Hand-crafted Homestead

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Betsy holds a lamb.

On our small sheep farm in Michigan, we explore traditional arts and crafts.

Neither my husband, Runo Lorentzon, nor I could properly be called part of the “back to the land” movement, or den gröna vågen, which is a Swedish phrase for the same trend and means “the green wave.” Both of us grew up on small farms: I am a native of the northern part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, and Runo spent his first 25 years in the beautiful, lake-studded province of Värmland, Sweden.

As young people, we met in Sweden, where I was visiting relatives, and Runo was a neighbor of my dad’s cousin. Runo and I corresponded a bit after I went home, and when I returned to Sweden the next June, we married, or in the words of the old Scandinavian saying, we “cast our futures into the same bag.”

We decided to establish our permanent home in the United States, and so Runo left his homeland, and we started a new life together on our Coe Creek Sheep Farm, in Tustin, Mich. This is the same farm my Scandinavian great-grandparents established as their homestead more than 100 years ago.

Life Choices

We have never been great planners, and our lifestyle has been more evolution than revolution, but we made several decisions in the beginning that have had far-reaching implications for us, and that were, perhaps, a way of asserting a slightly rebellious streak.

Early in our life together, we decided to not have children. On Runo’s part, this decision was influenced by the pessimistic side of his Nordic character. He does not feel that the world will be a very good place for the generations that follow us. I have a more optimistic outlook, but I have never wanted children of my own. We live in a neighborhood filled with extended family, which has given us many of the joys of parenthood without raising a family ourselves.

Another significant decision we made was to build our own house and to construct as much of it as we could from materials we harvested on the farm. Finally, we decided we would not use poisons to maintain our garden or farm. That has meant growing a large organic garden and raising our sheep on pasture instead of trying to grow grain crops.

Small Spaces

Both of us grew up in traditional farmhouses, but we wanted to build a small house that would have more in common with a north woods cabin. We wanted a home that would be pleasant, cheerful, easy to maintain and conscientious in its use of resources.

The house we built has a main floor that is about 600 square feet, plus a full basement. Our walls are white pine board and batten on the outside — unpainted — with smooth, finished white cedar and pine on the inside. The main floor is one room plus a small bathroom. Our “bedroom” is just a small space separated from the living area by a large, double-sided bookcase. These shelves are a convenient way of storing our many books while also providing a partial screen for our sleeping area.