I started homesteading because I was interested in the sustainability aspect of it. I wanted to know where my food was coming from and be able to walk out my front door to pick it. I wanted to gather our own eggs and butcher our own meat. Thinking purely worst-case scenario, I wanted to know that we could take care of ourselves if we were unable to rely on outside food sources.
I believe that is the appeal to most people. Not only is it a way to get back to the basics, but there is also something freeing when you know you can take of your family with healthy, nutritious food.
In and of itself, homesteading is an act of love. It is more work than I ever could have imagined. I go to bed more days exhausted then not. But I always know that the work I put in is rewarded, although it’s value may not be tangible or monetary.
Becoming a Mom
My homesteading dream was planted in the early morning hours shortly after having my daughter. We were still riding on the afterglow of being new parents and being sleep deprived didn’t really bother me.
What did bother me was the neighborhood we were living in. Our house was in the middle of town and it had, when I first moved in, been more of a family-oriented neighborhood. Over the years, I watched as it became more renters than owners. With that change came instability. People were moving in and out all of the time. On more than one occasion, police would be stationed in the street, de-escalating domestic fights or raiding suspected drug dens.
On that particular night, I listened to our immediate neighbors’ cuss and scream at each other and thought, is this what I wanted my baby to listen to? Yelling instead of lullabies?
We lasted there for a few more months before it became apparent that we were not giving our daughter the best life where we were at. We didn’t want her to grow up hearing sirens. Since we were both blessed with good jobs and had money saved, we made the decision to look for a home in a safer place.
Looking for a house….
We looked at, at least, 100 different houses and put an offer in on two, all of which ended up falling through. I was starting to despair that we would ever find anything that fit our needs when I stumbled across a listing on Facebook. It was a house, ten minutes from my job, that sat on a little over 1 acre. We had passed it before on our search and my husband had joked, “Why don’t we just buy that one?” I quickly answered that there was no way we could afford it.
Ironically enough, we could afford it.
Two months later we closed, got the keys, and moved in.
Dealing with changes
When we first moved in, the last thing on my mind was building a homestead. I had recently been switched to a salaried position and was managing my increasing workload. While we always had a garden and I had been interested in expanding, I was too busy to trying to keep my head above water to do any real planning.
It took my health taking a pretty severe downturn for us to prioritize starting our homestead. Sitting in the hospital, waiting to get back results from my MRI and Echocardiogram, all I could think about was how much time I had invested in my job instead of my health and my family.
Surely, I thought, there was a better way to live.
Thankfully, my results revealed that I wasn’t in any imminent danger. However, my doctor made it a point to stress that the way I was living wasn’t healthy. Eating processed foods, lacking substantial sleep, and working in a high stress environment would only cause me to have more episodes (see About for more details).
At that point, I knew I would have to leave my job. Six months later I handed over my resignation and we started building our homestead.
Why did I wait six months? We spent that time saving money and investing in key items that would help us on our journey to build a self-sustaining property.
Planting an orchard
One of our first steps was to plant a mini orchard in our backyard. We waited until trees went on sale in the fall and picked up two apple trees and two pear trees. The next spring, we picked up two peach trees and planted them between a low-lying area that collected water.
Ideally, if you are wanting to grow your own fruit, trees should be one of the first investments you make when you move on to your homestead. It takes most fruit bearing trees three to five years to start producing.
We most likely won’t see the return on our trees for another two years but, once they mature, we will be able to can/preserve and avoid buying as much from the grocery store.
Building a garden
As I said, we had always had a garden. At our previous home, it was something that we barely took care of but would occasionally enjoy a tomato. Every time we would eat a home-grown vegetable, we would tell each other that eating fresh really was the way to go.
While I knew I would still be working on a prn basis, I needed to find a way to bring our grocery bill down. One of the things we saved up for was four, small, galvanized beds.
I started all of my plants from seed and, that summer, we were able to freeze and eat straight out of the garden. Not only did it help with the grocery bill, but I felt better knowing that my family was eating foods that were free from chemicals and pesticides.
Invest in Rain Barrels
It became apparent pretty quickly that watering a garden in the middle of the summer was anything but cheap. While we don’t mind paying for something that helps supplement our food bill, we noticed that the plants tended to do better after a heavy rain. We use county water which often includes chemicals such as aluminum, copper, pesticides, and herbicides.
We still primarily use county water for the convenience but supplement our animals and the garden by collecting rainwater in barrels. Each barrel has a spout and netting on the top to make it easier to use and keep insects/debris out. Up front, it can be a steep investment but, when connected with a watering system, saves on cost and labor.
Raising Chickens
If you don’t have chickens already, they are possibly the easiest animals to invest in if you are focusing on sustainability. You can get them fairly cheaply from stores such as Atwood and Tractor Supply or order them through hatcheries such as Cackle and Murray McMurray.
I did some research and we started by ordering ten Brahmas. With a toddler, I wanted a breed that I knew would be docile but also dual purpose. Brahma’s fit that bill and, while they don’t get as big as Cornish Cross, can make a decent meat bird.
We also bought a rooster along with an incubator. While you can order chickens every year (and many people do!) we really just wanted to be at a point that we could increase our flock every year with minimal costs.
The biggest expensive was the coop. We did a build a nice one with a large run that fits our entire flock. However, with how many chickens we have, we are also working on a mobile coop. Since we let our chickens free range, the space we have set aside for them has no hope of regrowing as they are constantly scratching at the ground.
With a mobile coop, we will be able to implement rotational grazing to hopefully, help with regrowth as well as fertilization.
Making your own compost
If chickens are the easiest animal to take care of, then composting is one of the easiest steps you can take to become more sustainable. We save all of our cardboard, eggshells, vegetable peels, paper products, grass clippings, and leaves to put in our compost pile.
We moved this to the chickens’ yard so that they can peck and scratch at it to their heart’s content. This has led to the most beautiful, rich soil that we are able to use to amend our garden.
Future Plans
Our homestead is still a work in progress. We recently put up a high tunnel to extend our growing season and are in the process of creating a new garden space that will increase our growing area by almost 500 sq ft.
We chose homesteading not because it is easy (it’s not) or cheap (far from it). What we were looking for is a way to improve the quality of our family’s life while also empowering us to take control of our food supply.
Homesteading will look different for everyone. Some people will want to build their own home and create their own infrastructure. We have taken what we have and improved it.
The point isn’t how you do it but what you do to help yourself.
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