Define Homesteading

Susan and Don,
I think Homesteading is a pretty big tent. It might encompass everyone from someone planting a small garden to a completely self-sufficient family living off the grid. I don't get too caught up in "labels" such as that. Most everyone in my family are farmers and I run a repair shop but still work on a family farm. Don't really consider myself a homesteader but grow much of my own food, raise some livestock, built my house mostly by myself, etc.
Probably homesteading is an attempt to produce more of what you use and buy less, live closer to the land, and appreciate a simpler, more self-sufficient lifestyle. I am sure others can provide more elegant definitions, but most of us know what we are trying to accomplish even if it is difficult to label.

 

Welcome to the forum Susan and Don!

 

Greetings from southwest Montana! And welcome to the forum. I agree with tooltime mostly. I do not think it practical or even very possible to live a totally independent isolated life in this day and age. We live on top of a mountain quite a ways from the nearest small town. We are off the grid by necessity mostly, raise chickens (new to this), heat with wood, have propane appliances, sell firewood and barter for some of what we cannot do ourselves. But at the same time i have a computer with internet access, cell phones and trips to town as I need them. So we are rural but not totally isolated. The perfect blend for us.

 

No historical American homesteader was ever "completely independent". Iron for plows, axes, rilfes, and knives were imported to the homestead. Powder and lead for rifles had to be imported, and the list goes on.

Today's homesteader is still dependent on imports for survival: electricity, LP gas, gasoline, mechanical parts, food stuffs, clothing, and so on, but today's homesteader is holding to a basic tenant; do all that one can for one's self.

Here at Wolf Cairn Moor we raise 95% of the meat we eat and raise meat for all of our five children and their families.

We heat with wood and cook with wood. I have a chainsaw now but twenty years ago I did it all with an axe and a crosscut saw.

My wife and I were both teachers; she still is - I'm retired, but we built our small home with an outside privy and no running water; a lifestyle choice. We call it "4 rooms and a path."

The buring difference between today's homesteader and the historical homesteader my be found in two areas: the percentage of one does for one's self, and frequency of trips suppliers to find imports.

The axe and crosscut saw (I still have them by the way) last almost indefinately (my crosscut was 65 years old when I bought it closing on thirty years ago). Today's chainsaw will need replaced or replacement parts more frquently and petroleum products whenever it's used.

I don't think anybody was ever trully independent of the outside world, but some folks were able to keep that world at bay. I believe that today's homesteader can capture the remaining essence of independence if they try.

My 2 Shekels,

Haggis @ Wolf Cairn Moor

 

"Probably homesteading is an attempt to produce more of what you use and buy less, live closer to the land, and appreciate a simpler, more self-sufficient lifestyle"

well said tooltime!

 

Haggis.... I'm just curious. What do these mean?

 

Here are the results of five minute's time on Google's computers:

Self Description: Ego sum sanguinarius homo indomitus - Latin - I am a bloody murdering savage

Personal Motto: Bona Na Croin - Gaelic - Bound by niether collar nor crown

Family Motto: Buaidh Na Bàs - Gaelic - Victory or Death

On those who offend me or my family: "Tuez-les tous; Dieu reconnaitra les siens." - French - Kill them all; the Lord knows those who are His

On Gun Control: “Molon Labe” - Greek - Come and get them

On Government: Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Latin - Who watches the watchers

 

Homesteading in this day & age is more of a romantic concept than reality. It harkens back to the romantic period of the old west when people could get free land from the government, if they lived on it for a number of years.

With todays land prices, property taxes, health insurance, $30,000 pickups, $50,000 tractors, and the like, it is completely impossible to live off the land as did the homesteaders of the old west.

Romantic notions die hard. The symbol of a person living off the land has been forever burned into America's thought, through such things as television, film, books, etc Personally, I don't buy into the romanticized view, and think the original homesteaders lived excruciating dreary, dismal lives, which generally ended early.

About the best one can hope for in this day & age is too become as self sufficient as possible.

 

Seems like a lot of folks get hung up on the word Homesteading. Maybe this forum should be renamed to something like Country Living.

 

Literally billions of people on our planet live without expensive cars and tractors. Billions more have found a way to live good lives without cable TV and telephones. I suppose we American would be homesteaders can give up a little to achieve a wee bit of independence.

By-the-by, if we have any luck here in America this fall, our new First Lady will be a speaker of no less than five languages. Maybe it's time we Americans learn to speak something beyond our pidgeon English?

 

My own definition of “Homesteading” is the embodiment of the pioneer spirit of those upon who’s back this great nation was built. I will not use the term homesteader to describe myself, but will not condemn those who do, for everyone has their own opinion as to the meaning of the expression and entitled to it. I know that I may never know the trials, sorrows, and turmoil’s that those before me may have suffered, but I like to think, I live my life with the same morals, ethics, and values as those that gave of themselves, that we may enjoy the fruits of their labors: Love of God (I know not PC, but my freedom so I exercise that right), Love of Country, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness, for all.

Wow, get me off my soapbox, sorry a little preachy there , just get started sometimes, and end up going with it. Anyway, that’s my $0.02 on the definition of homesteading.

 

Being one of the seemingly fewer and fewer people on here that really live a homesteading lifestyle, to me it means doing as much as I can myself, doing without what I don't really need, learning how to do new things and letting my creativity lead me through the day,

Having dreams, setting goals and achieving them, every little bit of self dependency, that unplugs me from the media driven pressure to depend on someone else, [for even the thoughs in my own mind], I feel a freedom and a joy.

We have lived here for 2 years now, we have done everything but drill the water well ourselves, there was nothing here when we bought the land not even a gate to get in,... we lived in the sheet metal barn 4 months, and had no windows in the house the first winter, I kept a wood fire going and chopped ice from the stock tank to melt for the animals, I thought about staying in town, but I wanted to..."make it" ... and I did,

We have to pump our water (gasoline generator/ac pump) and transfer (12v pump) to barrels or tanks for use, we just got our electric wired up to our solar panels last Dec, and the cook stove in the house a few months before that. Still no refridgerator. We could get a loan to get one, but I want to get out of debt, not deeper into it.

I am here alone much of the time, and this year I am looking forward to winter, we have a green house that I am eager to see put to work, we have horses, goats, rabbits, sheep, dogs, cats, chickens, garden space safe from the animals, our debt load is coming down, and we have the respect of a few close friends ...if the tornado's etc. don't wipe us off the place,..,I expect next year will be a great year.

 

Providing what we need at homestead of the mall. :haha:

Sorry I couldn't resist.

Tambo

 

There is a BBS on the net called CountryByNet.com (http://www.countrybynet.com) which is affiliated with my husband's dearly beloved TractorbyNet.com (http://www.tractorbynet.com). CountryByNet is a little less "hard core homestead" and almost never engages in questions like this, but seems dominated by one or two "serious" posters. TractorbyNet on the other hand is a gold mine of information and support for the part time farmer... what people who don't know any better disdainfully call the "hobby farmer." But we're talking Men And Their Magnificent Machines here. How to buy, how to sell, how to tweak, how to use, how to love, your tractor.

The men name their tractors. They take pictures of them. These guys LOVE their tractors.

"She thinks my tractor's sexy?" Heck no. These guys KNOW their tractors are sexy.

Peter's is named "Clemintine" because she's orange and came out of the south...