Settling Into the Slow Season: Our First November on the Homestead

There’s a certain magic to experiencing your first November on a new homestead. Just a few days ago, a thin dusting of snow—barely a quarter inch—fell across the property. It wasn’t much, but for us it was enough to mark a milestone: our first real taste of winter settling in. The farms around us have finished their harvests, leaving the fields empty and wide, the kind of open landscape that feels both peaceful and humbling when you’re still getting used to rural life.

Our own garden, which carried us through the late summer and fall, is fully harvested now. The once-busy beds stand quiet, waiting for next year’s plans that we’re still learning how to make. Down by the little creek, deer have started bedding in for the season, leaving trails through the leafless trees. And along the windbreak, walnuts cover the ground—a new detail we’re learning to expect and appreciate as we discover the rhythms of this land.

As colder days move in, our kitchen shifts right along with them. BBQ nights have given way to soups, stews, and slow-cooked meals that fill the house with warmth. Evenings have taken on a cozy, almost ritualistic feel: fireplace lit, the two of us tucked beneath the crochet blankets my wife made, listening to the wind outside while the house settles around us. It’s simple, but it’s the kind of simple we used to daydream about before we got here.

Being in our first year, everything is still new—every change in the weather, every sound at night, every small discovery on the property. There’s a learning curve in every direction, but there’s joy in it too. This slower season is giving us time to pay attention, to listen, and to start understanding how this place moves through the year. It’s teaching us patience and presence in ways we didn’t expect, and we’re grateful for it.