My Little Homestead

Once upon a time homesteading referred to the process of getting a parcel of land from the government for free provided you would live there and work the land. Homesteading wasn’t an easy life but it was a simple life. Many people today long to get back to those simpler, more self-sufficient times. Unfortunately the government no longer gives out free land and local laws com make modern homesteading more complicated – but not impossible. Truly there is no better feeling than knowing you can take care of your family and are not dependent upon the fickle commercial industry.

The first thing you should do before making any homesteading plans is to check local laws and ordinances to see what is and isn’t allowed in your area. Some places allow chickens but not roosters, other places won’t even allow clothes lines to be hung. This step is especially important if you live close to your neighbors or if your neighbors tend to be the “nosy” type.

Next, make sure you really are going simpler. Don’t make your life more complicated by overloading yourself. If you happen to be sewing-challenged like I am, don’t sweat it, just buy second-hand or thrift clothes. Additionally, keep in mind that the Internet is your friend. While it may not seem to fit with the whole old-fashioned simple living concept but the Internet is a valuable tool for homesteaders. You can find all sorts of valuable information, people who share your interest in homesteading, directions on how to do everything from canning to making a solar oven and sites where you can equipment and supplies inexpensively. Eventually you will most likely turn to the Internet to supplement your income.

Lastly, you need to be sure that you strongly believe in what you’re doing. Some people around you are going to call you nuts and give you all sorts of reasons why you shouldn’t be doing it. Be confident in the knowledge that you are doing what is best for your family. Ignore the comments that hard work isn’t good for kids – they should be playing. Making your children a part of this will teach them skills that they will carry with them forever and will give them a sense of self-worth. Not to mention that homesteading children play more actively than the average modern child. Rest assured that the obesity rate among homesteaders is rather low, near non-existent. You know in your heart what is best.

Homesteading is coming back in style and for good reason. With all the concerns about conserving energy, saving money, and living a healthier and simpler life, homesteading can sound like the perfect answer. Unfortunately homesteading no longer refers to land given to people by the government. Today it refers to living a certain type of lifestyle. Imagine the country way of living a hundred years ago. Granted you can capture the essence of this lifestyle without giving up electricity or indoor plumbing. In fact many modern homesteaders own computers, run blogs, and sell homemade items online. I bet by now you’re wondering how do I start homesteading today?

Make a Plan – Talk to your family

Before you even think about taking a step forward with homesteading do some research, talk with your family and make a plan. Homesteading families usually eat homegrown foods (as much as possible), use things until worn or broken (rather than randomly upgrading), they do things with their hands and take pride in a hard days work. The majority of homesteaders homeschool or unschool their children. Of course you don’t have to go overboard and do everything. I chose to keep my children in public schools but I still consider my family a homesteading family.

First thing to do is talk with your family. Homesteading means that a lot of things are going to change. Life is probably going to be very different than what they are used to. If you have very young children it will obviously be easier than if you’re trying to convince teenagers to change. It will be much harder to live the homesteading life if your family is not on board with the decision.

Write Down Your Goals

Before you start making any changes take some time to write down your goals. You can see the list of goals for my family to get some ideas. Be realistic about what you and your family can do. Expect some things to take a long time and some things to need to be done in stages. Writing down your goals first will give you a clearer idea of what you’ll need to do and buy as you move forward.

Plan your Home for some Big Changes

Homesteaders are active people. If your house is crowded or cluttered, you may have problems getting everything done efficiently. Here’s just an idea of some of the purposes your rooms will be serving:

The homesteading kitchen is the hub of the household and as busy as Grand Central Station. You’ll be cooking, baking, kneading, canning and possibly butchering in this room. You may also be eating and storing all your food here depending on whether or not you also have a pantry and/or dining room (which I don’t). Keep in mind also that you will be storing canning supplies, baking supplies and other cooking materials that you most likely don’t already have. And as you go along you’ll discover new things that you need that you didn’t think of the first time. For example when I started baking my own bread it never occurred to me that I would need a bread slicer and a bread box too. Your family room, living room or den will likely be doubling as a craft area too. Knitting, crocheting, sewing, quilting, woodworking, etc are all crafts that homesteaders commonly do in addition to mending the things that can break down. You’ll also need a place to do soap- and candle-making. The kitchen may be the best area for this unless you have a gadget that melts wax and soap.

Here’s the one place where you might come into trouble. If your family members love to watch television, chat online, or play video games you may find it difficult to get them to reduce the amount of time they spend doing that in order to help you keep the homestead running smoothly. Remember back in the day families had lots of children mainly to help around the homestead.

