Welcome!

Welcome to The Homesteading Hoosier! My name is Lauren and I live on a small farm in Central Indiana with my husband and our son. Our son was born in July 2020 and I am currently enjoying my year-long maternity leave with him. My husband, Ben, is a scientist and when I’m not on maternity leave I teach computer science and math at a local high school where I also support teachers as an instructional coach. We moved to our small farm in 2017 and have worked to make it our own for the past four years. 

I’ve named this blog “The Homesteading Hoosier” because we currently reside in Indiana and, although I’ve only lived in this state (almost) nine years, it is the longest that I have lived in any one state, so I’m claiming myself a Hoosier. Ben is a born and raised Hoosier; we met in undergrad at Marshall University (Go Herd!). My family moved a bit while I was growing up but we spent most of our time in Texas, California, and Pennsylvania. Our farm is small but very full of love and I’ve learned so much in the four years we’ve been here. 

On our homestead we have two dogs, two cats, and six chickens. Inga, our German Shorthaired Pointer, is an excellent upland game hunter and running partner. She is five years old and loves a good snuggle on the couch but knows when she has a job to do. Elsa is an American English Coonhound (or Redtick Coonhound) that we rescued from our local Humane Society when she was approximately 2-4 years old in February 2014. She is a great couch potato and running coach (she enjoys watching and motivating) and is protective of our family and farm. She is great at keeping the coyotes away. Our two cats are Penny and Sheldon and, although they look very different, are litter mates. They were born Memorial Day 2012 and don't have a real job on our farm but Penny keeps the dogs in line. Our flock of chickens has grown and shrunk over the last three years but currently we have six chickens which is a good number for us and our needs. We have three Plymouth Barred Rocks: Buffalo, Patty, and HeiHei. These three, along with our Silver Laced Wyandotte, Bossy, were part of our original flock. We have two Black Sexlink chickens, KC and Loretta Hen, that we added in the spring of 2019. We hope to add additional animals (maybe mules or donkeys) in the future but we will need to build a barn first. 

Ben is excellent at projects and even though I tease him for over-engineering many a project, his construction and home improvement projects have added so much life to our house and backyard. He built a small greenhouse that we use for storage in the winter but also helps start plants each spring. He really is the green-thumb of the two of us but is always willing to help me out. Each summer we grow a variety of veggies that tends to change every year, but our most prolific and consistent crop is horseradish. I will do a post devoted to our horseradish plants later, but my late paternal grandfather grew his own horseradish and it is a family tradition that I love to carry on. 

The purpose of this blog is to share my experience on our farm, projects we complete, and general updates on our homestead. I hope you enjoy following along!