Since arriving home, we have been reminded of how much work we do around here on a daily basis. Not only do we do the basic chores that most families with kids are required to take care of, the cooking, cleaning, bathing, and entertaining- we mix that with animal chores that anybody who keeps animals knows all about, the feeding, watering, gathering, changing out bedding, and ensuring proper health. We do most of these chores on a daily basis to prevent being backed-up and overwhelmed. When you add on top of the chores, driving the kids to Soldotna for gymnastics (1 hour and 15 minutes each way), going to the pool and doing horseback riding once a week- it starts to add up.

Now, I am not complaining, just stating the facts. I love my life and I thoroughly enjoy the chores, although I don’t always love picking up after my kids a hundred thousand times a day. I am getting better at taking deep breaths and just doing it.

With that being said, we do not make any money doing what was previously mentioned. I am a firm believer in the old saying, “A dollar saved is a dollar earned,” and I know that we save a lot of money by taking care of our own kids, cooking and cleaning up ninety-nine percent of our meals, eating farm fresh eggs (although this costs more than buying them at the store), and taking care of our animals health so as to prevent sickness and disease. But we are not paid by anybody to do these things, which is the point of this blog post.

Our work as a family is vast, and I will name a few financial endeavors that we are currently working on that also take time. I am sending my second book to the editor on April 10th, so I have been anxiously revising 102,000 words to send a polished manuscript. I paid the cover artist and now I need to pay the editor, together it will cost roughly $3,400 for both services. I believe it is well worth it. Either way, I am also working on the Kickstarter Campaign, the Stark Raving Mad newsletter and videos, promoting and advertising Warflower on various platforms, planning a Stark Raving Mad podcast, reading a book by an Alaskan author to review for the newsletter, leaving reviews on other books, listening to self-publishing podcasts for business tips, writing a blog every other week, and dusting off the manuscript of my next book.

That is the work that I put into my writing career. Am I making money? Yes. But not enough to send the kids to college.

We have thousands of seeds planted in flats upstairs that are starting to germinate. Savanna has laid out a digital crop plan on a really cool app through Territorial Seeds. It took her some time to learn the app, but it will eventually save us time and tighten our growing operation. We are going through a big transition on the farm where I am handing over the reins of our finances to Savanna so she can use her OCD skills to better organize and separate business expenses and earnings from personal. She is in charge of weed management and looking into various options for that, as well as seed- saving, crop planning, quality control, and flowers. She is still enrolled in an Ethnobotany course and an Herbalism course, she attends an online class each Monday and does readings and other school work throughout the week. When she is not working on those things or taking care of the kids (she is the lead parent in this duo,) she makes beaded earrings late into the night as I search for Alaskan Bazaars to sell our products. Savanna is also writing articles for the newsletter, tuning up her video editing skills, reading my latest book and reassuring me that I am a great writer (my biggest supporter,) planning podcast episodes, and preparing to sell her earrings in two more local stores.

We have been staying active, no doubt. Not complaining, I know this is a busy time of year for most Alaskans. Whether they are getting boats ready for the season, cleaning rental cabins in preparation for guests, pulling out the packraft and camping equipment, and planting seeds in anticipation of our fast and bright growing season. Spring only lasts for weeks here in Alaska, and then summer is here and we have to be ready.

With all of the action, there are other things that we have to do, and some things that we want to do. I have been shooting twenty arrows each day with a longbow that Savanna bought me for Christmas. We play cards with Primrose, play pretend, play Zelda, play outside, play play play. We snuggle with the girls and watch a movie. We have to change our tires over and do a basic tune-up of our two vehicles, four-wheeler, tractor, and generator. We have to lube up the bikes and pull the trailer out of storage in preparation for bike rides. We have to put away winter gear and pull out summer gear. We have to put the trampoline back on, buy seeds to plant a lawn and a flower garden for the bees, build a playground, and take a minute to step outside into the quiet Alaskan woods and breathe. We have to hope that the little blue stakes on the side of the road with seismic test equipment don’t find natural gas or oil so we don’t end up with a drill rig in our backyard ruining our starry nights and quiet days. Dang, we have a lot going on… why the heck am I taking time to write this?

This is where I must confess, our dear readers and friends, that we are reducing our blog posts to one every other week, and we are giving back the goats to the person who gave them away in the first place. We have written a blog each week for six months, and it has proven to bring a lot of “traffic” to the website but it is not necessarily bringing people to our shop to buy products. Nor can it be proven that our newsletter subscribers are blog readers, so we are slowing down the blog posts in order to pursue other endeavors. Our hope is that we can spend more time growing plants, beading, writing, camping, visiting family and friends, playing guitar in the sun on the beach, and implementing different ideas to make money as a business

We know that you are all sad about it, we are, too. We love writing our weekly blog as a way to stay grounded while reflecting on the week, to keep in touch with family and friends, and to document our rad life for our daughters to read as they get older. We LOVE keeping a secret from each other regarding what we will write about and then being pleasantly surprised when we read. It is what it is. We may pick it up again at the end of the growing season.

So in the meantime, it is a great time to subscribe to our newsletter and not to miss a beat. (Wink wink… see how I did that…)

Maybe you can play a couple of old Bob Dylan albums from the sixties and sit back with your feet up in the sunshine and listen to some profound poetry in action.

Again, we thank you all for the endless support and encouragement!

Until next time,
Much Love!
Robert Stark