A homestead is a journey. Usually quite a long one. Even in the pioneer days, one didn’t generally move onto the land, build a house and stay in it for all of time. It was usually a progression – first, live in your wagon or tent while you build SOMETHING to live in. As time and materials allow, build the final house.

We are working that same progression. We lived in the tent until a) it was too cold and b) the bus came along. Now we live in the bus while we build the barn. Once the barn is weathertight and has the cookstove piped in, we will live there while we build the house — however long a process that might be depends on many factors.

It is rather funny that the idea of living in a barn tends to engender shocked dismay in various of our acquaintance. It seems to be seen as the depths of some shameful state, for reasons I can’t entirely imagine. It’s not like we’ll be sleeping with chickens in our beds or any such thing. In fact, in going from the tent to the bus to the barn, we have been steadily increasing in luxury. And the barn will be the greatest amount of living space we have had in almost a year now.

But somehow the fact that that animals will also be in the same building seems to blow peoples’ minds. It has been done for thousands of years, in nearly every culture known to mankind — including Biblical times. But somehow it is shocking now. Now, I have no intention of living the full Viking experience with the livestock in the living room. Quite to the contrary, there will be a fully insulated wall between them and us. But yes, we will be sharing the same 4 walls.

On the days that the weather has been nasty over the last while, we have worked on the inside infrastructure. Chicken and goat pens, the area to contain their feed and supplies, and the beginnings of the wall separating humans from animals.

I’m sure that there will be disadvantages to sharing the space — for one thing, our rooster’s alarm clock is a bit hinky and he starts crowing almost without fail at 330 am. Our little Maggie goat is also extremely social and will likely get very excited at being able to hear her humans all the time and insist on adding her two cents’ worth to any conversation — loudly. But we will be warm. We will be dry. We will be able to have a great deal of our remaining furniture back with us. (We will have CHAIRS!!) We will have the loft space to store the extra things in.

Is it quite the ‘done thing’? Not any more, no. Would certain persons and/or agencies have a complete cow? Probably. Is it a hugely positive step forward? Oh, so very yes.