Quote:
Originally Posted by farmerDale
Like Walter had said, people have differing thoughts on the meaning. I make my living from the land in entirety, raise most of our food, can, freeze, juice, smoke. But I think calling myself a homesteader is an insult to the true homesteaders: They who came mostly from Europe, with maybe 10 or 50 dollars, a dream, and rose above, making a new life for themselves.
Todays "homesteading" is child's play vs. what the REAL homesteaders did.
If they went to town to pick something up, it was a two day, gruelling affair, and they went once every few months.
I know what current "homesteading" is about, for I joined this site, and enjoy it immensely. But for whatever reason, in my mind, homesteading is a thing of the past. Not many today can even come close to comparing to the original, actual homesteaders.
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Well farmerDale I beg to differ with a few things you said above! The Homesteaders of the past here were my husband's ancestors who came to Canada without hardly two nickels to rub together in their pockets! They got land grants and loans and worked hard breaking up land and building homes. They raised animals, grew gardens. and sold critters to pay their taxes and made everything they needed or traded for it.Some times homesteaders and farmers worked other folks land to earn money also to get things they could not barter for or produce themselves.
Fast forward to 1978 we came to this run out farm and falling down house and barn with not two nickels to rub together in our pockets. We had to borrow to buy the place . We raised our food and animal feed, sold goats and vegetables, bartered and traded and recycled everything to something we could use. There was no money to buy anything. We worked gardening and house cleaning and grooming dogs to get a little money for taxes. We sold veggies and goats and eggs.With all that we were lucky to earn $5 thousand dollars a year the ten years we were paying the bank back.. After the bank was paid back the loan we cut back the work away from home and sold enough off the farm to pay taxes and electricity. A few years later I started a small second hand store when we were raising our grandson.
There were two kids here with us also and we were 39 and 40 years old when we got the farm.We were up at dawn and worked until after dark. Anything my husband needed he had to make or refurbished old horse drawn equipment others had discarded. He even straightened nails to reuse and built on the barn with wood salvaged from old buildings and the ocean shore.
He hauled tons of seaweed from the beach and forked it on the horse cart, brought it home and spread it on fields and composted some for the gardens. All done by hand with out a tractor or loader.
He mowed hay with a scythe before he got the horse mower. We raked it by hand and he rigged up a pully with a grab on it to hoist it to the barn mow.
I cooked on a wood stove, canned and preserved and heated water in canning kettles for baths.I also washed clothes by hand in that same tub. I mended clothes with a needle and thread and made quilts from old clothes to keep us warm. We only heated two rooms with wood from our wood lot cut by my husband after traveling by horse and cart five miles to the woods and five miles back.
There was no easy way for us and we worked ever so hard as any of our pioneer ancestors! In fact because we both grew up with grandmothers and my husband had a grandfather and father we learned how to survive and live with hardly any money and do things ourselves or make do.
For transportation we walked, rode bicycles or went by horse and cart and still do.
Twenty eight years later I am still walking to town nine miles away but now days a neighbor usually picks me up. It used to take me two hours one way so I only went once a month. We still raise goats, mow hay with the horse and mower, rake it by hand and haul it up into the mow loose. We still go to the woods but this year didn't need to as we were able to cut near to home. We still get up at daylight and work all day,garden and preserve.We still haul seaweed home with the horse and spread it and manure by shovel and fork on the fields.We still butcher in the fall but now have a deep freeze to keep meat.
My husbands only luxury is an old lawn tractor he was given that did not work. He was given another like it and from two made one good one.My luxury is a 12 gallon hot water heater and an apartment size washer.
Homestead was never "child's play" for us and still isn't. As we are getting older with my husband in his 69th year and me in my 67th year we have cut back animals some and try to find easier ways to do things like planting the garden in raised beds and putting an electric fence around it to keep deer out.
Anyone who lives off the land works hard even for those who have machienry. Machienry is expensive and breaks down and needs repairs not to mention gas to run.A horse eats grass and hay and works for more than thirty years!Modern farmers have more stress and work hard in a different way. Both modern and old fashioned farmers/homesteaders work hard and have to deal with un-co-operative weather, thieves, and wildlife.
There is nothing nostalgic about the old homesteaders life. It was grueling work.Farming in any form is hard work. That said I must say it is a satisfying life if you stay well going into old age.We wouldn't have it any other way!
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