We describe ourselves as modern homesteaders....but what does that mean? To us it means...
- Producing as much of our own food as we can, including gardening, hunting and fishing
- Doing things ourselves
- Reducing what we buy from the store
- Working toward a more simple life
It is a shift in how you think about things, becoming a producer instead of a consumer. This can be done wherever you live; you don't have to have acres of land to be a homesteader! It is definitely a process...a lifetime journey. There is always more to do and more to learn to increase our self reliance. I don't believe we will ever get to a point where we don't buy anything from the store, but we have been able to reduce our list quite a bit. And each thing we are able to replace with a homegrown or homemade version means less money spent and more money set aside for our future homestead!
Some things we have done over the past 10 years:
- Paid off all debt, including our small house
- Grown over 500 pounds of produce per year in our backyard garden
- Grow enough potatoes, garlic, onions, beets, carrots to last us all year
- Make our own onion and garlic powders
- Dry our own sage, thyme and oregano
- Focus on eating seasonally
- Learn what wild edibles grow where we live
- Keep chickens for eggs
- Hatched our own eggs and raised chicks for meat
- Can jam, jellies, salsa, vegetables, fruit, meat and broths
- Bake bread
- Cook from scratch
- Make all our soap (and sell this as a side income)
- Make my own cloth pads
- Compost kitchen scraps, chicken manure and garden clippings
- Installed woodstove to cut down fuel oil we buy
- Turned off cable for summer, now turned off for good and subscribed to Netflix instead
- Opted for no microwave or dish washer in our home
- Learned to grind wheat for flour
- Shop garage sales and thrift stores
This lifestyle isn't for everyone, but for us it is rewarding...especially when we sit down to a meal and are able to say that it was all produced in our backyard!