Singing Creek Farm

What started it all for me.

As time goes on and life changes so have I. Even though I grew up in a definitely-not-big-city in East Tennessee, my life plan was to go to college, graduate, and then climb the corporate ladder in a city somewhere all while wearing the cutest heels. I was a people pleaser and loved the idea of the obvious “good job” markers that came along with this way of life, even though I didn’t realize that was why. God has a way of pulling what He has hidden in your heart out of you, though, and that’s exactly what He did with me.

After falling in love with my handsome athlete of a husband and getting married before I graduated college, I found myself pretty locked down in my hometown. I definitely wasn’t upset about it, but I was a little lost. I ended up joining a big real estate company/team shortly after graduation and worked my way up there from nothing. About the time I got pregnant with my first child I started to feel like the mold I had created for myself to fit into didn’t align with what I felt in my heart. I hated the culture of drama the real estate world I was in had and how it effected my commissions negatively at times when I stood firm on my morals. I was living in a grey world as a black and white person and I just couldn’t do it anymore.

I ended up becoming an independent agent that wasn’t on a team (after trying a few others in-between) and I instantly felt a lot of relief – I could do everything exactly how I wanted to. I was and still am good at my job, but I still felt like something was missing. I think my whole life I had the idea that my career would be my identity, and I wasn’t feeling that way anymore.

I felt the happiest when I was in my garden or in the kitchen baking and cooking. I realized many of my peers didn’t have the style of upbringing that I had – I thought everyone grew up growing some of their own produce and making many pantry items from scratch. I’ll be honest, I was so ignorant that I don’t think I even realized you could buy powdered mashed potatoes at the store, and it confused me greatly why that product even needed to exist. We didn’t grow up using boxed cake or biscuit mixes, I don’t think I ever saw my mom use a can of cream of mushroom, and she made most of our bread from scratch. I’m not saying this to brag or anything, I just want to paint a picture of it all. I was one of 7 children and my mom probably could’t afford to buy everything premade at the store, and it was so much cheaper to make nice meals at home rather than taking a family of 9 out to eat. It’s also largely how she was raised as well. I grew up in an era where convenience became the biggest factor in choosing foods, but because of my upbringing I wasn’t exposed to it in the same way as many of my peers.

After making these life changes and realizing I was never going to be, nor meant to be, the person I had always thought I would become, I had a bit of an identity crisis. I felt this stirring in my heart from the Lord and longed to anchor it to something. I was sitting and folding clothes in my bedroom one day when my eyes looked at a piece of furniture that had sat at the foot of my bed for half a decade for what felt like the first time: A cedar chest. One that had been designated to be mine once I lived on my own by my Southern grandparents.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking (especially any non southerners): What on earth is a cedar chest? I love to tell a good story, and this is my blog which makes me in charge here, so that’s how I’m going to tell you:

Little 5 or 6 year old me was sitting in my Granny’s living room overlooking her bountiful summer garden. We had just finished baking something, probably buttermilk biscuits, and were sitting in the living room while they baked. My siblings were there, too, and we were all sipping on some hot lipton tea. Honestly I don’t think any of us liked lipton tea but we really wanted to since my Granny was always drinking it and we wanted to be as cool as her. Anyway, I digress. 

As we were sitting there in the living room surrounded by chicken decor Granny opened up a cedar chest that she had under the window sill and pulled out a blanket. I was in awe because my whole life I thought that thing was just a table I wasn’t allowed to stand on (yes, I was the climbing child of the bunch). I told her how cool I thought that was and Granny replied something along the lines of “Well I’m glad you like it. Did you know you will be getting one of your own one day?”

My Granny then went on to tell me about the tradition of the Cedar Chest (sometimes called a dowry chest or hope chest). Here in the south when a girl is still young a cedar chest was either made, purchased, or passed down for her. There are multiple cedar chests in my family that go back a few generations. As the young woman grew up her female relatives would put things in her cedar chest like kitchenware items, blankets, sewing utensils, things like that. Then when the young lady became a woman and got married she was given her filled-to-the-brim cedar chest. It was basically a Southern Woman’s home making starter kit, if you will. It’s not just the chest, it’s what is inside. And honestly it’s so much more than even that.

These wise women weren’t just passing down chests and pots and pans and sewing needles. They were also passing down the knowledge and craft of how to use them. My Granny and my mother both had me in the kitchen from a very young age. We knew how to salt and season, bake and brine, and cut and can. We were also in the garden and taught how to get the best veggies. We were taught to sew on buttons, hem pants, and patch a tear. The Southern women in my life made sure we knew how to season a cast iron skillet so perfectly that we could get our crispy golden cornbread clean out of the pan without a sweat. How to make the perfect chicken and dumplings with a bone broth so potent that no one ever needed a thing called chicken bouillon.

We were told of times that were simpler, where our roots came from. Times where “organic” was a given, neighbors knew each other, and people worked hard. Times where you fixed things that were broken and threw little away. Whenever I see my cedar chest these things are what my mind dwells on.

My well-loved Granny is no longer with us after she lost her fight to cancer many years ago, but I have the cedar chest she left for me at the foot of my bed.

I realized in my heart I wanted what that cedar chest embodies. I wanted to sow knowledge and skills and love into the next generation and my peers. I wanted to have a strong community. I wanted things to run a little slower and soak it all up instead of being a slave to busyness. I wanted learning to be a way of life instead of a season reserved for when I’m young. I wanted my hands to get dirty, to eat and feed others real food, and show how “slow” food isn’t that hard, and how the reward of it is so great. I wanted to have a huge garden that fills my pantries for winter and allows my kids to go outside for a snack. It was time for me to use, hone, and grow the skills handed to me in that proverbial cedar chest and then start filling it up for my 3 daughters to have after me.

That was really what started this whole journey for me. After 2 years of living more like the way I longed for I discovered this thing called Homesteading. Through it I realized there is a whole community of people who want the same things I do and there was an actual name for it. This also opened up streamlined access to knowledge and resources, and I found where I feel like I belong. My soul was made for this. I still struggle to say I am a homesteader, I am not one of the ones who grows all of their own meat or has dairy cows. In fact, that may never be realistic for my family. But that’s okay. I think every homesteader is going to approach it differently, but in the end we all want to be more self sufficient and want to be as closely connected to where our food comes from as we can.

These ideas also got ignited further after the pandemic and shortages happened. Bread, meat, dairy, and pasta products were the first grocery items I saw disappear from the shelves during the pandemic, and they were very spotty in availability up until very recently. But you know what was on the shelf? All the ingredients you need to make the bread items and pastas for your family. What if prior to the shortages you already had an established relationship with some local farmers that sold you beef or you bartered for fresh milk at a local dairy? What if you then knew how to turn that milk into cheese and yogurt and butter with very little effort? What if you had a few chickens in the back yard and woke up to a half dozen eggs each morning? Not to mention if you had even just a small container garden that supplied fresh kale and lettuces every few days. I don’t know about you, but the pandemic really lit a fire under me when it came to localizing what food sources I can and growing my skills to know how to make things if I couldn’t buy them.

I think everyone could use a little bit of a homesteading mindset in them. It’s healing for the land, healthy for our bodies, and good for the soul.

Thank you for being here as I share what I have learned along my journey, and for following along as I continue to grow and learn.

Blessings,

​Danielle