An Interview With Taryn Kae Wilson, Modern Homesteader of the Siuslaw River

1. Tell us about the daily life of artists and country homesteaders. What does a typical day look like? How does it change with the seasons?

Our daily life is a blend of homesteading and creating for our business. We are constantly balancing these two things. What’s so nice about working from home is that our schedule is flexible so it flows smoothly with the seasons.

A typical day starts with a hearty breakfast. Then milking our goats, making goat cheese and kefir, gathering eggs, caring for the animals (feeding, trimming hooves), watering the garden and harvesting, cooking and culturing foods, hanging clothes to dry, Jeff carving and creating in his workshop, and me loading new items on our online etsy store.

Depending on the season other daily additions may be fires in the woodstove, cutting and hauling firewood, harvesting at local farms, and planting, weeding and spending lots of time in the garden.

On a weekly basis, we sell our artwork at Eugene Saturday Market. Typically, we take one trip to town a week (besides our market day) to run errands. The rest of the time, we like to focus our energy at home.

Daily life is a lot of work, but it’s filled with things that we love, so working hard is a joy.

2. Share the story of your homestead on the Siuslaw. How did you come to be there? What are some of the things you have done there? What are your dreams for the future?

Jeff has lived here longer than I have. We were both drawn here strongly. Once we met, we were like magnets and we’ve been here together ever since. This land is our favorite place on earth. When they say “there’s no place like home”, it truly feels that way for us.

It’s so much fun to think about all the projects we’ve done here together. Working so hard around here towards shared goals has made us a very strong team.

Firstly was a lot of clearing and hauling out of excess stuff that had accumulated over the years. We cleared off the land and cleared out the house. We cleaned and organized like crazy. Then we built a small coldframe in the garden with recycled windows and raised plant beds throughout the garden with bricks we got for really cheap from our neighbor. We painted almost every room in the house and textured the walls in the entire upstairs. We tore out the old ceiling in the music room and put up recycled cedar barnwood boards. Then we built a large woodshed with wood we sustainably harvested from this land and recycled materials. We built a greenhouse with recycled windows and a goat barn. We refurbished an old building into a chicken coop (and tore down the old one.) We put up fencing for a chicken yard, goat yard, and large garden area. We’ve done a lot of landscaping. Those are just a few of the things we’ve done, there have been a lot of wonderful changes!

We have lots of dreams for the future. We dream of planting a huge blueberry patch. We also want to plant grapes. We would like to start raising honeybees again someday and we’d like to get some ducks for slug control. We have an old greenhouse we want to tear down, arbors we want to built, and much more landscaping we want to do. Jeff dreams of having a solar powered water pump so we can pump all the water from our well with renewable energy. We dream of being off grid and we dream of building our own eco-friendly home and recycling the parts from this one. It’s so fun to dream and to create them one day at a time!

3. Tell us about the art that you and Jeff create. What is the Saturday Market vending experience like?

Jeff and I both love artwork and love to create things with our hands. I am not currently selling any of my artwork, I just do it from time to time for fun. My favorite art forms these days are needle felting with wool and drawing. Jeff creates artwork for our business, Mystic Orb. I help him when it comes to the writing on the signs, designs and different things like that. I like to think that he has a magical workshop and I am a little elf helper.

Jeff creates artwork with all natural materials- wood, stone, antler, feathers etc. He makes necklaces, earrings, spoons, buttons, signs, journals, pipes, walking sticks and anything else he happens to come up with that day.

We love having a booth at the Saturday Market. It keeps getting more and more fun all the time. In the beginning, we hardly knew anyone, but over time we have made so many friends and the market continues to become a more colorful experience all the time. Being a part of the market is being a part of a wonderful community. There is so much trading and bartering, connection, creativity, collaboration, inspiration and soul!

Doing the market is also a lot of work. I admire everyone who sells there because I now understand firsthand all the hard work involved. Creating your stock, setting up your booth, tearing it down, constantly changing your display, pricing… It is all so worth it to work for yourself! At the market, you are not only the maker, but you are also the seller. Jeff and I both love people and we love talking with everyone who comes by our booth. It’s fun when people return because they know what a friendly place it is.

4. What do you do to live simply and lightly on the earth?

There’s a lot of little things we do.

We hang our clothes to dry- in the winter by the woodstove, in the summer outside on the line. We hand wash our dishes and let them air dry. We organize our trips to town so we drive as little as possible. We grow and produce a lot of food on this land- vegetables, fruit, eggs and goat milk. We constantly buy more of our food from local farms. We bring our own water with us when we leave the house. We use cloth bags for groceries. We cook most of our meals at home. We use a hand lawnmower to mow our grass (or let the animals graze.) We use recycled materials for building projects. We cut up old t-shirts with holes and turn them into rags for cleaning. Most of the wood we use for our business is local and sustainably harvested or reclaimed.

