Considering other people on the homestead!

I just have to get this off of my chest!

I have a friend that is an over the road trucker. He is only home on the weekends. He is married and his wife has a full time job as well as taking classes to finish her master degree. They have two children that are just over a year old and they spend their days in day care.

Now don’t get me wrong here I am not saying that any of that is a bad thing! You have to do what you have to do to get money. But there is apart of this story that I do have a problem with. I have tried to express my concerns with him but they have fallen on deaf ears.

It has always wanted to have a homestead after he got out of the Army but it was not his wife’s dream. But she went along with it because she wanted to support her husband. I have to commend her for that!

So now he has his own property and he now raises goats! When he first told me that I was like alright buddy! But at that time their was always someone at home to take care of the goats. But time has changed and they both had to get a job.

Like I said before there is nothing wrong with that! But here is were I’m seeing the problem that I told you that I talked to him about.

He is an over the road trucker that is only home on the weekends. His wife works all day then goes to night classes to finish her degree. He then picks up her children a 7pm then goes home. She then has to start dinner, give the children baths, get the kids ready for bed, do her school work, then after all of that she has to go out and take care of the animals. Now if you only have a couple of goats that would not be that big of a deal but they are up to 57 of them. But now my friend keeps getting more goats with out even talking to his wife first. He has not taken into consideration what type of work load that he is putting on his wife. Not to mention if any thing happens to one of the animals when they are gone. The animal won’t even be found until about 9 at night when his wife checks on them. She has said many times to us as well as him that this was his dream not hers.

I just want people that are thinking about living this life style to know it is a group effort. You have to be considerate of the other people in your family. You have to know that what ever you are doing that everyone can handle it. You have to be will and able to listen to the other members of your family and you have to be willing to compromise with one another. When you become a homesteader you and your family now become a team. If you can’t work with the team you will fail! If you think you can make a decision with out talking it over with at lest your wife or husband first you will fail! Every decision you make on your homestead does and will affect someone else in your family.

Thank you for reading my post and I hope that it helps at lest one person out there.