Bedrooms and bathrooms probably won’t need to multi-purpose but you will want to keep them clean and relaxing (you’ll need them to be)

Discuss your supply needs

This is where writing your goals down will come in handy. The type of goals you have will determine the type of supplies you’ll need.

If you’re going to be growing your own food, you’ll need gardening materials. If you plan on cutting your family’s hair yourself, you’ll need a pair of sharp haircutting scissors, combs, clips and a buzz trimmer. Let your common sense and your research be your guide.

Urban homesteading pretty much means exactly what it sounds like. Living as if you lived on a pioneer homestead when you actually live in an urban setting.

Unfortunately things in the 21st century aren’t that cut  and dry. Urban, suburban and rural have grey lines between them. I technically live in a suburban city but I’m within walking distance of a post office, two donuts, 3 schools, a fast food restaurant, a Wal-mart, two pizza places, two hot dog diners, a Chinese restaurant, a movie rental store, several gas stations, and two supermarkets. Doesn’t really sound all that peaceful and suburban, does it?

When I think urban homesteading I think about cottage industries as well as farming and tending livestock. I think of families living independently, self-sufficiently. Protecting and nurturing your family, helping out in your community, and loving your country are all aspects of the life chosen when choosing homesteading as a lifestyle.

Obviously, though, I haven’t chosen to push my family back into the 19th century. I use a computer as does the rest of my family. We watch t.v., drive a car and rent movies occasionally.

But we have that homestead spirit. I know that no matter what happens my family will be okay and will know how to survive. Self-sufficiency is a good feeling…it really is its own reward.

Running a homestead isn’t exactly the “Simple” life you might imagine. Truth is there’s a lot of work to be done, a lot of things to keep in mind and more than a few things that can go wrong. Here are a few things to avoid in order to increase your chances of success.

1. Not getting your family on board – a homestead does not run itself and it’s nearly impossible for one person to do it all alone. Not to mention if your family isn’t on board with the whole simple country living lifestyle then most of your efforts will be for nothing.
2. Taking on more than your family can handle – Changing everything (meaning all your current practices) overnight isn’t realistic. Take baby steps towards changing your habits and the way you run your household.
3. Buying supplies before you really need them – if you are anything like me you get so excited about what you’re trying to do that you buy anything and everything you might need to succeed. Remember, living simply and learning to be resourceful is your purpose here.
4. Setting expectations too high – I had this arm-length list of goals that I was determined to reach by the end of my first year of homesteading. Naturally things happen, crops wilt, bugs attack, birds eat strawberries, your clothesline keeps falling down for no good reason. Basically expect things will go wrong and don’t be too hard on yourself.
5. Not checking the laws in your area – Some areas don’t allow keeping chickens, goats, any livestock or even hanging a clothesline. Make sure you investigate the laws where you live before doing something that may be illegal.

Now don’t get scared away. While you will have your tough days when it seems everything goes wrong, you will also have days of accomplishment – eating your first completely homegrown meal, tasting your first fruit from your own tree, watching friends and family enjoy your homemade gifts, enjoying the way your children look in homemade clothing with hair styles created by you. And most of all the feeling of self-reliance.

If anything teaches you that you can never prepare for everything it’s winter in New England. We set some goals to cut down on energy use, make gifts instead of buying  them and stick with our healthier diet of vegetables, legumes and whole grain foods.

The first thing that went wrong was the plastic sheets we used to insulate our windows and foundation blew off with the first nasty wind storm and couldn’t be reattached due to the low temperature.

Making gifts for Christmas went better. My crocheting skill isn’t great yet but I managed to make most people a scarf (I got really good at making scarves). I was pleasantly surprised that everyone sincerely enjoyed their scarf. Bonus was everyone in my family was impressed by my abilities. Next year I’ll try something more difficult…like hats.

Of course winter has barely started her in Rhode Island. Often the worst of our weather comes in February and early March. Despite the plastic sheet fiasco our energy bills haven’t been as high this year. I think that’s because we’ve kept our thermostat considerably lower than last year and taken to wearing sweaters ( maybe I should try my hand at crocheting those) and sitting with fleece throws while relaxing.

Eating healthier has had its ups and downs. We didn’t manage to grow enough to store for the winter so we still have to buy produce which doesn’t come too fresh up here around this time of year. Doesn’t come cheap either. Still as a family we’ve been doing okay.

All I can say is I can’t wait for spring cleaning.

Early last year my family and I made a commitment to live a simpler life. Being our first year there was a lot of trial and error – a LOT of trial and error – and learning what “simple”  really means.

This year we are even more dedicated to cutting back and doing more for ourselves. So we’ve created a list of resolutions that we are going do our very best to stick to this year.

