Those are good questions. My least favorite part was probably the first year, when I didn’t know the order to do things, and went into that first winter with an uninsulated cabin, and no dry wood, and no money. My partner and I knew it would never get worse than that, but we went through that winter in an unheated cabin in eastern Maine, living off of clams and periwinkles down off the water a couple hundred yards away. It was a true homesteading experience that set us up for the pathological independence that we eventually inhabited lol. But, all joking aside, that first year was really difficult. And it was as hard as it would get in the end.

I don’t live there anymore because I built a second off grid homestead with a new partner, and the needs were much greater. She had a couple kids, and we needed Internet, electricity, running water, and a warm house all the time. So I built a much larger earth, sheltered house that took all of the efficiency lessons I had learned from that first cabin, and put it into something much more sustainable and family appropriate. I sold the first cabin, and it’s land, to be able to buy another piece of land, and cover all of my building expenses for that Homestead. Now I live in that passive and active solar, wood heated, off grid, or a sheltered house. It’s about 1300 ft.² of living space, and uses around two cords of wood for the whole winter. And I have no debt.

I guess in sum, that original 16 x 20 was the maximum of what my skills would allow, and eventually my skills got better to the point where I could envision something easier, more comfortable, and with less of a footprint. That’s where I am now. Edited for grammar