Our homesteading journey began with self-sufficiency and a dream, but it evolved through loss and social media fame

Our homesteading experiment began before tradwives, before Donald Trump, before Covid-19. It was the summer of 2015 when we were all sure no one would vote for a former reality TV star. I was 25 years old and desperate for a security blanket, working a sales job and looking for excuses not to return to college.

My husband, Patrick, and I had talked about farming since our first date. We wanted goats. At his 2-acre property in a quiet suburb of Portland, Maine, we kept a few chickens and a scrawny vegetable garden.