Ridge Haven Homestead

Ridge Haven Homestead Off-Grid Wife Life Blog. Healthy, prepared, frugal, homemade & homegrown, plus cats

06/04/2026

More honest conversation about Empty Nest Life after Homeschooling and homesteading!

I do realize that this group makes up a reasonably small percentage of the population, but… We are a group and I feel like it’s worth having a conversation about what emptiness is like, especially after you have spent so much time together as a family, homesteading, homeschooling, and then you come to the end of your journey and what do you do?

In this video, we are discussing some things that help, including keeping a positive attitude, but also really practical things that can help the day today be a little bit easier.

The emptiest period is a season, just like everything else in life. Seasons come in seasons go, and so that’s good to remember.

Everything does not last forever, including the good and the bad times

I hope that you can take courage from some of the things that we talk about, and I hope that you can share some of your stories as well because we are all here to help each other along this journey of life.

06/02/2026

Facing the Empty Nest after Homeschooling? Here are a few tips that help.

as we continue our discussion about being an empty Nester after homeschooling, especially if you are a family that has lived the rural farm life or Homestead life, I wanted to share a few things that either people have shared with me or that I have found personally that have helped, or are helping.

It seems to me that living in a life on the Homestead with your family a.k.a. a country life, it hits differently because we do so many hard things together that we operate a little bit differently than people who are in school all the time. I’m not saying that the homesteading life is better or worse, I’m just saying that it’s different.

So a few people have reached out to me, and some people have shared their experiences, which I really do appreciate. I hope that this helps you as you navigate the empty nest period of life.

06/02/2026

Aster Yellows disease of coneflowers.

this is just a reminder and revisiting the last real when I talked about Astor yellows, a disease that affects echinacea and other species in that family.

If you see your buds or flowers, looking stranger than usual, it may be after yellows. The only way to combat it is to remove the entire plant, and burn it. They say that it does not spread underground through roots, but bugs can transfer it from one plant to another, so you will want to remove it as soon as you can to prevent infecting your whole crop.

Since I like my Cohen flowers, and since they are doing so well this year, I am pulling the plant that looks strange to me. I have two or three in out they go!

Don’t forget to follow here and on YouTube for all kinds of gardening and off grid homesteading content, with a little bit of crazy cat woman and thrifty on the side.

06/01/2026

Nobody Talks About this part of Empty Nesting

Continuing our conversation about homeschool families and even homesteaders or rural families who reach that empty nest stage…there are things that kind of sneak up on you that people don’t really tell you.

There are times when you’re lonely, bored, or aimless. It’s not because you don’t have things to do. It’s because sometimes it gets boring when you are doing it without the people that you’ve done it with for couple decades.

this isn’t a conversation about complaining, this is just a conversation about sharing and preparing you for some of the changes that might occur when your kids have been a large part of your life by choice and then suddenly you are left on your Homestead and they have gone to make their way in the world.

Unless you think that I’m wallowing and pity, most days I’m not. It’s just a conversation to have because there are days when it does hit you, and I think sometimes these life changes are better when we can open up the dialogue and talk about them more.

We’ve been a rural family for all of our family life. Only in the past eight years have we lived off the grid, but we’ve always done kind of a Homestead kind of lifestyle, and I would not change that one bit.

We wholeheartedly agreed with home-educating our children, the country life, and the benefits of being in a rural setting. It has been a blessing and it still is. We want our home to behaving away from the busyness of the world, and of course we have a different kind of busyness here, but it is different.

It’s good to share. And prepare people for the stage that will come to every family.

Please hear your experiences here and share some of the things that have helped you or even some of the challenges that you have overcome. We can all learn together.

It’s a transition time. Transitions are like growing pains. Inevitable, a little uncomfortable, but necessary. May you be blessed as you transition as well.

05/31/2026

Homesteading, homeschooling, and the Empty Nest phase of life.

When you’re in the thick of things on your homestead and/or in your homeschooling life, it’s easy to ignore that fact this there is an expiration date on all of this busy stuff.

Kids grow up super fast!

I will be talking about the reality of that ending date, and how it can make you fell as a mom. To be perfectly honest, nothing really does prepare you for the empty house, the short car, and the lack of clear direction for your life that used to be completely filled with your children.

All challenges have a purpose, and this one does too.

The important thing is treating it like a major life adjustment and let yourself feel the feelings. Some days, you’ll cheer and celebrate grow g honor your kids, and others you’ll feel those blasted tears trickling down your cheeks again.

You’ll make it, and so will I. One day at a time, with God’s help.

📸 Photo dump of beautiful things from this week!
05/30/2026

📸 Photo dump of beautiful things from this week!

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