Julie Helms

Early on in life I developed a love for animals. Starting at the age of 12 I began volunteering at vet clinics and animal shelters.  During my summers I volunteered full time with animals, plus we had a menagerie of cats and dogs at home.  My early goal was to become a veterinarian.  I entered college in the pre-vet program, but the chemistry and calculus quickly did me in.

I graduated with a degree in Biology and got my first job as manager of an SPCA animal shelter.  It was an unusual shelter in that in addition to accepting cats and dogs, it also took farm animals.  This was my first exposure to farm life and I have never looked back!

Eventually through the SPCA I was sworn in as an officer to uphold the animal cruelty section of the criminal code in Pennsylvania.  Cruelty work was a terrible job but I did win every case I took to court.

Soon after, I was married and when I started my family I stopped working outside the home.  We bought our first farm– a late 1600s Pennsylvania Dutch fieldstone farmhouse on 7 acres.  Can you say Money Pit!  We taught ourselves how to raise sheep, chickens and rabbits for food. We planted a half-acre vegetable garden and I read books on how to can and preserve food.  The seeds of self-reliance had been sown!

As my older daughter approached school age this thing called homeschooling began to get my attention.  At first I dismissed it because everyone knows homeschooling families must make their own bread and all wear matching jumpers, neither of which I was interested in.  As the horror of our local public school began to press in on me, I decided to take a little closer look. Getting past the stupid stereotypes, I was sold!  I ended up homeschooling both of my girls from the beginning for 11 years plus several years of cyberschool.

In those early days I spent so much time researching curriculum and encountering many frustrations at having to order everything online or through catalogs sight unseen, that I started my first local homeschooling curriculum consignment shop.  Homeschoolers consigned the curriculum they had completed, then bought more for the next year. They loved being able to handle and compare curriculums right in front of them.  It is a great system.

Over the years, my husband’s career as a pharmaceutical scientist moved us several times.  Each place we parked, I opened a new store.  We have finally landed in South Central Pennsylvania, where I hope to stay for good.  I opened my 4th shop here on our property in 2002, the Pennsylvania Curriculum Exchange.  I now have over 22,000 volumes: new and used homeschool curricula, classic books and educational manipulatives. Owning my own business has just been wonderful.

We also live on a hobby farm of 8 acres where we raise Corriedale sheep for meat and wool, chickens for the eggs and several Nubian/Boer goats that I hope to teach myself how to milk this spring…we’ll see!

One goal my husband and I always had was to be debt free, including the mortgage.  We achieved this goal in 2002 (after 12 years of marriage) and have since purchased outright a small second property–a hunting cabin on 11 acres, all wooded.

My most recent endeavor has been writing. After being completely intimidated in high school by a critical English teacher, I avoided it for decades.  Several years ago I joined Helium.com, a non-threatening platform to express oneself.  I even used a pseudonym just in case it went as badly as my teacher forecasted.  Turns out I LOVE to write!  I have fared well at Helium, even being invited to contribute to several projects (for real money!) and became the Channel Manager for Pets and Animals. I was also chosen as an editor.

I am a guest contributor on several blogs and just recently began one of my own, chronicling the daily work and humor of living on a hobby farm.  I am thrilled to now join with the team here at Self Reliance Works. I hope to contribute on the topics of hobby farming, homeschooling and running a business from home.

Ultimately my reliance is completely on God who has sustained and blessed my family. He has given us a beautiful earth of which I feel strongly we are responsible to be good stewards.  As for self-reliance, that would be in terms of independence from the world and its systems.  We are not totally free of this, and I’m not sure this is even completely possible in our society, but each day is a step toward becoming increasingly self-sufficient and more self-reliant.