We are constantly coming up with new ideas for living in a more environmentally friendly way. We know many people with this similar passion and get lots of ideas from them as well. (people like Lara!) 🙂

5. What inspires you most?

There are so many things in life that inspire me. One of the things that inspires me most is being in nature. I feel the most alive when I’m outside. Also, other people who shine their light and live from their hearts inspire me. Bright colors inspire me. Good food inspires me. Seeing people’s faces light up with joy inspires me. Music inspires me. (looks like I could keep going and going.) Life inspires me!

6. Give us a peek into your kitchen. What are your favorite things to cook? Tell us about the role and soul of food in your lives. Your favorite farms?

Our kitchen is alive with experiments and new creations all the time. If you peeked into our kitchen you might see- goat cheese hanging from a peg, dripping yellow whey into a bowl. Goat’s milk kefir fermenting in the corner. Jeff’s latest batch of sauerkraut and pickles, growing tastier by the day. Beans and grains soaking or cooking away on the stove. Nutrient dense bone broth brewing in the crockpot. Herbs from the garden hanging to dry. Effervescent, fermented drinks (kombucha and water kefir) ready to drink on a hot day. Colanders of brightly colored garden produce about to be washed in the sink. Flats of berries we’ve picked at local farms, waiting to be frozen, fermented, dried or canned. A basket of eggs from our happy hens.

We love our kitchen to be a colorful place filled with savory scents. Food plays a big role in our life, so many of our homesteading activities revolve around it. We put a lot of time and energy into producing food on this land and we love to harvest food from local farms. When it comes to food, we like to eat foods close to their natural state. We love fresh foods with life force and we love fermenting foods. This is what makes our bodies feel alive, healthy and full of vitality. This is how we like to feel. I’ve found that eating locally, with the seasons, makes you enjoy and appreciate what you’re eating so much more.

Our favorite farm for local meat is Deck Family Farm. We love their down-to-earth family and their wide range of healthy, pastured and grass-fed meats.

7. What are some of your plans and dreams for starting your family on your homestead? What things about raising children are you most looking forward to?

I am pregnant for the first time and loving every moment. This will be my husband Jeff’s second child. For most of his life he had multiple jobs outside of the home. We absolutely love being able to work from home now. This is one of the things that we are looking forward to the most- that we will both be able to be home to raise our baby. We are living the life we love and it feels great. We’re grateful to share this life we love so much with our baby. We are happy to be able to raise this baby in the country and provide space to run, play and explore. We want our child to have a close connection with nature. We want to feed our child nutritious food so they will grow healthy and happy.

I am looking forward to being reminded of the joys of being a child. When I was a kid I found so much joy in my imagination and playing. I enjoy bursts of this in adulthood, but know that having children around will bring this out even more. I love the way that children look at life and I feel this perspective with be so beneficial for mine.

I am looking forward to being a mom. I feel it will be the most sacred job I ever do.

8. Share some tips for cultivating a joyful life.

I’ve realized that being joyful is a choice. I’ve lived in misery and I’ve lived in bliss. The difference was what I chose to focus on and learning to live from my heart. When you let your divine spirit fully express itself, your joy will radiate! It’s so simple- do what you love and your heart will be happy. Ask yourself- What do you love? Do these things often! They will make your Spirit happy!

Joy is based on gratitude. Be grateful for every little thing in your life and say thanks.

Every night, before I go to bed, I write down ten things I’m grateful for from that day. This has given me a new, refreshing perspective on life. I’ve realized how incredibly blessed I am and the more I notice, the more good things that come my way.

Be loving towards yourself so you will experience joy. Be loving towards your body. Take good care of yourself. Treat yourself like the sacred being that you are.

And feel free to let your light shine! The world needs it!

9. Describe your favorite outdoor places to visit and spend time in nature.

My first favorite place is this land. It feels like a power spot for me. This is where I rejuvenate and energize, where I feel grounded, rooted and balanced. This is the place where I feel the most like myself, the most connected. I love to be in the garden, I love to sit on the roots of the mossy maple tree and I like to gaze up in wonder at the majestic cedar. I enjoy hiking up the mountain behind our house with the dogs. There is a tree I like to stop at because it is always covered in sweet sap and I like to go and smell it every time I pass. I love picking huckleberries there and keeping my eyes peeled for chantrelles. I listen to the creaking tree in the forest and try to remember which one it is again. When I get to the top, I gaze at all the mountains around me and feel in awe of how beautiful the world is.

Other places I love to visit are all local. I love Sweet Creek Falls. It’s such a magical place, filled with refreshing waterfall mist (heavenly on a hot day.) I love going to the ocean. I always feel so good at the ocean. I like to feel the sand on bare feet and dip my toes in the water. I like to lay on the warm earth and listen to the waves. There are also some favorite places along the Siuslaw River. One is a place I like to go, sit on the rocks and watch the river. The other is a favorite place for swimming. Sometimes tiny fish come and nibble on my toes which tickles like crazy.

But no matter where I go, I love being outside!