Hi Y'all, My name is Harold and I'm an Urban Homesteader!
I like to think i'm a little more than that but that is what I seem to talk most about.
I'm a blogger at http://smalltownhomestead.com and I have a podcast called the Modern Homesteading Podcast.
I'm married to my wonderful wife Mary and have 3 adult daughters and a growing number of grandkids.
My wife and I live in mid-eastern Indiana where we have been since 1993. I grew up living on a small farm where we functioned as a homestead but never called it that, we just called it life. When my wife and I were first married we bought a house in the city limits but always thought it would be temporary and that one day we would buy us a country home.
I started driving a truck for a living at 22 years old and stayed away from home for many days at a time. I bought my own truck and ran a business for 8 years and then took a job with a local company so i could be home every night. As an over the road truck driver I ate fast food several times a week and put on a few extra pounds. A year after I took a local job I was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer, I was 39 years old. I had surgery and they removed a third of my colon, after that I began several weeks of chemotherapy taking my first treatment on my 40th birthday in 2012.
As you can imagine this prompted me to make some drastic lifestyle changes but what was I to do in order to eat healthy? After all we still lived in town and after months off work because of the cancer we could not afford a move to the country to live the lifestyle I knew would help me to eat healthier. So I made the decision to use what we had and not make anymore excuses – It was time to grow a garden!
As I began this journey of homesteading on a “postage stamp” city lot I discovered there was more I could do than I thought. After building my first 6 raised beds filled with vegetables of all kinds and planting fruit trees, berries, a vineyard, and a melon patch; I feel as though I am only getting started. Now we are using this property to raise meat rabbits, fish, quail and even more vegetables as I continue to build more raised beds, plant more fruit trees and more berries.
Why We Started Our Website And Share What We Do
After dreaming of that perfect homestead in the country for many years I am now at the point where I don’t know if I would give up what I have for that place I used to dream about. I feel blessed to have this place and the prolonged days I have been given to work this homestead. Which brings me to why I feel compelled to share what we are doing and plan on doing on this homestead with others. It’s important! we live in a time when the food we are surrounded by in grocery stores and restaurants is unhealthy and in too much volume dangerous, but we can do something about it. We can grow and raise our own and what we can’t do ourselves we can look to others who are doing it and support them. This is what I want to share with the world.
So why did I join Steemit?
Because I heard this is where all the cool kids were hanging out :) and I really want to be a cool kid. I also heard it was a different kind of social media that was going to change the way we interact. Now I've only been here a few days but I can say that I really like it and although I have a lot to learn about this platform I look forward to interacting with folks here and making a few new friends,
I hope you will come on this journey with us and be part of our community, homesteading is a lifestyle of education, skills, and in my opinion enjoyable and sometimes fun. So let’s homestead today for a better tomorrow.
Some of the other places where I hangout:
https://www.facebook.com/smalltownhomestead
http://twitter.com/sthomestead
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+HaroldThornbro-SmallTownHomestead/posts
https://instagram.com/smalltownhomestead/
http://www.pinterest.com/sthomestead/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTTPO4cEU_ZWrrW3RbuuGYQ