I’m doing some spring cleaning on the blog and updating the pages along the top. The ‘About’ page was WAY too long (I just updated it), but I needed somewhere to put the longer story that I wrote up what seems like so long ago now. So I decided to turn it into a post instead. Though I would change things I’ve written (as I always feel when I read previous things I’ve written after a long period of time), I only edited it a bit, mostly keeping the original version. The ending was incomplete, though, since time has passed since I wrote it, so I tried to make it cohesive while only touching on parts of the story to keep it from getting longer still. If you haven’t read it before, here’s the “longer” version of our story….
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The ocean calling me and moving to Oregon…
I followed my heart and moved to Oregon in January 2005. Having been born in California, then raised in Minnesota and mostly Iowa, I always felt I would return to the West Coast when I moved out on my own (I always thought it would be California, but when I saw Oregon for the first time I loved it.) I headed out on January 1, to embark on a brand new life. I started out in Portland and quickly discovered that I was not a city girl, so my time there was brief. After moving to Oregon, I soon met Jeff.
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Meeting Jeff and instant magnetism…
Jeff was a woodland-living, wizardly-looking, overall-wearing mountain man and I instantly adored him. He was unlike anyone I had ever known. His radiance, jolly smile, generous heart, warmth, and inspiration for life drew me right in. (You can read more about all that here: A Real Life Love Story.) Jeff was living on a 3 acre homestead in the mountains and I moved in with him that spring, thus becoming a country girl for the first time in my life. He had been living at his place for over 20 years. Working multiple jobs had made it impossible to keep up the house and land all on his own. He needed some help and I was ready to learn. Jeff taught me a lot of homesteading skills and I did what I do best- I cleaned and organized. We started getting this place into shape.
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Digging in and building our dreams…
Together, we started building our dreams here and began turning this place into a small farm. (Though the word homestead feels much more fitting to me.) This land was not a typical farm with open pasture, we were on the side of a mountain and mostly forested. That meant we weren’t well suited for animals that liked to eat grass- like sheep and cows. But we were well suited for a few animals that enjoyed woodland browsing for their foraging and free ranging pleasure. We started raising goats for milk and chickens and ducks for eggs. We had cats and dogs. We loved having animals and were especially fond of the goats. We expanded our garden each year with the sunny spots we had available. We loved eating real food off the land and it was so satisfying to have a part in bringing it to the table. We built a woodshed and a greenhouse and put up lots of fencing. We enjoyed being happily exhausted at the end of a long working day on the homestead. We had both spent some time in our lives being miserable and realized life was too short to not be filling it with things we loved. Country living brought our souls so much joy! I felt I had truly found my home..
A leap of faith and forming Mystic Orb..
Jeff quit his jobs and we started our own business, Mystic Orb, selling mostly wooden jewelry. (Jeff had made a living as an artist for a period of time when he was younger. I had found his artwork hidden away in drawers and urged him to keep doing it.) We lived on faith and very little money, but our souls were satisfied by doing what we loved. Being able to work from home was a dream come true. It also had it’s challenges in that we needed to stay focused because we could easily get distracted by all that needed to be done on the homestead, and we had to work very hard to make a living. The stress of living without a steady paycheck made us wonder if we were nuts sometimes (and I don’t think either of us would recommend starting a business with no money to get it going), but our hearts kept urging us forward. In living on less we learned to be grateful for each and every thing in our life. We learned that if we wanted something we either made it ourselves, traded for it, saved up for a long time, or did without. This made us more mindful of what we really wanted. We continued to make our business more sustainable, along with our life. With our jewelry, people could wear the energy of nature wherever they went, and carry that essence with them. Jeff also created wooden signs, spoons, and more. (He even carved a custom door for a neighbor’s home once.) We began selling our artwork at the Eugene Saturday Market every week and then started our online Etsy Shop. Our little business grew bit by bit and we were grateful for each and every customer who supported our dream.
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A Woodland Wedding…
On a beautiful summer day, July 11, 2008, Jeff and I were married on the land, under our favorite cedar tree. Though we had been devoted to each other long before that. We looked into each other’s eyes as the dappled light shone in the woods, and felt so grateful that we found each other. That, with each other’s support, we had found the courage to live a more authentic life. We felt we brought out the best in each other. We had reminded each other of so many things we loved- like singing and making music. And along our journey, we discovered new passions together and also re-kindled passions Jeff had had at different times throughout his life- real food, cooking, and harvesting, among so many other things. We loved enjoying life with each other and we were in awe of the power that comes from two people building a dream together.
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Wooly Moss Roots begins…
In the winter, February 2009, I began Wooly Moss Roots blog, with this very first post: Winter is the time for Wool. The inspiration for the blog title came from my deep loves for wool, moss, and roots. All things that spoke to my soul and invoked deep feeling. I loved having the creative outlet. I had loved writing since I was a child. It had always been my strongest form of communication and being able to share the discoveries from our homesteading journey and daily life, with others, was so fun. It was my way of sharing joy with the world and sharing the other parts of our life too, the harder parts. Over time I found an amazing group of supportive and inspiring people here. I liked gaining more global connections, that expanded my world beyond my immediate community. I loved learning about life in other places. I loved meeting so many amazing people. Over time, through Wooly Moss Roots, I met friends and made connections that brought daily delights and made my life richer in infinite ways. More than I could ever say. Little did I know when I started it, that the blog would become such an important part of my life.
