Homesteading means a lot of different things depending on who you ask.
For some people it’s a picture-perfect life with acres of land and endless projects. For others it’s a trend, or an aesthetic.
For me, it’s something quieter — and a lot less glamorous.
What it means to me
Homesteading to me is a simpler life. Closer to nature and God. Not wasting things and using them more than once. We live in a very disposable world. Its about self sufficiency and not even full sufficiency just doing more for yourself. Cooking bread from scratch, its so good and no preservatives!
You don’t have to fully homestead either, for me I don’t have my forever country home but on just a quarter acre we have 3 garden beds like pictured above for vegetables, a raspberry patch next to our garage and a whole garden bed of strawberries. Last year we ate bowls and bowls of strawberries (all our kids devour them!)
On another point about doing more for yourself, homesteading is learning to maintain all your things, cars, tools and all the maintenance that goes with those things. Working with your hands is so rewarding. When the snowblower runs when its -20 out at 4 am because you took the time to grease the axles, startup and adjust the carbonator and put fresh gas in it long before it got cold. That’s rewarding to know it will start every time, because you didn’t just pay someone to fix and maintain it, you, yourself where the one that got it done. We live in a world of high prices, and honestly laziness. My dad took my moms car in a few weeks ago and complained it would be 800 to figure out what was going on with the power steering, I would have just done some research online and saved 800 bucks. My labor is free, and yours is too. It feels like prices are high partly because fewer people do things for themselves anymore. Its sad really, in a world ripe with information about anything, most of us choose to learn nothing.
This all leads to capability instead of dependency. I hate depending on anyone but myself. It’s rewarding to see the garden in peak growing season. Picking bowls of fresh produce, directly from our garden in your own backyard. That’s true pride and rewarding. There is nothing rewarding going to the grocery store, your just spending money. Sure it’s hard work, but its rewarding and fulfilling. Something we lack in modern society.
What it doesn’t mean.
Homesteading doesn’t always mean your living purely off the land. To me homesteading is maybe a small garden in your backyard, and a few chickens for fresh eggs on the daily. We would all love to live on acres of land with animals, a personal orchard and a huge garden. To me even if your just doing a little gardening, maybe make a few food staples from scratch, its a start!
Homesteading is hard, the internet would make you believe its easy. It is not. I’ve had years where our whole garden was wiped out in a single night, bad weather, pest problems and sometimes plants just don’t do well. I’ve made sourdough bread time and time again the same way, only for it to just decide its not going to rise, but you learn and start over and sometimes you have to go right back to the start. That’s life, and homesteading.
It doesn’t mean having it all figured out. It doesn’t mean rejecting modern life entirely. And it definitely doesn’t mean pretending everything is peaceful and perfect. Sometimes all hell breaks loose, all at once, and you just have to smile and enjoy the ride!
Were I’m actually at
I’m not what you would call a true “Homesteader” But I’ve started on our small quarter acre lot in town. We grow enough vegetables to make salsa, freeze tons of berries, and veggies. We started making a lot of the main staples we eat all the time like bread, tortillas, we also started making healthy kefir water (no soda in this house).
Someday id love to leave the town behind and homestead but I think for now its good to do things you would have to do if you where truly out in the county with some land. Its good practice for the future, once we get there! Better than doing nothing for yourself.
We where never rich with 5 kids, we live a normal middle class life. We live close to paycheck to paycheck. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes you have to say no a lot. People sometimes ask me how I got so smart, I say “Have you ever been broke?” We had to work for everything we have, that meant doing upgrades to our home with our own two bare hands. When we bought our house the yard was a mess, devoid of anything beautiful. We put in garden beds, flower beds all over our yard, bushes around the perimeter of our lot, a big old wood shed for drying firewood, cut down multiple dead trees. Every time I sit in my backyard I think man we have come a long way.
Why it matters anyway
For me getting back to nature, touching the earth really helped quell some of my demons of growing up. I’ve always had this draw to nature, it was calming, it felt real. I’ve always been sort of a simple person. Sure when I was younger you get drawn into whatever cool fad or whatever of the time. We grew up in the infancy of the internet, so Netflix was new, Youtube, Facebook etc. but I’ve grown old of those things.
My mental health hasn’t always been good and getting away from those modern things have helped. I still use them but only for research, or following specific people. Use them as tools, not entertainment.
It’s also helped me grow a stronger bond with my youngest children. They absolutely love being outside, digging in the garden, asking questions about plants and how they grow. Lately I just love being outside, people are always in fight or flight, always rushing to the next thing, the job, the appointment and I have all the enjoyment ill ever need sitting in my backyard staring at the sky wondering about everything that exists.
Homesteading, for me, is less about land and more about how I choose to live.
Just a note from the yard.