Our Modern Homestead Adventure began in early 2023.

More work, but less stress...

Life had been stressful. Between work and life events, things had spiraled into chaos. Tanya's health was failing quickly and our marriage was struggling as we tried to stay afloat. Something had to change...

After a big discussion with our adult children, we packed our belongings into four shipping containers, sold our lovely house in Okotoks, and moved 3.5 hours to the middle of Alberta where we set up our 37-foot camper trailer to live in while we built the first cabin atop pastureland that has been part of Darwin's family farm for over 50 years. Wagon trails etched into the landscape and scattered foundation stones hint at the rich western history as a pioneer town called Ferry Point.

View of Battle River Valley looking southwest

We scrambled through deep crunchy snow, over fallen logs and dodging gopher holes and found, to our delight, that there are three natural "sink holes" in the topography with land bridges between each one. The depressions are surrounded by aspen, poplar, and cherry forests and are blanketed with centuries of composted detritus. An idea blossomed for three separate gardens: one as a nursery to baby new saplings, one for a food forest, and the largest one, for a kitchen garden and walapini-style sunken greenhouse to take advantage of any available geothermal heat.

We got to work clearing debris and stacking materials for future use. What could be used as firewood or building material was stacked to the side. We used smaller organic matter as the base for our gardens, built the soil using rough hügelkultur beds to compost over the years.

In October 2023, we started building the first cabin...