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A passion for real food…
Besides following our hearts more and living more from our souls, we began to learn to take better care of our bodies as well. We ate out less and made more meals from scratch. We continued to produce more of our own food and spend more time in nature, getting more exercise and soaking up sunshine. One day at the library, I discovered the cookbook ‘Nourishing Traditions’ by Sally Fallon, that introduced us to the Weston A. Price Foundation. That book really had an impact on me. I became passionate in learning about nutrition. We started eating more whole foods and less processed foods. We followed the ways of indigenous people, who were wisely connected to the earth and enjoyed vibrant health. Basically, we started eating more like our ancestors. Both of us saw huge improvements in our health. We felt a soul wanting to come into our lives and both Jeff and I prepared for that by eating nutrient dense foods. All during my pregnancy, I ate colorful, whole foods from the earth, to give our baby the nutrients to thrive. I poured lots of love and good food into that little being. I was so excited to meet our baby and to become a mama!
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Bracken joins us…
In the fall, on October 14, 2010, our son, Bracken Lee Little Hawk Wilson, was born at home. (You can read the birth story here: Bracken’s Birth.) He expanded our hearts beyond what we ever knew was possible. Our family felt more complete, like we had always been waiting for him. I felt I had found my place and purpose in the world even more. With every fiber of my being, I was meant to be a mama. Bracken reminded us to see the world through the eyes of a child- the wonder, the awe, the color, and beauty. He constantly taught us so much. Bracken was my first and Jeff’s second (he has a daughter from his previous marriage.) Oh goodness, if we thought we were busy before, working all day, it was nothing compared to homesteading and working-from-home life with a baby in the mix! (And since becoming a parent, I believe it is truly the hardest job in the world and also absolutely the most fulfilling.) Bracken’s laughter, his smile, filled our world with more light than we had ever known. We felt honored to be his parents and get to share life with him.
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Simplifying and Expanding…
We made some changes after Bracken was born. We found homes for most of our animals and simplified our homesteading responsibilities, so we could focus more on the business. Though we enjoyed our animals greatly, they required a lot of care and energy and we wanted to put more energy into other areas of our life. (Plus with a discovered dairy allergy, it was no longer feasible for us to afford to keep goats here if we couldn’t consume the milk.) I found I was no longer able to keep up with giving the dogs daily hikes, with a baby in tow, and they started getting restless. I felt like I was neglecting all the animals, but motherhood was requiring everything I had at the time. We found great homes for them all and it was a relief for us, we knew we made the right decision. We started expanding the products we offered for our business and opened a second online shop, WoolyMossRoots, offering handmade artisan buttons, herbal goodness, and wooly delights. We enjoyed filling it up and I loved the opportunity to connect with so many creative customers and seeing the beautiful things they were making with our buttons. Bracken also inspired us to change our diet further and our family went on the GAPS diet with the purpose of healing our guts and therefore food allergies. After being on the diet for years, we switched to a primal/paleo diet, very similar in many ways. (More on all that in a future post.) Eventually we built a chicken coop with recycled materials and found chickens (and a few ducks in the mix) a great fit for us because they were so easy to care for. With such low maintenance animals, our homesteading energy mostly went to the garden, which is something our whole family enjoys. In fact, being in the garden is our very favorite place to be. So, that’s a bit of our story. A bit about who we are and how we got here. Until the next chapter….
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From our family to yours, thanks for joining us here!
You are a gifted writer, Taryn💗 I love reading your story! Thank you!
what a wonderful morning read. I have skimmed through your FB posts from time to time. Glad I took the time to explore.
I am so drawn to the simple,life…the earth…etc. Alas, I,live in the burbs and need to stay…I am thinking of doing a patio garden this spring..I require dirt and the process of tending a garden…
I am 75 so great and grand plans don’t fit me.
Would so love to meet you…take a field trip your way.
You are an awesome family. Would that all could live their authentic lives. I am seeking that for this part of my life….
bTW…I live in Hillsboro…
Hello Toni,
A patio garden sounds perfect! Maybe we’ll meet you at market some day. Thanks for reaching out and for reading!
I so enjoyed reading your story. Sincerest thanks for sharing with us. I look forward to every blog post. Sending Love and Light to the Wilson Family!
Thank you so much for this post. I have read your blog for a few years and so am familiar with your story but it was so nice to hear it again and with some added detail. I particularly appreciate your comment about rehoming some of your animals when you realized mothering was taking all of your energy. I am in the exact same situation now. As the mother of two wonderfully wild boys (almost 3 and almost 4 years of age) and living on a farm, I have been struggling with the feeling some of the animals are being neglected. Perhaps that is too strong a word but they are receiving very little attention and I go to bed each night knowing I have done the important thing (giving my all to my boys and husband) but guilty for the animals. It has taken me a long time but I have started working toward finding new homes for many of them (rescue groups for some since that makes us feel most safe). So reading this passage in your post makes me feel oddly better and less guilty. Thank you!!
Dawn,
I’m so glad that could help. I think we all need to let ourselves off the hook a bit sometimes. So many of us (me included) expect ourselves to be superheroes and to be able to have the energy to do an endless amount of things each day. Parenting takes a tremendous amount of energy all by itself! 🙂 I think we have different seasons in our lives and Jeff and I have no regrets about raising all those animals here, what an amazing experience, but we also have no regrets about realizing when it was time to simplify. 🙂
Love,
Taryn
Beautiful post…thanks for sharing.
You are a real encouragement to my soul.
Thank you for that
Sincerely
Nadine (Alberta, Canada)
Thank you for sharing 🙂
Beautiful post x
<3 <3 love
<3 <3 <3 so so so much <3