Introducing myself, Billy Bob Todd

Hello steem community and thanks for stopping by. I'm @billybobtodd and I just joined steem a couple months ago. I have 5 kids who are my life, 4 boys and 1 girl, ages are 11, 7, 5, 2, and 6 months. They all keep me busy and as a man I must admit, having a daughter is terrifying but at least she has two older brothers and two younger brothers to protect her and help me keep the losers away from her.

My wife and I are originally from the city but we knew that wasn't where we wanted to raise our kids. We have always loved animals and tried to grow as much of our own food as possible. We had big dreams of homesteading and self sufficientcy but very little money so we staked our claim on some family land and built a tiny house.

Living in a tiny house with 4 kids (5th wasn't born yet) was a learning experience. It forced everyone to accept life without much for privacy. We had to be as efficient as possible in all aspects of life because there was no room not to be. It's hard for most nowadays to imagine but the only utility we had was electricity. It was like going back in time which initially we relished but it also made some simple tasks unreasonable which wore us out. It gives you a new respect for what our ancestors went through without all the advantages of technology.

For example washing dishes didn't mean loading a dishwasher and pushing a button. It entailed me hauling water from the nearest pond. Before using the water I had to filter it, boil it to make it sterile, then I soaked the dirty dishes until the water cooled enough for me to be able to wash dishes without burning myself. It could easily take a couple hours of prep before I was even able to actually wash the dishes.

I have always loved problem solving so I enjoyed those early days. It brought me great pride setting up our hillbilly water line. It took days to perfect but once completed I no longer had to haul water. I added a filtration system so I no longer had to do that step either. We still had to boil but I saved my back a lot of pain plus it made the whole process faster, though it was still pretty time consuming.

The first winter was tough and a big eye opener. Once the pond froze my water line was useless. I had to chop through the ice and scoop and haul all over again. As we got deeper into winter I couldn't even chop through the ice anymore. This meant traveling a mile to the nearest hydrant and hauling water back from there. Although it was clean water, I struggled to haul enough for my family and all of our livestock who normally take care of water on their own, when the pond wasn't frozen.

2019 came and we were ready to finally build a house big enough for our family. Unfortunately, life didn't care about my plans and threw a massive curveball. My son was sick and we couldn't find a Doctor that knew what was wrong with him. We were dismissed by many as paranoid parents that were delusional. How I wish they were right. After a dozen visits with various pediatricians and ER doctors he was finally admitted to the hospital on his 2nd birthday. After 3 days of going through every test imaginable we were given the news that shook us to our core. Our son was diagnosed with LCH, a rare blood cancer that spreads rapidly. He has fought it as hard as he can and is making great progress. Now I dream of the day when he is 100% cancer free and done with all the chemo and painful procedures.

In May our fifth child was born prematurely, causing us to live at the hospital for another 11 days while he gained strength in the NICU. Unfortunately the house I promised my wife would be complete before his birth was not done yet so I worked as nonstop as I could to catch up. As soon as electricity was in we moved in. It was still far from done but it was better than living in the tiny house.

I could keep going but I think this is already getting long. Thanks for stopping by and best wishes. I have a lot of good stuff I can post about but rarely have any freetime to do so. I guess that means I may post again tomorrow or due to my chaotic life, it may be a month but hopefully not. I think steemit is a great concept and I am excited to join the community.