Modern Day Homesteading Pt. 2

 Homesteading Then and Now

While homesteading used to look a certain way, today in our modern times it looks a bit different because for most of us much of the hardest of the hard work has already been done.  Folks did things a certain way 150 years ago because that was just the way things were done. They built their own homes & barns, raised their own meat, had their own dairy cows, grew their own fruits & vegetables, sewed their own clothes and made their own soaps, candles, medicines and even toys for their children.  The idea of running to the store to get a week's worth of groceries was just as foreign to them, as it would be to most modern day folks to make their own bar of soap, or process a chicken for dinner.  They had their land, their hands and their backs and they worked hard, and by God's grace that's how they got by.  

Fast forward from the old pioneer days to modern day, and thanks to the incredible blessing of modern day conveniences, homesteading doesn't quite look how it used to. Our homes are already built, we have indoor plumbing & heating, and can actually run to the store once a week if we choose to do that. Homesteading is much different because of our modern day conveniences, but for some silly, romantic reason we seem to think if we didn't till the back yard with our own ox on a hot summer day after we dug a well and built a barn, we're not "real" homesteaders. 😂 

We don't have to work as hard as our ancestors did, but it's still a lot of work that goes into a working, modern homestead. In truth, we don't have to do any of the things old time homesteaders did.  We can choose to buy everything we need from someone else who made it, grew it, built it, sewed it, processed it & packaged it. Or, we can learn how to use the space we have to do those things ourselves, just like they did. Also, you definitely do not need to own an ox to be a real homesteader.  An electric or gas powered tiller works just fine.   

My list of inspiration is rather long, but one of the things that moved me to begin modern homesteading was looking at my beautiful, lush, green lawn in my back yard. I know that might sound odd, but it's true.  One spring day in 2020 after edging, mowing and doing my weekly maintaining of the lawn, the thought hit me: "what the heck are you doing?" I looked over my back yard and suddenly instead of feeling proud of my hard work, I felt like I'd been investing in the wrong thing all along. Like I was the goofy kid making a touchdown in the wrong end zone. Good job, dingdong.  All I could see, was a huge waste of space. Instead of investing in what was growing out there to feed my family, I was investing in what was growing out there to... look at it. My ancestors who put in all the super hard work of homesteading 150 years ago, would be stunned by the foolishness of toiling away on grass, to simply... look at it.  All the while wasting fuel to drive to a local store to be even more wasteful in buying the things I could have been growing all along. (there's a story here about where neatly manicured lawns came from, and I can assure you they did not come from hard working homesteaders). 

Recalling what my ancestors did have to do to carve out their own homesteads that made future generations far more comfortable, inspires me to at least try and learn as many things about being self-sufficient as I can. That was just one of the many, many things that gave me inspiration to begin a life of modern homesteading.  They did it because they had to, but I chose to learn this way because it's incredibly productive and satisfying. It just feels really good to be using the space God blessed me with, to take care of my family.  

There were also lockdowns, shortages, inflation and general panic all over the place which really lit a fire under me to get after it. In the gardening community there's a sort of running joke (that I had never heard of before I was part of the community):

"Folks always ask, when's the best time to start a garden?  The answer is: 10 years ago.  The second best time: right now." 

So, my adventure into modern day homesteading began.  😊

Modern Day Homesteading Part 3