Marie’s Journey

Hi there. I’m a mom of 2 that is passionate about giving my family a homegrown and homemade life. At Frugal Family Farms we garden, raise animals, homeschool and share the lessons of this amazing life with our kids.

I’ve never thought of myself as a homesteader although that seems to be the term these days for someone who grows their own food, raises and butchers their own animals, cooks most things from scratch, preserves food for the lean times, eats seasonally, hangs clothes on a clothesline and homeschools their children. However, I do come from a long line of crazy gardeners and enthusiastic canners. I didn’t grow up living this extreme of a homesteader lifestyle, but I did grow up in a very small town, eating raw vegetables from my grandparents’ garden and running wild in the woods. We lived life as frugally as possible because there wasn’t a lot of money to spare.

Fast forward 15 years to the birth of my first child and I transitioned from working outside the home to a homemaker and mom. I suddenly had more time to garden and preserve, my husband built me a greenhouse for my first Mother’s Day gift and I’m still using it today. I spent several years selling vegetables at a Farmer’s Market and delivering vegetables and eggs to my CSA customers all while toting the kids along. For now, I only garden for my family, to preserve for the off season and am continuously adding to my self-sufficient lifestyle by raising some of our own meat, baking bread, homeschooling kids and a million other things that seem to consume my days.

As a family we are always learning new things, figuring out how to make something cheaper or more resilient and sharing that knowledge with others. The sense of empowerment and confidence that comes with these old-fashioned skills is essential in the uncertain world. I hope you stick around, learn something new and have a few laughs along the way.