Why do you homestead or want to?

great post thank you! that sounds so wonderful !

I guess I'm not the norm here but i think the new coutry types are more like me... I have a neighbor that puts it in words best, His hideaway retreat....He is School board President and has a very stressful job...Someone is always mad at him, with threats everyday. He goes home and unwinds...His farm is gated and away from the world. That would best describe my hobby farm, a wind down few hours everyday to combat a very highspeed stressful job. I love my job, but I also love the downtime...It's not idealogical, if a bunch of weeds mess with my view, I'll buy the round-up by the case and not care. So many on here make the farm seem like a religon...I just can't buy into that.

Where else can you wake up hearing the sound of roosters crowing?...well, except for Hawaii!

Because I am rooty.

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"Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."

Where I live I have the best of both worlds. Access to the city life if I choose, rarely choose.

My DH was born and raised in this house. They had cows pigs chickens sheep. BIG Gardens. He hates that stuff. I love it. I have always had a veg garden. I expanded that last year by half. This year I put in a second garden for pumpkins and water melon. 2 years ago I closed in the lean to on the barn and bought 2 goats at auction and ordered some laying and dual purpose hens. DD won the talent show and bought a potbelly pig. So I with some help from my DD and very little help from DH put a henhouse and 2 good size stalls in the leanto. also insulated it. DH put in windows and helped me put in doors.

I find it to be satisfying to look into my feild and see my goats and dd's pig playing and happy and healthy. Watching my birds run free on our property. Watching my kids running and riding all the trails in the woods. I guess it just what makes me happy. I would like to raise my own meat but I just don't know if I could do it. Maybe someday. As if I choose to do it I must be able to do it myself

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Simple Rural Living
For those who enjoy rural living and the simple things in life
http://www.simpleruralliving.com/phpBB3/index.php

I blame my affliction on Ma & Pa Kettle, The Real McCoys, Petticoat Junction The Egg and I and Mr. Ed. (Now I'm really showing my age!) I was very fortunate to find a man who had the same desire that I did for country living. There is nothing better!

Wow. What a hard question to answer. I am starting small, because I live in a trailer park and have to get every project approved by the management. However, I am learning to leave a smaller footprint on the planet. I learned alot of the skills I need inside the house from my mother and my grandmother. I would do them poor service indeed if I didn't teach my children the same way. The outdoor skills I am learning here. The hands on stuff that my grandmother deemed unlady like is my favorite stuff to learn. I cannot grow much of anything yet except weeds, but I am learning alot about gardening in preparation for when I have my own land. I am boarding my pig with a friend while I raise my own pork for the year. (we are buying a pre-processed beef, tho. couldnt afford to do too many experiments at once)

Mostly, I find that I am in this for the peace. Peace of mind, peace of spirit, and freedom for the soul. I am not happy rushing around on someone else's schedule, doing what someone else feels is important. Alot of what is important to me seems to fall by the wayside when I have to live that way. When I get to choose what gets done when, I seem to accomplish more. I find more meaning in what I do, and I have the time to teach that joy and meaningul living can go hand in hand. My grandchildren will not likely have alot of the freedoms we take for granted for much longer. I want them to know that there is another way to live, to survive, to commune with God. I want to live so that I leave no mark in my passing except the thought that I really knew how to live. How's that for a reason?

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what a great post!

thanks so much and thank you all who responded some wonderful inspiration here.

So I don't have to drive off to get things for eating etc but can still live somewhere other than walking distance from the stores. And if I get poor or the world goes to Hades in a hand basket, food growing in your yard can get you through times of no money (and of no outside food) better than money can get you through times of no food.

DH and I come from very different backgrounds ---he grew up roaming the hills of eastern Oklahoma, and I grew up in a city in Missouri. However, we each have known we wanted a little farm. We got ours about 17 years ago, and are slowly working towards self sufficiency. DH recently retired from his town job, and will be able to devote more time to developing our gardens and prepping to have animals. We love the country. Unfortunately our two children do not like it. I am hoping once they are adults they will recognize that living in the country was a good thing.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring - Carl Sagan