Homestead definition?

[knuckledragger]

Okay, excuse my ignorance here, but what, exactly is a homestead? Is it just a "place in the country?" Is there a certain level of self-sufficiency required? What must you have to qualify for the term? A garden? animals? what kind? how many? Or is it primarily a mentality or a state of mind?

Just curious.

[haypoint]

This web site has people with all sorts of lifestyles. I've ruffled a few feathers here trying to define that term. Folks that work off farm and come home to play farm do not like the term, "hobby farm". Those that put in 40 hours a week working off farm and 40 hours a week farming, resist the term, "part-time farmers". Some that live in the suburbs and have a dozen chickens, three dogs and a pony want to be homesteaders, but all to often their neighbors have different names.

Most people that come to this site are striving to control more of their lives and source of food. To some it is just one hobby out of many. To others it is an all consuming quest.

It is very, very difficult to have the knowledge and expertise in all areas of growing, all areas of animal husbandry, energy self sufficiency and all the skills to repair everything and blacksmithing, soap making, running a loom, grist mill, cheese plant, orcharding, soap making, etc. We all come up short in varying degrees.

If you are out there doing what you can to be more self-sufficient, you'll have little time to contemplate the definition of homestead.

[tailwagging]

I feel it is trying your best (at what level you can) to be self sufficient.
I am working on protein (milk meat eggs) and fruit this year. hopefully some veggies and outdoor kitchen by fall. honey,soap,fiber more cheese and sewing next year. off the gird one of these days.

[Cascade Failure]

I feel that no matter what you have or do it comes down to attitude. Are you, given your situation, doing what you can to be self-sufficient?

I don't farm. But, some of the farmers here have to pay for heat. I don't. Who wins? Its your call.

[deaconjim]

It's more a state of mind than anything. Homesteaders are people who don't like to be pressed into a mold, so you will find a wide variety of people who consider themselves to be "homesteaders".

Homesteading is also a journey. Most people begin small, and as the lifestyle takes hold of them, expand their homesteading horizons. First it's a few chickens, or a garden, and then a goat or two. Soon they're spinning, canning, and making soap. Perhaps a bee hive will be next, or even a milk cow. Of course, there are those who are more into wood crafts, or the outdoorsmen.

Homesteading is mainly a way of life, for those who are tired of the status quo and eager to enjoy life. It is a way of learning more about yourself, your history, and a way of taking hold of your future.

Homesteading is what you make it.

[culpeper]

Here in Australia, 'homestead' refers to the main residential house which is situated on one of the larger Outback properties. ('Large' can mean thousands of square miles!)

As I understand it, our equivalent to your American 'homestead' is a small-time rural farm, often a 'hobby farm', but occasionally run as a business, depending on its size and productivity. Otherwise known (occasionally derisively!) as 'a tree-change' or an 'alternative life-style'.

[ronbre]

used to be a homestead was a place that you got from the government and lived on and didn't have to pay for..

the property we live in was origianlly homesteaded by the Triplett Clan..they had about a square mile of property, which they sold off a bit at a time to family and others.

my FIL bought this from them and we bought it from him..FIL bought a quarter mile..section..but most of that has been sold off..our son and us now own only 10 acres between the two of us.

we really don't need more than that for our homestead.

[Homesteadwi5]

Our defininition of Homesteading is "self reliance" we don't have a "farm" we keep some animals,raise a garden,do some canning heat with wood,forage the woods for edible plants and harvest game for food and hunt/trap furbearing animals for the $ from their hides.As DeaconJim said it's what you make it,like anything else in this life.

[firegirl969]

Homesteading means different things to different people based on their situations. To me and my DH, homesteading is being as self-sufficient as we can by growing large gardens, saving seeds, planting and maintaining fruit trees, bushes, and brambles, keeping and raising chickens and rabbits, feeding out a pig and a steer each year, canning fruits, veggies, meat, relishes, pickles, jams, jellies, making our own breads and cooking from scratch. We also have learned how to make our own detergents and cleaning supplies and have stocked up the ingredients to make several years worth. We have about 400 jars and twice that many lids. We have a wood burning stove for heat and alternative method of cooking. I have milked goats in the past and made cheeses and soaps, so I can go back to this if DH will EVER agree. We have numerous tools and equipment, both manual and powered including an old tractor with implements. DH is currently putting in a root cellar for food and seed storage (and he hopes wine making). We also have a stocked fish pond on the farm, horses for alternative means of transportation, land on a river some 30 miles away, a greenhouse, and large pastures to feed the cow and horses on. We currently don't produce any income from the farm, as DH works full-time off the farm and I am drawing long-term disability from my employer and working 1-2 days a week as the doc will allow. We hope to be able to enlarge the gardens next year and sell some produce and eggs and rabbits to help offset the cost of the chicken and rabbit food. We slop the pig, so it costs nothing to feed it. The steer is grass fed on the pasture so no cost there either. DH hopes to slaughter them himself with help from friends, so that will save a great deal on meat cost. I am also beginning to save grass clippings after they are cut and dried to feed the bunnies in the winter and am foraging for feed for the bunnies and turning the hens out to forage during the day to help with food costs. Sorry for the long-winded post, but I needed to say all of this to explain our homestead and what it means to us. Blessings, firegirl

[Shrek]

Homestead by accepted definition is one of two .
The first was land taken from the indian nations and given to white pioneers to agriculturally prove out during the 1800s and more recently , free two acre land plots and interest free home loans to build homes on the acreage offered by the town of Marquette KS and one or two other dying towns in exchange for promises from families with children to become residents for a set period of time. This homestead offer was so popular with work at home telecomuters and investors, Marquette ran high speed internet to the homesteading subdivisions at a discount.

