Author: Katie

Hi I'm Katie! My husband Kyle, daughter Bellamy, and I are currently working on living our off grid dream on 5.5 acres of raw land in Alaska. Follow us on our journey of starting a homestead from scratch!

Six Reasons Why We Homestead In Alaska

by KatieHomesteading / Moving3 Comments on Six Reasons Why We Homestead In Alaska

I’ve been getting the question of why homestead in Alaska a lot recently.

I thought I’d lay out some thoughts behind why we decided to homestead here over anywhere else. As I mentioned in my very first post, part of our decision to move to Alaska came from Alaskan off-grid reality TV. Kyle and I both knew that those programs showed an overly romanticized version of homesteading in Alaska. But so many people living our dream here made us hopeful that we could make it too. We did a lot of research before buying our little piece of land, and there were just way too many pros in moving to Alaska for us to try to homestead in Washington.

 

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Appreciation For The Small Things

by KatieFamily / Homesteading2 Comments on Appreciation For The Small Things

One of the things that Kyle and I have discovered living out here is our new appreciation for the small things in life.

Really, the tiniest things bring us joy. Not that we weren’t happy before, but with the time and effort that everything requires now, we are that much more appreciative of things.

Things like clean laundry make us ridiculously happy. It’s so easy to take for granted when you have a washer and dryer. Just load it up, push a button and walk away. Now it takes time to wash, wring (Amazon), rinse, wring again, and hang up to dry. And one day of sun and wind will make you ecstatic after 3 days of hanging clothes, only to have it start raining the minute everything is up.

We find ourselves laughing more, talking more, and actually saying the words “that makes me happy” and “I appreciate that”. There is more joy and sense of accomplishment in our lives since we moved off grid. Wanting to be happy and live life on our terms is why we came out here in the first place, and knowing we made the right decision makes everything just that much better.

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Adding An Addition – The Floor

by Katie4wheeler / Building3 Comments on Adding An Addition – The Floor

A few weeks ago Kyle and I decided that living in 96 sq feet was great for two people, but it’s not really enough space with a baby on the way. Since then, his big project has been figuring out how to add on to our current studio. Well, yesterday he finished the floor, and now we can actually see how much more space we’ll have!

What he started with first was clearing out the space in front of our studio and measuring a 12 x 12 area. Of course, it had to rain directly after this, creating a giant mud puddle! Kyle then dug a trench roughly a foot wide all around the 12 x 12 space. This was to put gravel so water could drain away from the wood.

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