The Start of Something Real
A couple who dreamed of something more grounded, more real.
We didn’t wake up one day and decide to build a homestead.
The idea had been growing for a while.
After years of renting and focusing on our careers, we started to realize something felt off. We weren’t unhappy. Life was good. But we kept catching ourselves talking about “one day” — one day we’d build, one day we’d have land, one day we’d slow down.
At some point, we stopped wanting “one day.”
We wanted a plan.
We both work full time, and we take that seriously. Building something from the ground up while balancing jobs isn’t the easiest path. But the thought of staying comfortable and never starting felt harder.
So we decided we were going to build.
Not all at once.
Not recklessly.
But intentionally.
This spring, we’ll break ground on a small cabin on rural family land. We’ll move into the cabin and build our home in phases — slowly, carefully, and with our own hands.
The goal isn’t just a house.
It’s a life that feels more grounded. Growing food. Raising animals. Preserving what we harvest. Learning skills that take time. Creating something that lasts.
Life on Spirit Hill is where we document that process — the planning, the work, the progress, and everything we learn along the way.
We’re not experts.
We’re just building.
And we’re glad you’re here.
Our First Garden 2024
Married 2021
Processing Our Own Venison 2025
Both brought up in the middle of nowhere USA, he was a country boy raised on a farm and she grew up riding horses and four‑wheelers.
What Shaped the Dream
We met in 2016 and, like many couples in our twenties, chased something faster. Bigger city. Bigger careers. Convenience at our fingertips. It was fun and as exactly what we needed and wanted at the time. We married in 2021 and a couple years later, as the urge to move closer to our roots won out, we moved again, but this time we settled into a rental with a more rural location.
Our Townhouse in the Suburbs
It gave us everything we needed. And truthfully, it was a good season. We had space, a yard, woods nearby, and room to breathe. We worked from home during the week and spent weekends helping on the farm. I learned to garden. We filled our freezer with venison we hunted and processed all ourselves, and Sunday dinners with family became a rhythm. Life felt busy, but it also felt meaningful.
Then somewhere along the way, in those quiet in-between moments, we caught a glimpse of something deeper.
Not a different life. Just a more intentional one.
We realized we didn’t want to just visit that kind of living on the weekends.
We wanted to build it into our everyday.
That realization didn’t happen overnight. It grew slowly, through seasons of learning and helping and trying new things. But once it was there, we couldn’t ignore it.
And so the dream that once just looked like a couple acres with a horse or two, become into something greater. We want not just a home. We want a place where we could start a family and raise them on values of self-reliance, resilience, and connection to the land. A place where we could live a simpler, sustainable, more meaningful life. One that comes with the satisfaction that only building by hand from the ground up can give.
Our dream was a DIY homestead.
The Rural Rental
The Land That Gave the Dream Roots
We never expected the opportunity to build on family land.
We had already decided we were going to pursue this life — we just assumed it would take longer and happen all while we still lived in a rental. It was going to be done in a much more conventional way.
But when the possibility came to build on an unused portion of my in-laws working beef farm, this changed things significantly.
The Land We Will Soon Call Home