Candie is the big sister. As such, she is often found helping others — sometimes more than they want! She loves reading everything from Wendell Berry to Jane Austen, especially in her hammock. When the weather keeps her inside, she usually has a cup of tea in her hand and a handwork basket nearby. Candie enjoys learning about everything, especially theology, local history, genealogy, and sustainable living. She was a 4H fanatic growing up and can’t wait to have goats again! She loves to write and journal, and she blogs at Incandescent Ink.
Bonnie-Jean is the middle child! She loves dogs and is probably being shadowed by one of our Jack Russells, Rascal and Dolly, right now! She is an avid plant lover and can’t wait to have a big garden again. She enjoys being active, whether that means working on the homestead or fitting in a quick HIIT workout. She likes being creative in the kitchen and frequently wows her family with personal recipes. She makes her own beauty treatments and looks forward to growing more of her own ingredients on the homestead!
Grace is the little sister, which means she has the least memory of our childhood hobby farm. As the resident townie, she is looking forward to learning a lot and basically living Stardew Valley in real life! Grace loves people and can usually be found at church whenever the doors are open. She is a coffee drinker and foodie, and she loves creating healthy baked goods for her family. Her idea of the simple life includes plenty of thrifting in small towns. She enjoys photography and never goes far without her camera.
Our Story
Our story begins in the summer of 2020, when we closed our cleaning business after losing half our clients due to Covid-19. We felt that God was closing doors and leading us toward a big life change.
Since we were kids, we dreamed of operating a family homestead. We grew up in rural north Idaho on a 10-acre hobby farm. We milked goats. We raised pigs, rabbits, and chickens for protein. We had a big garden every year, and we helped our mom bake bread, can produce, and make soap. We were homeschooled, which meant we were free to immerse ourselves in the homestead life as much as we wanted. As avid 4H members, we wanted to try everything — enrolling in projects from sewing to market hogs. It was a good life, living as creatures deeply connected with the rest of creation.
We left that way of life when we moved to southwest Missouri in 2003. We had visited the Ozarks years before, as our mom’s family has lived in these hills since they settled here in the early 1800s. We always intended to buy acreage and get back to homesteading, but life happened. We sisters (and our two brothers) were growing up. Our folks bought a house in Branson, and our whole sibling group filed through College of the Ozarks. With our country roots, Candie and Bonnie started as agriculture majors, but college has a way of opening eyes to new interests, and both later graduated with humanities degrees — Candie studied English and print journalism, and Bonnie-Jean philosophy and religion. Grace later pursued Biblical studies, sociology, and rhetoric.
After college, we worked in various fields — hospitality, education, child-care, and eventually house cleaning. We never stopped dreaming of and working toward a family homestead. We bought property in northern Arkansas in 2011, and our brother built a cabin there — but by 2015 we decided to relocate to an area with better economic opportunities. Our family put our land and homes up for sale-by-owner and began a nation-wide search for the perfect piece of land. We took road trips to Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Tennessee. No place seemed right. We prayed like crazy.
Finally, when the pandemic happened, we felt God prompting us to put all our efforts into selling our properties. We sisters still lived with our parents, so we focused on finishing the remodeling work on their home and advertising it online. We spent that summer showing both properties extensively, and in the early fall, both places sold.
At the same time, we fell in love with a mostly-wooded 40-acre parcel in southwest Missouri with a year-round spring. It’s just down the road from the homestead claims of some of our ancestors and their relatives. Our family bought it outright.
While this blog belongs to us sisters, we are joined by the rest of our family in this endeavor. Our parents, Sam and Sandie, our brother Levi and his wife Erin, and our brother Jeremiah will make appearances on the blog now and then.
It’s been an adventure in itself just getting started, but God’s timing is perfect, and this summer we finally broke ground! Follow our journey here on the blog or on our YouTube channel (coming soon!), and connect with us on Facebook and Instagram.
HOMESTEAD SISSIES 