10 things I wish I knew before starting a homestead

Starting a homestead was a dream I had for a long time, and one of the best decisions I've made! Living out in the woods, learning new skills, becoming more self sufficient, and living a quieter life has so many benefits. Homesteading is a lifestyle and an attitude that not everyone desires to be a part of. Homesteaders are resilient, hard working, resourceful, diligent and passionate people. We don't shy away from things when it gets hard or we don't have the tools. We don't ask for hand outs but we aren't afraid to teach others and lend a helping hand. We find peace and accomplishment in the small things, and pride in doing things more like our great grandparents did. Living this life is a dream come true for me and my family. But there are several things I wish I had known before I jumped in, head first.

You can't do it all

When we moved out of the suburbs and onto our land I wanted to do all of the things. Start a vegetable garden, have a berry patch, start an orchard, grow a medicinal garden, get chickens, raise our own pigs, make sourdough, get cows, start beekeeping, build a greenhouse... the list goes on. And while eventually I hope to be doing all (or most) of those things, the reality is that after four years we still have a big "to do" list.

The fact of the matter is that all of these things take money, time, blood, sweat and tears to get done. Chicken coops don't build themselves, and the ready-made kits are expensive. Chickens don't start laying eggs at a few days old. Orchards don't plant themselves and good trees can be an investment. And while our house was turn-key it also had some things (still has some things, for that matter) that needed to be done to make it more comfortable for us to live in. Oh, and did I mention that being a mom means that even though there are 24 hours in each day, depending on the age of your children you will only have a small fraction of that to actually accomplish projects. And that's on a good day.

I don't say all of this to discourage a future homesteader! Far from it. I still highly encourage people to work towards a more self-sufficient and natural lifestyle. But it's important to stay firmly grounded in reality and be practical about your goals on the homestead. Rome wasn't built in a day (or even a year) after all. Neither will your homestead be perfect overnight.

Start Slow

I quickly was brought down to earth after our first few projects on our farm. Right after we moved onto our land we bought a tractor, a riding lawnmower, a wood splitter, and some tools. All of those have been very worthwhile investments, but sucked up a lot of cash. Then of course I had to have a chicken coop for all of these chicks I had bought. And I wanted a fence. And a garden. And, and, and.

Within our first six months we got a lot done but we had burned through what cash reserves we had and made some mistakes along the way. What we failed to do was start slow, really think through and prioritize our projects and budget appropriately. If I had sat down and gone slower I might have realized that I would need a bigger and sturdier chicken coop. I would have saved up to properly amend the garden plot before wasting seeds and plant starts on depleted soil. I would have realized that while a white picket fence is cute in the suburbs with a perfect lawn, it looks totally out of place and is not sturdy enough for an uneven and sparse lawn next to a rustic log cabin in the middle of the Selkirk mountains. So my advice to you is to start slow. Sit down and really think about what you want to accomplish and prioritize that list. Budget appropriately for each project and be patient.

All good things come with time and hard work

Patience. One of the virtues I tend to lack--especially when I am excited and anxious to get things done. When I am impatient I tend to make more mistakes and cut corners that ought not be cut. Hence, many of the early mistakes on our homestead. I had to learn the hard way that all good things come with time. And those things often also come by hard work.

Chickens are easy animals to keep. But they still take work. We have build several coops to be able to find a solution that works for us. We build an enclosed run attached to our barn so we have a place to contain them whenever they aren't free ranging. This last summer my husband built huge feed hoopers that can contain one ton of feed each (one for the chickens, one for the pigs). And while we do the deep-litter method for bedding, which doesn't need to be cleaned as often, the coop and run do need to be cleaned out, refreshed and the soiled bedding hauled to the compost at least 2-3 times per year. Not to mention daily egg gathering, watering and feeding. I love having my own chickens for eggs, and even raising chickens for meat. But you won't catch me saying that they don't take hard work.

Community matters

Similarly related to not being able to do it all, being connected with your community matters. You will not be able to produce everything you need or want from your own land. Sure, you can survive. But you will have a hard time thriving and living a truly comfortable life. All throughout history communities have depended on one another. Each family having a specific set of skills or trades that they would get really good at, and be able to sell their wares, support other families, and receive needed wares from others. If we try to do it all we are either going to be mediocre at everything (at best) or burn ourselves out by doing too much. So connecting with others in your community is essential.

