How Hometeading is like Natural Childbirth… (according to a guy)

I know. I’m a guy. I have no idea what natural childbirth feels like. Stop the emails 🙂

But I do have a good resource when it comes to knowing what natural childbirth is like. My wife.

K has had three natural childbirths. I have been there through all of them. The 24 hour first one, the pleasantly shorter six hour one of my second, and the one where I was driving down the Highway while my wife was delivering the third herself… In the back of the van.

Here is what I’ve gathered. Natural Chidbirth is REALLY HARD.

That sound about right, ladies?

But the rewards that come with it make it an incredible experience.

So how is pushing a baby out of your body like homesteading…?

This morning we were sitting at the breakfast table eating an awesome breakfast of crisp bacon, cheesy eggs, and warm toast. It was snowing outside, the fire was burning behind us, and we were gazing out of our large dinning room window watching the snow fall. It was wonderful.

“This is the sweet reward of homesteading” I said to my wife.

“Bacon from our pigs, fresh baked bread, a warm fire. This is why I love homesteading. These are the rewards.”

“They are nice,” she replied, “but hard earned.”

She’s right.

Just that morning we had rushed outside before the snow started to finish bringing in our firewood, which was outside the garage. It was in a pile. We had split the wood weeks previous, after felling the trees, cutting logs, and piling them to dry. Days worth of work. And now we were enjoying the warmth of the fire by the breakfast table.

Eating bacon, the best bacon I’ve ever had, of course, because that summer we had raised 9 pigs, spent 5 months cleaning, moving, feeding, and caring for them. Afternoons were spent moving literal TONS of feed by hand. Pastures were planted and ruined. And lots of poop shoveled.

Homesteading is really hard. Sometime so hard that you want to quit.

During the throws of labor pangs, without the dulling of a epidural, my wife has said she couldn’t do it, that she wanted to quit. But that euphoric moment when shes’ done and she’s holding one of our little babies afterward, she has described it as one of the most amazing moments in life.

So, in a little way, I get to experience that when all my hard work culminates, into a farm raised bacon egg and cheese on homemade bread, enjoyed while overlookinig my homestead, with the fire warming me.

Homesteading is a reward hard earned. Like a baby in the back of a van. Kinda.