The second is the term "modern homesteading" coined during the 1970s recession and oil crisis to help promote magazines like Countryside and small stock journal and Backwoods Home magazine and more recently web sites as HT and other self reliancy and self suficiancy pursuit web sites.

Realistically, homesteading for the average person is doing enough on your own to achieve a portion of your income and food with the ultimate goaal of progressing to achieving as much of your lifestyle on your property and by your own supervision regardless if you actually succeed in attaining all your goals or not.

Many "modern homesteaders" use little house on the prarie books and TV series as the example of what their goal is, yet overlook that Charles Ingalls homestead farmed, worked in the local saw mill and as a home repair carpenter or teamster driver , whatever was needed to pay the bill at olsons store and provide for the family.

Today, a Charles Ingals would truck patch garden or small livestock herd and work in a plant, do odd jobs and maybe be a weekend truck driver to pay the credit card bills as they come in.

So if your using your land to do what you can for yourself along with other productive endeavors to keep a roof over your head and bills paid, you are a "homesteader" to the degree your comfortable with.

I knew a guy who lived in a $400 a month apartment in Huntsville and fed himself with a patio container garden, fish he caught in the river to sell and odd jobs to make his utilities as his sole income for 3 years until he finished night classes and got a plant job.

After he got his real job, he kept living his apartment homesteader lifestyle to purchase a house and few acres more rural 7 years later, just in time to keep a paid off roof over his head when he got laid off when the dotcom bubble burst in the 1990s. Last I heard, he truck patch farms, designs web sites and did landscaping.

"Homesteading"___its what makes you feel safe and productive in the present with a feeling you will make it halfway through tomorrow regardless of your ultimate long term self reliancy goals.

[glazed]

I love this thread!

[geo in mi]

Homestead is the 'place' where you make your 'stand'. How's that for a simple definition? How it's done and how complex it gets is up to each homesteader. It can be as absolutely simple as a tomato plant on the patio and a tray of herbs on the windowsill on the tenth floor of a high rise; or it might involve the complexities of milk cows, goats, chickens, a huge garden, stacked cords of wood for the stove, canning jars, acres of crops, home butchering, and much, much more. It could also mean a quiet lot in a small town, or in a subdivision, with varying degrees of all the aforementioned. Just depends on the person doing it.

[Shrek]

Oh I forgot, a Chales Ingalls today would also likely use the internet and do online barter and ebaying since in many of the TV series episodes he would use catalogues and the town message board to figure out how to get jobs or swap out goods and services for his family.

[Yvonne's hubby]

Originally Posted by Shrek

Oh I forgot, a Chales Ingalls today would also likely use the internet and do online barter and ebaying since in many of the TV series episodes he would use catalogues and the town message board to figure out how to get jobs or swap out goods and services for his family.

That always puzzled me. The boy shoulda had a slice of the pie, growing up on the Ponderosa which was a thriving prosperous cattle ranch, to have lost it all and wind up in that shanty in the middle of nowhere?!??!?? I guess it just goes to show that Bens wisdom didnt pass down to the next generation.

[Wolf mom]

This comes up periodically and in the end, there is no one definition. It's what ever you want to make homesteading to be for you.

And that's what's so great about this site.

we have people from all over, each with his/her own ideas and capabilities doing what they can, with what they have for what they want.

[Parrothead]

It is a lifestyle choice...
A need to get back to the land. To regain lost skills. To go against the grain of society. A desire to be self-reliant.

[Beeman]

A homestead is the place where you perform your homesteading. Homesteading is a rewarding hobby based on frugality that is usually expensive.

[ronbre]

I keep hearing this word self sufficient today..and I really don't like that word..words..

I feel that trusting in God, to meet our needs is more important in my life than trusting in my self to meet my needs..sure we do try to limit our use of commercial sources..that are unnecessary..but SELF sufficient sounds a little hermity to me..I help out some of my friends that have sources I prefer not to have on my property..i buy eggs from a farmer who wants to raise chickens..my husband doesn't want chickens..so i help his sufficiency..buying his eggs..Also we have friends that run a truck farm, they raise things of different varieties than I do..i purchase those things from them..to bless them and help them to make a living.
We barter, share, do for others..etc..I never want to depend on my SELF..I don't want to be SELF sufficient ! Period

[haypoint]

In the middle of a discussion on what is a Homestead, we get to ponder the words "self-sufficiency".
I've never really thought about it in the way ronbre has. He makes a good point.
But in reality, the most self-sufficent folks I know are Amish. They have a big connection to God and their community. Everything they do is connected that way.
I guess anyone that has been striving towards self-sufficency soon learns that we must rely on like minded neighbors.
To me, self sufficency is not needing to buy from a store. Buying a bushel of tomatos from a neighbor for a few pounds of bacon, still qualifies as self-sufficency.

[Jean in Virginia]

To Yvonne's Hubby -- you're mixing shows.

Little House on the Prairie was Michael Landon.

The Ponderosa was Bonanza.

Easy mistake.

Growing up I wanted both--lots of horse riding and long dresses.