For example, we enjoy raising our own pastured and organic pork. We keep at least one hog for ourselves each year, but sell the rest. We also have chickens for eggs and raise chickens and turkeys for meat each summer. I'm able to help feed other families by selling my excess, and provide a little extra money for my family this way. But I don't have cows (yet). So I reached out to the local community--facebook pages, word of mouth and even library bulletin boards can be great resources for this--and found a family not far from me who raise cattle for beef and milk. Each week we buy fresh milk from this family, and once per year or so we will buy a whole cow from them as well.

But relying on your community is about more than just food. What happens when the power goes out for several days? Or there are multiple trees down on your road? Or a mega snow storm and you need help plowing out? Or if your truck gets stuck and your tractor isn't big enough to haul it out? Or an injury? Or an animal got out of their fencing? The number of situations that can go wrong are endless, and in those extreme cases when you really do need help it is important to have people you can call to get some extra hands. I have on more than one occasion had to call up a neighbor or friend in the case of an emergency or issue I can't solve by myself.

Self sufficiency isn't about doing everything by yourself. It's about getting good at some new skills, not relying on the conventional systems for everything, and learning to be a producer instead of solely a consumer in life. Connecting with your community is vitall for this because odds are you will need some help or can learn something from someone else, and someone else needs you and can learn from you too.

Be a self starter

Homesteaders a tough, hard working and resourceful people. And while most of us are happy to help and teach others to live this way, no one is going to hold your hand. At some point you just need to get started and learn along the way. You can spend hours and hours reading articles, watching youtube videos, attending seminars and reading books but at the end of the day you're going to have to actually go outside and build that fence. You're going to have to plant those seeds. You need to can those tomatoes. That pig shelter isn't going to build itself and those chickens aren't going to feed themselves.

So if you want to be a homesteader you need to be a self starter and be able to motivate yourself. Other homesteaders will surely be your cheerleader but cheerleaders don't win the football game. Reach out for advice and learn from others, but don't expect a hand out because homesteaders aren't about that life.

Learn to make it work or go without

I cannot tell you the number of times I have needed an extra part, or more fencing, or another 2x4 or more canning jars, or even some more cash to pay for a project. But living where I live (way, way out in the boonies) I can't simply run to the hardware store really quick. And living in a small town also means that even if I did go to the hardware store they might not have everything I need. And if money is tight I may have to borrow the parts or make it work with whatever scraps I have on hand, or I might just have to go without until I can do things the correct way. Living this lifestyle means you need to learn resilience and resourcefulness. It also means learning the difference between the times when you can hash something together to get by, and the times where you really should just go without until you can do things right.

For example when we went to build our pig shelter we had stacks of wood pallets collecting dust in the barn. And instead of springing the extra funds to build a fancy shelter from new materials we were able to piece together the pallets into a suitable shelter for the pigs. But when it was time to reinforce the fencing and add a few gates to their enclosure we waited until we could get new materials.

Learning the difference between the times to make it work or do without is not only financially wise but it will also save you a lot of time. Having to go back and fix mistakes later on is frustrating and often time consuming. So learn to be resourceful when you can, and patient when you can't.

Sometimes less is more

Start slow, start small, and be willing to grow. When we moved onto our property, the previous owner had a huge garden plot that had gone fallow for close to a decade. The fence was falling apart, and nothing but grass and weeds was growing in there. But the footprint was there and was ready to be improved upon. So without further thought my husband and I ripped out the old fencing, tilled up all of the unwanted growth, and started our garden. This garden is 2,000 square feet of space. My previous garden in the suburbs was a small, 12 foot by 4 foot raised bed. The shock of transitioning to such a large space, combined with complete failure to keep up on weeding, watering, amending and harvesting had me quickly wallowing in my black thumb. But did I have a black thumb? Or was I simply ill-prepared and wet behind the ears? What I should have done was started with less and worked my way up. I likely would have been more successful and less discouraged that first garden season.

