 Hello!
I'm Laura—off-grid homesteader, mother, and printmaker living in the forests of northeastern Estonia.
My life moves with the seasons: winters find me in my studio carving woodblock prints by candlelight, while summers are spent in the garden, hands in soil, growing the food that nourishes my family year-round. It's a rhythm that feels both ancient and revolutionary—tending land, raising a child, creating art, all woven together into one integrated life.
This isn't the path I was born into. It's the one I've been building toward since I was fourteen years old.
I was fourteen when everything shifted.
My parents sent me to an eco horse camp deep in a European forest, organized by hosts who lived in two yurts beside a lake—a semi-wild, off-grid life completely in tune with nature. We swam in cold water each morning. We ate real, nourishing food together as ritual. We gathered for stories before sleep under canvas, listening to the forest breathe around us.
For two weeks, I lived in a world where life felt purposeful. Connected. Whole.
Going back to my "normal" life afterward was heartbreaking. I'd glimpsed something I couldn't unsee—a way of living that felt truer, deeper, more alive than what I'd been told life should look like.
I was just a teenager, so I had to continue on the expected path: the track everyone around me was on. I loved my childhood garden and the adventures it held, but I carried that forest experience like a compass pointing toward something else. A different future I couldn't yet name but knew I needed to find.
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The Journey
The moment I turned eighteen, I started searching.
Every summer, I traveled and volunteered on homesteads and farms throughout Europe—Ireland, Norway, Sweden, northern Estonia, and six months in Portugal where I completed my Permaculture Design Certificate. I visited intentional communities, natural building projects, forest schools. I met people living outside the conventional script: growing their own food, building their own homes, raising children in rhythm with the land.
Everywhere I went, I observed. I took mental notes. I learned what worked and what didn't. I saw beautiful systems and costly mistakes. I collected pieces of a vision for my own future—a place where art and permaculture would intertwine, where beauty and productivity wouldn't be separate, where life could be both creative and grounded.
Before Estonia, I practiced on my grandparents' unused garden space, turning it into my permaculture laboratory. I made so many mistakes. I grew impressive-looking unusual plants that didn't actually feed anyone. I learned the hard way about time management, crop selection, and what "productive" actually means when you're trying to feed a family, not just experiment.
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Then we found our land in Estonia. Finally, a place to make the vision real.
But reality hit fast. Now I wasn't just a dreamy volunteer learning from other people's established systems—I was responsible for designing and building my own, from scratch, in a harsh climate with limited resources. And then our daughter arrived, and suddenly I was juggling multiple systems simultaneously: food growing, income generation, building projects, creative work, parenting, and trying to figure out what to prioritize first.
The romantic vision met the grinding reality of limited time, limited money, limited energy, and a steep learning curve.
But over time, something shifted. I stopped trying to do everything and started designing strategically. I learned to observe before building permanent structures. I figured out what foundation systems enabled everything else. I discovered how to integrate food production with income streams with shelter—making everything work together instead of competing for my attention.
I learned that successful homesteading wasn't about grinding harder—it was about thinking strategically. Prioritizing wisely. Building in phases. Letting systems support each other.
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Our homestead stopped being an overwhelming dream I was failing at and became what I'd always envisioned: a resilient, integrated system that sustains us—food security, income from our cabin and creative work, affordable buildings we constructed ourselves—all while maintaining the beauty and peace that makes it worthwhile.
Today, our homestead sustains us—year-round food from our garden, income from our cabins and creative work, buildings we constructed ourselves with natural materials. But more than that—it's become a life I want to live, not one I'm surviving.
My daughter plays freely in the garden pathways. Our guests experience the off-grid life in our handcrafted cabins. I create art in my studio. When I look out from our windows, I see integrated systems working together—abundance that doesn't exhaust me.
Our homestead is beautiful. It's productive. And it doesn't demand more than I have to give.
That's not because I have endless time, unlimited money, or superhuman energy. It's because I finally learned to design strategically, prioritize ruthlessly, and let integrated systems do the heavy lifting.
I believe homesteads should work with you, not against you.
I'm driven by the memory of that fourteen-year-old girl sitting by a forest lake, sensing that life could be different. And by the countless people I meet who are burning out trying to live that different life the hard way—grinding themselves down, going broke, making expensive mistakes in pursuit of a dream that's supposed to be about resilience and peace.
Ready to design a homestead that sustains you without exhausting you?
Join me in Designing Your Self-Sufficient Homestead, where I teach the strategic frameworks that help you prioritize wisely, integrate systems effectively, and build resilience without the costly mistakes that stop most beginners.
Want to follow the journey?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel The Land of Slow Living for weekly glimpses into our off-grid homestead build—the real journey of creating food systems, natural buildings, and integrated income streams in northern Estonia.
Looking for beautiful reminders of why you're doing this?
Browse my woodblock prints—each one a celebration of homestead life, slow rhythms, and living close to the land.
A free 5 day video series on how to prioritize wisely, integrate systems effectively, and build resilience without the costly mistakes that stop most beginners.
Our journey of building our off-grid homestead in the North-East of Europe, with tips, insights and reflections on living an intentional life on the land
Browse my woodblock prints—each one a celebration of homestead life, slow rhythms, and living close to the land.
