Skip to Content

Get to Know Quinn from Reformation Acres

This Month’s Teacher Spotlight

Homesteading is of great interest to our community, in fact in one form or another, it’s what Rootsy is all about.

This month, we are honored to present a teacher whose experience and background will highlight the work, challenges, and joy needed to be a homesteader. Quinn Veon has over 10 years of hands-on knowledge working her small farm and shares ideas on her successful website, Reformation Acres.

Teacher Spotlight - Meet Quinn from Reformation Acres. She's teaching the Homestead Management Printables Class this month on Rootsy.org

Quinn likes to say her organizational skills were born from years of trial and error on the farm and once she started realizing the value of using management tools, she created them for her own personal use. After seeing how motivational they were and how much they contributed to the efficiency of her own homestead, Quinn began helping others and sharing how she manages her daily routine.

You’ll find that Quinn’s course introducing her Homestead Management Printables will make a great addition to your homestead, no matter the size.

Meet Quinn Veon…

What course are you teaching on Rootsy/What ebook are you contributing to Rootsy? Give us a brief outline.

Over the years I’ve learned that homesteading can be much more than a hobby, yet we often treat it like one which makes our farms less productive than they could be. I’ve also learned that homesteading can be expensive and it’s difficult to retain all of the details from each year in our minds, and even more difficult to get tasks done when they are supposed to be with everything else we all have going on in our lives. I learned to start taking notes, keeping records and making schedules.

I found that not only was my homestead running more smoothly, but I was also learning how much it really cost and found ways to start saving money. When I couldn’t remember the details of how I dealt with a problem or which solutions were successful and which were failures, I could reference my notes. My Homestead Management Printables made running our homestead happen more smoothly and they will for yours too.  

How long have you been homesteading?

We started homesteading about 10 years ago when we planted our first garden. Shortly after that, we added a flock of laying hens and slowly grew our homestead after that to what it is today.

What aspects of homesteading are you most interested in? Animals, gardening, cooking from scratch, foraging, DIY?

Homesteading certainly isn’t a hobby that allows for much boredom! You can be interested in so many things at the same time. But I’m particularly excited about managing cows in a way that rebuilds the pasture land, gardening nutrient-dense food that creates an environment for the soil life to thrive, soap making with natural and herbal ingredients, and seasonal cooking that brings all of the other facets of our homestead together in the kitchen.

What drove you to begin homesteading? What was your inspiration or push for this lifestyle?

We were drawn to this life for many reasons. We wanted our children to learn the value of meaningful work and foster a connection to the land. We were also recognizing the dangers of our modern food system and wanted to opt-out. In our area, there was no local food movement at the time so that meant raising and growing food ourselves.

How did you pick up your homesteading skills?

I like to joke that we are Google Farmers. The internet has been such a blessing as we have sought to acquire forgotten skills. But more recently I’ve learned the value of what it is to live in a community of like-minded folks who share their knowledge and experience and how much more we can grow because we’re part of that.

How has homesteading transformed your life?

Homesteading has caused me to be more mindful, more appreciative of the natural world. It has taught me to redeem my time and reevaluate how I use the precious hours in each day. Homesteading has decreased our food budget, improved the food that gets served on our table and made our lives full of good, hard work.

What’s your best piece of advice for a beginning homesteader? How does one avoid overwhelm when getting back to their roots?

My number one tip is to start slow. So many folks get burned out by all of the work when you get started. Learn one thing at a time, do it well… and when it’s just another part of your daily routine start planning on your next addition.

You’re teaching a course on organizing your homestead. Give us a taste of your course/ebook… what students walk away with?

The Homestead Management Printables are an attractive and motivational way to keep your home and farm organized. By using a Homestead Management Binder to keep track of your production and expenses you can minimize costs by finding where you could improve yields or reduce costs. Use the pages to schedule tasks and record observations and more. All of these things work together to make the job or running a homestead easier and less stressful.

If you could give just one piece of advice on organizing your home/farm/life, what would it be?

Even if you track nothing else at first, start by keeping a homesteading journal. Just a few notes jotted down of what you did that day. Not only does this help you identify and become more mindful of the rhythms of life on your homestead, but it can serve as a tool to know what things you’re doing that worked or didn’t work. It might be years before you need the information again and you may have forgotten it by then. If your notebook is handwritten it’s a good idea to transcribe it to your computer or even use a note-taking app on your phone so that your notes are easily searchable. 

Links:

Please give us links to your website, ebooks, and social media links so we can visit you! 

Website: Reformation Acres
Reformation Acres Facebook Page
Reformation Acres Pinterest
Reformation Acres Instagram Account
On Just a Couple Acres Youtube Channel
Products you sell: Cake Stand: Fresh From the Market Farmstead Cakes and Farmstead Pie

Teacher Spotlight - Meet Quinn from Reformation Acres. She's teaching the Homestead Management Printables Class this month @ Rootsy.org

Save

Thanks for sharing!