Be willing to adapt and learn from failures

I firmly believe that some of the best people in the world have learned to eat their fair share of humble pie in life. And if this blog post isn't any indication already, I have learned some hard lessons while homesteading. But part of being a successful homesteader is learning from your mistakes and adapting as you go along.

A prime instance of this would be this last summer on our own homestead. We had raised meat chickens for a few years by this time, and were ready to scale up on the quantity of birds we were doing. We had previously learned that the a-frame chicken tractor we used our first year was not going to work (because it was heavy and actually fell apart from snow load during the winter prior), and keeping the birds in the chicken run defeats the purpose of having pastured chickens. So after much research I decided that I wanted to do rotational grazing like some other homestead YouTubers I follow. So I got some portable electric fencing, had my husband build a small shelter for them and we started our cornish cross on grass. Well guess what? Those little birds were able to escape the netting easily until they were four weeks old. Oh, and did I mention I live in the woods? That means predators. We have lots. And not all of them are deterred by electric fencing. The ravens and hawks just flew right in and ate tons of my birds. So I thought, okay, I will put some netting over the top too to keep the aerial predators at bay. Seemed like a good thought, except that ravens are smart and were able to tear off the netting. Yes. They tore. OFF. The netting. Then a bear came by and just pushed the electric fencing over like it was a spider web and ate some more of my birds. If anyone was eating humble pie I assure you it was me when my husband finally came to me and said lovingly, "Honey, I know you wanted to do this whole thing the way so and so on Youtube does it... but this isn't working. So we need to find some other solution." And bless his heart this man spent the time building lightweight and sturdy chicken tractors that move easily along our uneven terrain, keep the birds in and the predators out. And he did it on the fly, in the middle of the summer when we were already halfway through raising all of our meat birds. Just because so and so is doing it a certain way doesn't always mean that that will directly translate to your own situation, and being able to adapt, adjust and learn along the way is vital if you are going to keep going.

People are going to think you are weird

Homesteaders and farmers are a minority in todays world. Most people are perfectly content living in the city or suburbs, buying everything from big box stores, producing nothing, eating from a box, and relying on others for everything they need. But homesteaders aren't content with that. Why buy a sweater if I can make one? Why buy eggs if I can have my hens lay them? Why buy meat from the store if I can raise it, butcher it, and cook it all by myself? Why buy bread when I can make it cheaper and more nutritious at home? Why buy canned goods when I can make them myself? Why buy produce when I can grow that in my garden? But when you start thinking this way, like a homesteader, most other people are going to think you are weird. And maybe we are. But those of us who live this way don't mind. We aren't looking to live up to the status quo or fit into conventional boxes. Homesteaders just want to live a simple, quiet life, mind their own business and work with their hands ( 1 Thessalonians 4:11).

You can start before you have land

Homesteading is not a place, or a chunk of land or even having livestock. It's an attitude and a lifestyle. You can grow a simple garden in pots while living in an apartment. I learned how to can while living in the suburbs. You can learn to process animals for meat before having acres to raise them yourself (hello hunting skills!). You can start to acquire skills and habits long before you buy a chunk of land and get your first flock of chickens. And some of the most self sufficient homesteaders are able to do it without acreage, a barn, or a massive garden. One of my good friends has a very prolific homestead on only 1/4 acre in the middle of town! They garden, raise rabbits, chickens, turkeys and pigs for meat. They preserve food, they sew, crochet and knit. They eat from nose to tail and utilize their community for what they can't produce on their own plot of land. What they are able to accomplish on that 1/4 acre blows my mind when I think about what I get done on my 22 acres. I hope to be more like my friend when I grow up :)

All in all, these things I wish I had known before starting a homestead, I have learned along the way. And they have been worthwhile lessons in many ways. Some people have to learn the hard way, and sometimes that is me. But the benefit to that is I can now help people like you who are dreaming of homesteading, or looking for encouragement or maybe trying to get a realistic view of what this life is like. Homesteaders are tough people! And we are a hardy people. And this life is worthwhile. I hope you give it a try.

~ Ashley ~