Thursday afternoon at six the Jeff Davis Parish Homesteaders (we don't have an official name yet) convened for our inaugural meeting. It was held five miles due east of our home in a shed. The gentlemen in the khaki shirt with the phone in his pocket assembled a small group of like-minded people to discuss things of interest to all of us. The attendees included an engineer, a physical therapist, a pipeline technician, a lawyer, a truck driver, a teacher, stay-at-home moms, an insurance adjuster, a car salesman and a baby!
What do we all have in common? A love for the land, a desire to return to "old skills," a longing to learn more about regenerative agriculture and building good soil, a wish to be more self-sufficient, healthy and free. It included folks who have been doing this for 20 years and those who have just started this adventure. The meeting started at 6 PM and ended around 8:20 when the mosquitoes threatened to carry us all away after sucking most of our blood out.
We started by going around the table, introducing ourselves and explaining our origin story - how we embarked on this journey of homesteading. The second topic going around the table, each individual discussed what they are producing off their homestead farms. It included raw milk, beef cattle, yogurt, kombucha, cheese, butter, citrus, vegetables, goat kefir, honey, pastured poultry eggs, sour dough bread and many more items I can't remember. We also talked about how we support other local homesteaders with purchasing or trading or sharing production we don't produce on our farms.
Finally, we talked about goals. What do we wish to achieve going forward? We talked in depth about efforts and plans to restore the soil to health as most of us are on land whose fertility has been diminished from overuse, lack of rest, and years of chemical spraying (herbicides & pesticides).
We all learn lots of new things on You Tube and from bloggers on the internet, but you take it to another level when you meet with local subject matter experts of a broad variety of homesteading topics such as pasture management, making elderberry cordials, growing vegetables, milking cows, marketing items off your farm, etc. It was an impressive and informative first meeting. We shared contact information and planned to meet again soon.
Even though both nightfall and swarms of mosquitoes fell upon us quickly and relentlessly, we continued talking with each other as we walked to our vehicles. One more thing to love about living in the country - good people sharing information and enjoying visiting with each other. The only thing missing was opening of the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and a Prayer (doggonit, we didn't do this!) We also didn't have any food! Perhaps we'll rectify that at our next meeting.
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