial Revolution is a hobby of mine… and one of the things that’s bothers me the most is how quickly we learned to treat things as disposable.

Up until recently in human history, materials were hard to come by and things took effort to make. This meant people took care of what they had and there were entire industries built around repairing things.

I think about this when I’m wandering through an antique store and see a carefully preserved china dish or an ornate hairbrush or a handmade wooden chair.

Someone held onto that for a long time on purpose.

Why?

Because it had value and meaning. Because it would have been difficult to replace.

D.H. Lawrence wrote:

“Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into
are awake through years with transferred touch, and go on glowing
for long years.
And for this reason, some old things are lovely
warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them.”

That’s what I feel when I find old things. Not always, of course. Some old things are just ugly old things. But sometimes you pick something up and it still has a pulse.

Can you imagine saving a hairbrush to pass along to future generations now?

That’d be ridiculous. Because most of the modern things we own—from hairbrushes to dishwashers to couches—are designed to serve us for a short time before making their way to the landfill while we run out to buy another.

Maybe that’s why secondhand things feel so grounding to me right now. I’m craving their weight, their history, and the evidence that life happened before me and will keep happening after me.

I don’t want this new old house of mine to feel like a furniture store showroom. I want it to feel collected, layered, human. And most of all, like me.

So I’m taking my time with it and gathering slowly. Seeking out sturdy things with evidence of time and wear. Objects with a story and plenty of life left in them as they wait to be useful again.

In the process, I’m coming home to a piece of me I had forgotten for a little while.

And I’m reminded that we can walk through the ruins and find bricks for a new path. (Literally, in my case—I’m picking up some old bricks from a friend next week for a garden path.)

Maybe that’s what coming back to my sixteen-year-old self really means:

Not returning to all her certainty or bringing back the self-righteousness or the narrow little boxes she thought would keep her safe.

But remembering the girl underneath.

I’m glad she’s still here.

And I think she’s going to love this house.

-Jill

P.S. Next week I’ll share a few of the more practical ways I’ve been finding my secondhand treasures, in case you’re inspired to do the same. I’m not a thrifting guru, but I have some ideas.

The post The Girl Who Saw Treasure in Junk appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

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.