If you get yourself a homestead....first make sure you have water.
and then you'll probably want to start yourself a project. Maybe something small to dip a toe in, like a garden? Maybe something with raised beds. Or you go big with row crows. Or something in pots or a vertical garden---whatever suits your landscape and soil and unrestricted seed hoarding and gardening dreams.
[And perhaps, an orchard, because while this isn't a small thing, as the saying goes, "The best time to plant a fruit tree is seven years ago."]
If you plant a garden, you're going to want to start a compost pile, and maybe get some worms for a worm farm and make compost tea. When you start working in the garden and pulling weeds, you're going to want some lovely, feathered friends to give them to (but remember that a lot of "weeds" are medicinal!)
If you get chickens, you're going to want to have a moving chicken tractor and a brooder with heat to raise chicks because now you'll have egg layers. Or a wonderful little, enclosed run for the chickens and a house to protect them from predators. If you got straight-run chicks, you might end up with a few too many roosters so you'll have a meat source---or you'll get meat chickens on purpose, and you'll want to learn how to process your protein sources.
And of course, we cannot forget the eggs. All the eggs that you'll be able to handle. Eggs to incubate and have a self-sustaining flock.
And you'll have chicken poop. For your compost pile.
If you get yourself a homestead, you'll look out at your acreage and think maybe a grazing animal would be good: goats or sheep or cows, if you're feeling brave, to tame the pasture and mow down the brush with their mouths and feet and fertilize the land with their manure.
If you get one grazing animal, you're going to need a second one because they're herd animals and always need a buddy, or they're going to be sad and make YOU they're buddy. You could mix chickens in to their pasture because they like to eat the fly larvae in the pasture dropped poops (but if you truly free-range your chickens this way, you might have to have an egg hunt every morning).
If you get a dairy breed of pasture animal, you're going to get milk (and animal babies!) And if you get milk, you're going to want to process it into delicious dairy treats---yogurts, cheeses, sour creams, and desserts. But sometimes those experiments don't work out because you're still learning and the humans on the homestead can't or won't eat it, or your animal is a super-producer and you're swimming in milk---then you're going to want to get pigs because they eat everything, happily.
If you've got pigs, then you have another meat source and more manure and some heavy duty land clearing animals. They'll clear out the brush the pasture animals don't like and plow through what the chickens can't get. They'll finish off the cow paddies left behind and disturb the soil to encourage a more diversified ecosystem that is actually strengthening your land!
[There are also other great meat resources like rabbits and pheasants, geese, and ducks if pigs aren't your thing]
If you get yourself a homestead, you're going to start benefiting from the abundance of your efforts. You're going to learn how to can, dry, store, cook, gift all that you've reaped, reconnecting with skills from ages past and passing on that knowledge to generations to come. You'll realize that food fresh from the tree, bush, vine, plant cannot compare to anything in the stores---nothing rivals a strawberry warm from the sun, the crunch of a cucumber picked in the morning, the aromatic burn of garlic cured, braided and decorating your pantry.
If you get yourself a homestead, you'll end up raising homesteaders. Maybe they'll go to public school, or if you're in a more remote location or you make that choice--you can homeschool them. They'll become a part of the homesteading process, growing into skilled peoples. Your children will explore treetops and creeks. They'll know how to milk a cow, plant a garden, shoot a gun, tend animals, build fences, read the weather and seasons, identify plants and wildlife, and never think twice about the effort and energy put into feeding and nurturing every member of the family because when you get yourself a homestead, this is your every day.
If you get yourself a homestead, you're going to have some hard days, dirty days, collapse into bed feeling like you're never not going to be sore or be able to wash the stink of the day off of you. There will be days where everything is breaking. Animals will be escaping. Garden plants will be dying either by you, the animals out to sabotage you, or just inexplicable failure. There will be times when normal resources like electricity, power, water, and other resources are difficult if not impossible to come by because society in general tends to forget about people living in the country. You'll have to come up with some creative ways to make these things happen. Perhaps you're going off-grid, trucking in water, learning some bush-craft and survival skills. Whatever it takes. You start to wonder if any part of this life comes easily.
If you get yourself a homestead, you're going to fail. A lot. If you have animals, there will be beautiful little babies and lovely animal-human connections, but there will also be deaths that make you rage and sob. There will be heartbreaking losses on so many levels. You're going to be sore and tired and wonder if you've absolutely lost your mind. There's an easier way to get produce and meat and fruit, eggs and dairy (although perhaps, not at the same quality). There's a convenient way to live (and to be honest, oftentimes cheaper) that doesn't involve as much blood, sweat, and tears. You don't have to suffer through power outages and wondering when you'll get water consistently. You don't have to be covered in bug bites and struggle with soil and the forces of nature that feel like they're actively working against you. You don't need to watch your garden and orchards be decimated for whatever reason for the hundredth time...
But if you get yourself a homestead, you'll know the feel of the soil between your fingers, the satisfaction of picking something out of the garden and meat you've raised and processed to put on the table to nourish your family. You'll find yourself linked to your land because someone has to take care of the animal. Or because you've sunk all your monetary resources into everything homestead, and there isn't much left to "vacation". And also, because... to be honest, you love the farm. Why would I want to leave the craziness I know for the craziness outside in the world?
If you get yourself a homestead, you'll realize it's not the perfect, pastoral picture that plays in everyone's hopes and dreams. You'll make the decision that despite its difficulties and setbacks, that still, the homestead is worth it. Despite the hard days, you actually love it. There is supreme satisfaction in overcoming the struggles, and you couldn't actually go back to "regular life," anyway.
If you get yourself a homestead, you'll thank God for the blessings, trials, and troubles that come with it. You will have the opportunity to build a life that you love.
Kommentare