Our slow-acting long-term plan towards self-sufficiency has taken us all the way to Alaska, 4,482 miles from where we met — almost 1,000 miles a year, so who knows where we’ll end up in the next five.

In 2015 when we decided to leave Texas, I don’t think either of us realized what we were searching for, or that we were looking for anything. But since then we have focused enough to narrow down our interests, and it has become clear that, after finding out who we are as a small family, we just want to be ourselves without encumbrance. Which might sound like a simple task, but it isn’t.

Anyway, lately self-sufficiency means food: it seems like every year we subconsciously move closer to farming, hunting, and foraging our way out of buying food stuffs. This summer’s gardening is teaching us more and more about how to literally live off the land instead of a grocery store, and I hope the trend continues.

Maybe one day we’ll find a way to farm and produce everything we eat… That sounds difficult now, but it would be fun. I mean have you ever spent time with chickens?! Because if not, do it. They are fucking hilarious.

Almost as funny as her, but not quite. (I love you!)