1. All gifts for friends and extended family will be handmade.
2. We will use only homemade cleaners made with basic household materials
3. We will gather rainwater for our garden instead of using the hose water.
4. We will plan family outings to free entertainment like libraries, public parks, local museums and galleries instead of costly trips to movie theaters and Chuck E Cheese.
5. We will set all our bills to auto-pay so we don’t waste checks stamps and out time while paying off our debts.

Those are the main goals we will be working on but I’m sure more little things will come up through the year so I consider this list a ongoing project.

It is a new year an the world is filled with hope. When you live the simple homesteading life the beginning of the year is about pushing forward.

I know in my home, the first of the year sets off a bustle of activity. We take down the holiday decorations and sort through our things for charity.

We start gathering paperwork for our taxes and we make all routine checkup appointments; doctors, dentists, eye doctors. We also talk about the new chores, allowances and rules about the house with our children.

But mostly I feel the new year is a figuritive blank slate. I can do better this year than I did last year. I can get organized, stay on schedule and make some time for myself.

So what is simple living? It’s living the way you want, reducing stress, waste and negative thinking along the way. Of course there is a lot more that goes with simple living. That’s why all of this month’s posts will focus on ts topic one way or another.

On a homestead, there is always a great deal of work to do. Enough work for everyone in the family to get involved. This is one reason families tended to larger in the frontier days. Every pair of hands was needed. Almost from the time they can walk, children can help around the house. Here are some ideas for age-appropriate chores by age.

3 years-old

Cleaning up their toys

Cleaning up their place after mealtimes

Sorting laundry into whites and colors

Dry dusting areas with no breakables

Gathering flowers or berries

Helping to plant seeds

 Watering flowers and trees

4 years-old

Make bed simply

Folding laundry

Matching socks

Make a peanut butter sandwich

Feed pets and livestock as long as it is safe

Helping measure, stir and pour during cooking

Raking and bagging leaves or composting

5 years-old

Sweeping floors

Putting away own clothes

Pulling weeds

Gathering/ harvesting vegetables and fruits

Dry dishes (after being taught to be careful)

Change bed clothes and make bed

6 years-old

Wiping and cleaning table and counters

Helping care for younger children (by fetching or entertaining)

Setting the table

Read and make simple recipes

Shuck corn and peel vegetables (again carefully)

Stir kool-ade, lemonade, chocolate milk or ice tea

As you can see, even very young children can lend a hand with much needed homestead chores. Of course you should also take into consideration the maturity of the child, they may be capable of much more or not as much as listed here.

One of the most important links between living a country life and living a frugal life is that both force you to start looking at “needs” and “wants” differently.

With our economy going through such hard times, it is important to realize that we really “need” very little. In fact, my thinking is that as long as my family has food, shelter, clothing and each other we can survive.

Of course when I talk to other people, even my own kids, they have a very different idea of a need. My son swears he needs an iPod or he can’t walk to school ( I proved him wrong on that one).

There is nothing wrong with indulging in the occasional want every now and then as long as we realize that’s what it is. Once we start jeopardizing our financial or family security over unnecessary luxuries, we need to refocus our life.

Needs: Food, Air, Shelter, Clothing, Water, Love Laughter, Dreams Courage, Peace, Faith, Family and Friends

Wants: Everything Else

Part of creating a self-sufficient homestead is finding a way to make a living at home. The way the economy is going our society will likely find it necessary to return to a modern version of the cottage industries of days gone by.

Luckily, there are so many ways to run a home business and so many choices for working from home that nearly every household in America should be able to discover a way to make money at home.

I chose to work as a blogger and Internet marketer since I enjoy writing and prefer the semi-solitude and dynamic nature of the business. Many homesteaders sell their own line of products online; whether food, crafts, health and beauty items, or home decor.

There are also plenty of offline jobs you can do. Writing for magazines or newspapers freelance or writing ad copy for businesses can be lucrative. Digital photography is a hot career right now that offers plenty of opportunities. Your family can also sell your country products offline or open a stand to sell your surplus produce.

My husband can make custom furniture but his real love is alternative fuels – both have money-making potential if necessary. If you can build or make something, selling finished products could be a career. The suggestions really are endless.

The first place to start is by deciding what you really love to do. Then see if that activity can someone be made into a marketable skill. Once you’ve decided how and what, make sure that you contact your local city or town hall to ask about the requirements for setting up a business. For example, if I want to sell any food products, the health department needs to inspect my kitchen and deem it sanitary enough. As a businessperson, you want to make sure you are in abeyance of all the laws. It’s also not a bad idea, if you can afford it, to consult with a lawyer to make sure all the Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted.