Our Story – The Short Version

In 2014, after I took an adventure in farming for a couple years, and only a year into dating Anthony, we bought our first home on five acres in Northwest Oregon, outside the small town of Rainier. We knew we wanted to live in a rural environment, where I could grow food and Anthony could enjoy the privacy and natural setting. We also knew that we had little (Anthony) to no (Jess) experience in rural living! So we set out to find a home that was more or less move-in ready where we could focus our immediate efforts in building a productive homestead.

Unfortunately we were hit immediately with a huge setback. We had been misled about the quality of the property’s well and the day we got the keys knew that something was terribly wrong with the water. Unable to drink it, scrambling to find answers, we eventually found out that we were moving into a property with no available fresh water source and there was no going back…

It’s been an immensely stressful journey learning how to live here, let alone pursue our original goals of homesteading. From hauling all our water to the property in 5 gallon containers, to starting a family, to reality television, our situation continues to evolve.

Thank you for visiting our site! I hope that you can learn something from our experiences or just enjoy the stories as we share our challenges, successes and everything in between.

Please feel free to comment if there is any particular topic you’d like to hear from us about!

-The Ahola Family,

Jess, Anthony and Eivin