Homeschooling, Homesteading and Living to Write About It

by Mary L. Allen

Cold weather has arrived in the mid-west!  Usually this means fewer outside chores for yours truly, but this fall on our homestead, I still have pastured poultry field pens to move and a hundred chickens to feed. Then it’s time to tote wood from the shed up to the house for the day’s ration of firewood to keep our home cozy. By the time breakfast dishes and devotions are over, it’s 8:30 a.m. And horrors—there’s a mountain of laundry taunting me from the washroom…

At which point I usually get the teakettle going, hoping for a smidgeon of deep calming warmth to bolster me for the morning school routine which on any given day includes:  hitting the grammar, overseeing science experiments and research papers, and hand-copying all the math worksheets for the day. Yes, our copy machine is on the fritz and I’m cheapskate enough to try to recycle all of our math workbooks. Time for deep breaths and…more honeysuckle tea!

But even after a harried morning of homeschooling in the extreme, our afternoons settle. Each daughter has plenty to keep her occupied and I can toss my *activities director* hat aside for a time, and do the things *I* want to do. Granted, this doesn’t always equal me sitting at the computer hammering out the next great bestseller, but it’s a gift regardless.

We all have the same number of hours in our day. I know, it’s quite profound, isn’t it?  Today I just want to encourage you that the homeschooling lifestyle can exist symbiotically with that of the writer. Homeschooling and writing are actually quite harmonious, even with homesteading thrown in the mix.

Here’s a few reasons why.

Homeschooling

The grand thing about homeschooling and writing, is that no matter the ages of your children, they only need your undivided attention for a few hours a day. A preschooler, first or second grader won’t be putting in an eight hour school day. Three mornings a week is enough time to cover the important stuff for most five to six year olds. This is the time to instill in your children the good habits and training that will aid them later when they’ll need dedication and self-motivation to tackle their high school years.

You see, I used to believe that the high school years would be slavish on my part. That I’d be sweating over my teenager’s transcript and spending hours making sure her education was well-rounded enough. Yes, it takes planning and organization, but once your home schooled child reaches eighth grade, they hopefully will surprise you as mine have, by owning their education and taking responsibility for achieving both the goals you set for them, and those they set for themselves.

Homesteading

We try to live simply and grow our own foods. We garden, process the harvest, have chickens, beeves, and meat goats and know how to butcher them! We sell eggs, and raise laying hens to sell to a local CSA farm. My daughters raise and train stockdogs. If something breaks, we fix it or figure out how. This life doesn’t leave much free time but it’s a wholesome life of fresh air, crumbly soil and knowing what I’m feeding my family. I’m able to freelance the full spectrum of it, and the happy plan is, to someday write a book!

Writing

I may not make as much time for writing now as I’d like, but I savor every little bit I get. And I know well the areas in my life where I could carve out more time by paring down on yonder homestead, by just saying “no”, and making writing more of a priority.

Someday I will. But until then, I’ll live the story and relish every page.