Why homestead?

So why homestead?  That’s the question we often hear when we talk about how we have chosen to live our lives.  In 2006 I got out of the Marine Corps and I set out to start a new life for myself- a simple one.  I had planned on purchasing a few acres or so, about five, and building a simple house on the property.  I also planned on growing crops and generating my own energy; at that time in my life I did’t know what the term homesteading meant- it wasn’t even in my vocabulary.  But things didn’t work out that way for me and things quickly became complicated as life often does.  Jobs, moving, bills and obligations quickly clouded my vision of the simple life. 

In 2007 I met my wife and, with both of us loving the outdoors, we hit it off and got married in 2009.  My homestead vision all but disappeared and we settled for the “American Dream” in suburbia.  We purchased a large house with an HOA that we really had no business buying even though our credit said we could and in 2012 our son Liam was born.  As our bills became more and more our fun outdoor trips became less and less.  My wife and I worked opposite shifts to make ends meet and we hardly got to see each other, much less enjoy life with each other.  To no fault of her own, my wife’s career came to an abrupt end and we came to the question “why are we doing this?”  “Why are we working so hard to live in a house that we can’t afford in an area that restricts us from doing what we really want to do?”  Plan A was to follow my wife’s career to wherever it took her but we were now looking at plan B or what we now call “plan bee.”

My wife and I are both mountain people at heart and so began the search for a simple life in the mountains.  We looked at property all across north Georgia for months until we found a house that was built in 1968 on seven acres which is where we are living now and it is where we are starting our homestead.  But I still haven’t answered your question- “so why homestead?”  I mean, I told you why we decided to move pretty much but not why we wanted to homestead.

Well let me first tell you some of the truths that I have come to find out about homesteading.  It isn’t so simple… at least not to start with.  Time is the biggest challenge for me- I work one hour away from where we live so a ten our work day is really a twelve hour day and if I work on weekends then I really don’t have much time at all.  Finances are also tricky.  Let’s face it- to homestead you need a lot of stuff which will talk about some other time in “10 things every homesteader needs.”  But you do need stuff.  Maybe not right away but you will need equipment  and supplies to work the land with.  Here are some of the things we have purchased so far: a trailer for my truck, a riding mower, pressure treated lumber and hardware, a complete beekeeping kit, fish to keep our pond clean, gutters for a rain water capturing system, and other miscellaneous items.  We already had chainsaws, lumber milling equipment and all of my tools from the years I spent in the high-rise construction industry which are all invaluable around here.        But if we didn’t have all of that stuff already it would have to be on the purchase list.  There is also the challenge of learning how to do everything; I’m not a farmer and my wife isn’t either.  Luckily my wife’s father knows a lot about the subject but there is still a lot to be learned.  The topic of beekeeping alone is exciting yet overwhelming and I don’t want to be a bee owner I want to be a beekeeper- there is a big difference between the two and a lot of research goes into it and every aspect of homesteading.

So it’s not so simple.  But that’s kind of the point; well part of it.  In todays society we have lost touch with the old ways of life and how we used to do things.  I really like Miranda Lambert’s new song “Automatic” because it just says it all.  But we really have lost touch with real life.  Smart phones, big screen TVs, microwave dinners… I could go on but I won’t.  A fun thing I like to do when I’m out is just watch people who are on their smart phones- texting, on the internet or just playing games with birds that have anger issues.  Whatever they are doing on their phones… just watch them.  Watch how oblivious they are to their surroundings.  How they ignore their children who are growing up right in front of them just so that they can update their status.  Seriously, what is wrong with us?  I don’t want to miss out on life like that and I find that the old way of doing things brings me back to being alive.  I love milling lumber and making furniture out of it.  It is raw and unique and it’s me.  It’s not someone else's product but it is mine and it costs me nothing but time and maybe some gas money for my saw.  And what’s more is I can’t wait to teach my son those things and spend time with him doing it.  I even plan to build a pioneer cabin with him in about five years from scratch.  I don’t care what he grows up to be so long as he is happy and healthy.  But while he is young I want to teach help him how to develop these skills; not only does it instill work ethic and pride in your work but it also builds character and background knowledge about how things are made, where they come from and just how many hours goes into a product.  Whenever I buy something, whether it be a product or a service, I think about how many hours of work it would take me to earn the money to pay for it.  A lot of times I then end up building it myself or doing the work myself because it saves me money and I know it was done right.  On a side note, if you enjoy doing things the old way check out the Fox Fire books.  I will blog about them later, but they are awesome books!

I like a challenge and that is half the reason why we choose to live this way, but there is the other half of knowing where your food is coming from.  Let’s do an experiment.  I want you to take a break from reading this and go to your pantry, fridge or kitchen.  Take something out of your pantry or fridge and read the ingredients.  Do you know what all that stuff is?  How many words are in the ingredients that you cannot pronounce?  Would you have to Google some of the words to know what they are?  Do any of them say GMO?  Well I can tell you what they are.  The are BAD they are POISON.  Everyday it seems like I hear about another person I know having cancer or some sort of extreme health problem.  I’m not saying that homesteading is going to prevent you from getting cancer or keep you from getting sick.  I do however 100% believe that it will significantly reduce your risk of those things.  You will know where your food came from, how it was grown, who grew it and that it was pesticide free because you grew it.  Plus once you get going you will spend a lot less at the grocery store.  We plan on growing most or all of our own fruits and veggies, producing our own honey (the bees will also pollinate the crops substantially increasing yield) and raise our own chickens for meat and eggs.  My wife enjoys canning so she will can up our winter stores and any excess that is not needed can be sold or given to family/friends or people in need.

So those are just a couple of the bigger reasons why we chose to homestead.  Of course there are a lot of other perks like living in the mountains, slowing life down a little and just enjoying the beauty of nature but for me the challenge of it and knowing where our food comes from are the biggest reasons.  We have just started this chapter in our lives so we are by no means experts on homesteading, farming or beekeeping but we would like to share with you some of our challenges, successes, failures and discoveries a long the way in hopes that it helps you out or at least provides entertainment.  I hope in some way this helps you decide to homestead or answer some of the questions you have about why people choose to live this way.  In a day of unpredictable economic times, government corruption and genetically modified food I am convinced that homesteading is they way to live.  If you do get into homesteading, I don’t want you to get caught up in what to buy or how much stuff you are going to need.  Those things will come with time.  If you are like me you will be in a hurry to get everything done in the first year but that is just not realistic and you will stress yourself out.  Just let things fall into place as time moves on.  Thanks for reading!

Lumberjack.