Preparing to Live a Homestead Life

If you’ve been following me for more than 6 months, you know that our ultimate dream is to live a homesteading life. We didn’t grow up in that lifestyle and the switch over has presented challenges that never hit my radar of possibilities. We’ve made so many changes in our day-to-day routines and habits over the last four years that when I look back at how we were before, it almost seems like another person was living that life! There is still so much to do before we make the big move, though.

I want to live this lifestyle so bad, my soul aches. Yup, sounds cheesy but it’s honest cheese. 😉 I dream of living a life where I wake up early each morning to tend to the chickens (and get the eggs!), plan my day out with my husband over our morning coffee and breakfast. The day’s chores will be filled with tending the garden and resulting harvest, gathering the resources we need to build this or that, and being outside most of the time. I even look forward to the sore muscles and falling into bed exhausted. That description may sound like a special kind of torture to some. To us, it sounds like a slice of heaven.

Homesteading is largely romanticized and I am 100% certain that there will be times I question my sanity and lifestyle choice. Then, some little miracle will happen and I will be reminded of why it’s worth it. I want to wake up in the morning, thinking about all the things I need to do for my family on my land and not what I need to do at the office each day in a 40 hour work week. I know having a homestead will be far more work (especially physical) and we will have less money overall. There will be struggles and triumphs, just like with any other lifestyle. We’ve already experienced some of that!

I’ve learned how to preserve the garden harvest in various ways. We fine tuned our skills in smoking and canning salmon and have made it part of our normal annual routine along with picking berries (mmm homemade jam!) and deer hunting. We’ve learned about water catch systems and different filtering methods for both home and emergency water needs. I’ve done more research about chickens…I could likely write a thesis on it! Our cupboards are filled with less boxes and more jars. I’ve learned the joy, value, and importance on bartering your skills (and time) to get things you need (instead of money). We waste less and recycle/upcycle more. The list is long but you get the idea. Even after all that, we still need to do more.

Some things on our “To Do” list:

• Go through everything in the entire house and downsize. Some things, like an electric waffle maker, just aren’t necessary or even needed on a homestead. We have lots of items like this that just need to go. With the recent move, we were amazed at how much stuff was sitting in boxes that we never used, thought about, or even remembered that we owned it.
• Sell off as much of the downsized items as possible. Use that money on bills and/or tools for homesteading.
• Get out of debt, cancel credit cards until we only have one.
• Identify and prioritize things we will need for the new lifestyle that we don’t already have (such as a generator).
• Gather information and loosely plan the logistics of getting the “barn kit” we will turn into our home to the remote island we want to move to.
• Run several tests for living without running water or power. Though we are avid campers and are used to being ‘off grid,’ when you live it, there are obstacles you don’t even know about yet. Having ‘dry runs’ will help to figure it out and adjust accordingly.
• Research and design the garden areas.
• STOCK UP the things we need before we make the big move. (If we have what we need on hand already, that is a huge advantage and only one trip made).
• Have money saved to live on until we are able to make some money on the homestead.

Whew! That is quite the list and each item has its own set of things to do. I am really looking forward to a huge purge of clutter though the thought of actually going through it is daunting. The deeper we delve into living more self-sufficiently though, the more I realize that there are certain skills a homesteader must have if they want to be successful and it’s not being able to home-can applesauce! Some days I feel like we are in a limbo state and aren’t making any progress. I have to keep telling myself that each day I get up and continue learning and moving forward is a day of progress. Even if I can’t see it.