Healthcare Homesteaders

It only took two more days of moving dirt after that first day of breaking ground to shape and smooth the driveway and level the first building site. Luckily, we had several dry days, and the rain we did get was light for the most part. Though it was a bit of a bumpy ride,…

There aren’t many things cooler to an 8 year old than buried treasure. Since his first day out on the property, our son has been on the hunt. Sure, he’ll pick up sticks…for a while. He’ll throw stuff in the fire…for a while. He’ll saw off dead branches, clip thorns, and dig roots but only…

Our 60 acre sanctuary is at present moment diverse timber. A neighboring landowner who has a century farm himself regales us with the most delightful stories and anecdotes about our properties and visitors to them over the years. He remembers our property being pasture when he was a kid. It had numerous giant oaks that…

The brush is gone! Ok, so not entirely. In fact, we’ve probably only worked on five acres or less; I just wanted to throw a little Johnny Nash in there. The point is: once we started clearing the decades worth of underbrush, we could actually see what it all looked like. Some areas were far…

While a clever nod to a guilty pleasure furniture store, this post is indeed about restoring hardware! One hundred year old rolling fire door hardware is amazing. It’s heavy, it’s quality, it’s ingenious design and craftsmanship, and it’s gross. It’s plastered with gobs of layered paint, grease, rust, and good old dirt. When we started…

I think we take doors for granted. We use them everyday. They protect us. They provide privacy. They both shut things out, yet open up new spaces and opportunity. There are life expressions analogizing doors: “when one door shuts, another opens,” “just gotta get your foot in the door,” etc. I’m fascinated by doors, especially…

June 23, 2022 was a day more than seven years in the making. Let me back up… We work in healthcare. We spend our days in the hospital. We routinely walk past closets packed full of equipment with higher price tags than our house. The soundtrack of our careers is a symphony of electronic beeping…