To ALL the Homesteaders at Heart

I recently got emails from cyber friends who are living the homesteading dream through our videos, postings, and  my weekly newsy emails. For reasons all their own be it health issues, trapped in the city, or age, they can't break away and start even a micro homestead within their circumstances. They are homesteaders at heart only living vicariously through our adventures. I can honestly remember those days in my own life.

Some buy produce to home can one or two items, or buy an extra bottle of fruit juice to make jellies. Or, make large batches of soups, sauces, and stews to freeze individual servings in a eat now and eat many times later. Or maybe, you're saving those little bits of veg and fruit peelings that you'd compost or you'd feed to your chickens if you has any. You'll recycle and repurpose everything you can to the best you can do just like us. You're a homesteader at heart.

There's nothing wrong with being a homesteader at heart. You might bake your own bread, plant a couple tomato plants in pots, or just dream of homesteading. To be an actual homesteader takes self sacrifice, the ability to move to a patch of land, bear the ups and downs of trying to be more self sufficient. There's a lot of trial and errors to living the homesteading lifestyle. For Mel, it's a dream to work towards. For me here, it's laying the foundations, planning for the future in increments until I have here what I once had before. It's starting from scratch once again.

Terms like "I quit!, I can't do it!" and "I must be insane!" are stricken from our vocabulary. Even though at one time or other, we've both thought it. We've both invested everything into this homestead. It's far from ideal, as property for homesteading goes. It's not flat unless we grade it to be or terrace it. It's got it's own water source via a spring water creek that borders two sides of the property. This is a plus, but not always a constant in times of severe drought. there's a huge ravine behind the house which drops almost 100 feet down to the creek. Because we are on a downhill slope (100ft downward slope from the main roadway), rain water runs down our driveways toward the creek. The acreage is badly overgrown with trees.

In fact, on the property map you can't even see the roofs of the house or barn in the overhead shot of the property. We've got  really weird property lines because of a rocky ridge (50' high) to the southeast and it follows the creek bed to the north and west sides of the property. In this wintertime satellite picture you can see the roofs of the barn/workshop and the house. In the spring and summer pics the roofs are not visible. The lower part of the property line actually forms a V instead of a straight line as does the upper right edge. The property kind of reminds me of a boot (like Italy) except the heel is missing. It's cockeyed!

But as you can see, all that green is the tree coverage enormous! Boy, howdy! If we harvest one quarter of the trees, we'd be set for firewood for a decade!

But saying all of that, this is our homestead. It's bought and paid for in full. It would have helped if we were 20 years younger and able bodied. But this isn't the case with us. But we have a dream, a goal to make this into a self sufficient homestead, or at least as self sufficient as it can be. To be honest at our age, having more property just isn't doable.

So what does it take to be an actual homesteader? I dunno. Maybe just the willingness or insanity to try. A lot of hard work even with the perfect land. Having a plan with your ultimate goal in mind. A goal to make it into a homestead instead of just a piece of property. Hefty pocketbooks full of green stuff which we don't have, but still trying to fulfill our dream/goal. Be honest about your limitations. We won't be totally self sufficient, we don't have enough land with just under two acres to work with, but we'll eventually be as self sufficient as we can be.

Otherwise, we'd just be like so many of our readers and visitors...a homesteader at heart too. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And guess what, if you produce any of your own food (even if it's one stinking tomato plant), preserve your own food (even if you had to purchase it first), recycle/use up/repurpose anything, make your own stuff (crochet, knit, spin your own yarn, sew)...YOU ARE A HOMESTEADER TOO!

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo