Make no mistake about it, what we are doing here is not, and has little hope of ever being, sustainable or self-sufficient.  But that doesn’t mean those aren’t fundamental goals of the modern homesteader.

First of all, sustainability to me means not just for a community or a country, but for the world.  Four people on 50 acres, even if it were a desirable prospect for the average person (and I know very few who even like to entertain the thought) could hardly happen in this country.  In a country like India or China the proposition would be laughable.  Few would applaud the latest self-sufficiency movement of urban homesteaders louder than I do, because I realize their goals have much more hope of being sustainable in our current global reality.

Because the nearest grocery store is 20 miles away we are more dependent on fossil fuels than city folks, and maybe even most suburban folks, too.  But city and suburban life aren’t for everyone, so I will continue to dream up some way that country life could ever again be considered remotely sustainable and somewhat self-sufficient.

I’m brand new at this, but like any industrious idealist, I have no doubt that we can make it happen, for us.  I certainly don’t have the answers to translate our inevitable success at homesteading, itself a loaded word as well, into a potential solution to fix any of the world’s problems.  Right now I’m just asking a lot of questions.  And with every new question I look to those who have come before me.  Sometimes they are old-timers, but other times they are the young, like Jenna Woginrich.  In her new book Made from Scratch:  Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life, this 26 year old says,  “The scary thing was that I was completely dependent of fossil fuels, and so was everyone I knew.  My gas-heated apartment, my groceries from the supermarket, my station wagon parked outside-everything was part of the system.  And if the system broke, I was going to be hungry, cold, and immobile.  So I threw my hands in the air.  I was done with Walmart and Wonder Bread.  I wanted something real.  I wanted something basic.  I wanted a lifestyle that was no longer a part of the problem, or at the very least was constantly striving to be less involved in it.” Thanks Jenna, my sentiments exactly.

The answers I’m continually seeking in this new lifestyle are sometimes practical, sometimes philosophical, and the words of all the others who are trying it their way too are always useful and inspiring to me.

What else I’m reading these days:

The Modern Homestead Manual:  What it REALLY takes to Succeed Beyond the Sidewalks and Power Lines by Skip Thomsen and Cat Freshwater

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It by John Seymour

VoluntarySimplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich by Duane Elgin

Complete Guide to Home Canning and Preserving by U.S. Department of Agriculture

Natural Beauty from the Garden by Janice Cox

The Woodlot Management Handbook by Stewart Hilts and Peter Mitchell

Lost Arts and Celebration of Culinary Traditions by Lynn Alley

Preserving Summer’s Bounty A Rodale Garden Book

Storey’s Basic Country Skills by John and Martha Storey

Texas Gardening the Natural Way by Howard Garrett

I can only entice them with my sweet water.  I cannot force them to come or to stay.  Usually I do not even ask them, or will them, so clearly I do not plead or beg.  If I want them to return I appeal to their needs, on their terms.  I give, and they give in return.  There are no takers in this equation.

Once here I appreciate what they offer, and I do not expect what they cannot give.  It is a far more fulfilling and natural relationship than those we often cultivate, you know what kind I mean, the ones based on guilt, and manipulation, and sometimes even exploitation.

Our expectations could not be more simple or basic.  I need their beauty and their grace, and they need my sweet water.

Homesteaders revel in the idea of autonomy.  But, in order to be autonomous we must have significant freedom, and that is often beyond our control.

We like to think of ourselves as living in the land of the free in America, but we forget that freedom is a very relative term.  For example, I am not free to sunbathe at the beach without covering my breasts, but I am free to expose the entirety of my derriere.  I am not free to grow a number of different kinds of plants in my garden, but I am free to purchase all the equipment necessary to grow those same plants indoors, as well as all the paraphernalia required to process and consume them.  I am not free to marry whomever I choose, or for that matter, to marry several people of my choice.  I am not free to pay taxes to fund only those programs I believe in, or to not pay taxes to fund wars I do not support.

We can choose not to vote, for example, if we are not pleased with either of the two candidates who have any chance of winning.  We have freedom of the press, as long as our ideas are popular, or unpopular, enough to get press.  We have the right to a fair trial, and even an unfair one in our favor, as long as we have money for a good lawyer.

There are other freedoms that are even more precarious, like those that govern our bodies and our land.  In these two areas where we might expect to have the most autonomy, our freedoms are in fact shockingly limited.  In theory we have the freedom to own property, as long as we meet certain requirements that would otherwise quickly forfeit those rights.  For example, as long as the land is undesirable to the government because there has, as yet, been found no exploitable natural resources below the surface.  Or, most commonly, as long as the land is not in an area that becomes desirable for development, in which case its taxes will be raised so quickly as to find it impossible to keep by anyone except the most wealthy.   On my own property, during certain times of the year, and in some places at any time, I am not free to kill an animal whose continued presence in my garden threatens the livelihood of me and my family.

When it comes to our bodies, in many states we do not have the right to a birth a child with the help of a midwife.  We certainly don’t have the right to terminate our own life anywhere, for any reason.  We don’t even have the right to refuse medical treatment.  When it comes to the medical establishment, if we equate freedom with choice, then our freedoms could not be more limited.  While you most likely pay a hefty monthly premium for your health insurance, that insurance will only pay if you visit a physician trained by the orthodox institutions.  In nearly every case, you cannot choose for yourself to see any other kind of specialist, for example a nutritionist, a massage therapist, an acupuncturist, a holistic practitioner, an herbalist, or a homeopathic doctor, and the list goes on and on.

We believe we have freedom of religion, but in fact those freedoms are significantly diminished if that religion strays from our established social mores.  For example, if your religion requires ceremony including a drug we call “illicit,” or if your religion is against the immunization of your children, or the forced treatment of terminal illness.

Before we continue to sing the praises of the “land of the free,” maybe it’s about time we define what freedom really means.

My most troublesome addiction, the one I find most counter intuitive to homesteading, I blame on my grandfather.   I was able to give it up for several years of overseas living relatively unscathed, but for the life of me I can’t recall how I did it.  I believe that by announcing this shameful weakness and admitting to my dependency there may still be some hope for me.  Maybe an informed reader knows of a twelve step program that might break me of my addiction to paper products.

Gramps, whose poor upbringing meant intense rationing, would travel for hours once informed of a sale on toilet paper.  He would purchase as much as he could stuff into the linen closet, and when a space would open up again, he would search the ads for another sale.  His only advice to me before leaving for Eastern Europe was, “Pack plenty of toilet paper.”  I laughed then, but soon learned he had been right.  I was sore and disappointed by the squares of brown paper lunch sack that passed for toilet paper and regular annoyed by the rarity of actually finding some in any public facilities.

Somehow, while I was living in Thailand, I was able to manage without this cherished need, going native, in public at least.  There when you leave the restaurants” or other public facilities wash rooms, having used their “Turkish toilet” with the nearby basin of water for washing your hindquarters afterward , you are sometimes provided with a sink and soap to then wash your hands.  But no towel afterward for drying them.  I got used to wearing a sarong, which was a more convenient towel substitute compared to my pants.

Now that I’m back stateside I am astounded with what I was able to endure.  Where did this courage and diligence come from?  How can I get it back now that paper products are cheap and readily available?  I know they are detrimental to the health of the planet, and therefore to my own mental health, but I cannot stop the madness.  These days the obsession extends not only to toilet paper but to paper towels, and Kleenex.   When I see that we are down to our last ten roles or boxes, I am fretful until the next Costco run, where I am compelled to buy each of them in bulk.  I know our ancestors and folks around the globe have been able to live without such addictions.   How can I free myself once again from this fury?

Why leave the security of a “real” job?   Why leave the drunken thrill of parties, the sexy allure of shoe stores, the creative genius of fine dining?  Why choose ticks, mice, fire ants, and other country beasts over happy hour, gourmet groceries, and evenings simultaneously connected to the tube and WiFi?

It’s not all singing the Good Ship Lollipop out here.  I dig out two ticks a day, minimum, from various unmentionable parts of my body.   The ancient librarian has no idea what WiFi means.  The local Farm and Ranch shop owner smirks when I say “organic.” Poison ivy so far appears to be the only thing I can grow effortlessly.

The small towns of America are dying, if not already six feet under.  I feel no responsibility for this, nor any need to resuscitate them.  It’s a lot like when I joined the Peace Corps, yes the good intentions were surely lurking there somewhere underneath, but I never doubted that I was learning much more than I could ever hope to offer back in cash or kind.  I just wanted one thing, then and now.  I just wanted to wake up and walk out my door and hear the work calling me.

Truth is, I never felt this before now.  I never felt, in my numerous occupations before this seeming “non-occupation” that the work really needed me; that the work was calling to me.   Yes I know that ultimately this work is good work.  It will save our planet somehow, it will sing our praises eventually, it will summon a new age of stewardship toward the Earth and gentleness toward each other.  I just know it.

But I do it because the land and the birds and the peace make sense to me, in a way the office and the malls and the noise never have.

“…the salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and in human responsibility. Without a global revolution in human consciousness, nothing will change for the better…” ~Vaclav Havel

An essential component of homesteading is simplifying.

When I hear about another Colombine or the latest middle school suicides like those featured last week on Oprah, I think of Eliot Wigginton and his students.

In the book Foxfire 2, still considered one of the mainstays of the modern homesteader, he writes: “This book is dedicated to high school kids like Carlton, Karen, David, Barbara, Stan, and thousands like them across this nation-all searching, all groping, all testing for the touchstone, the piece of serenity, the chunk of sense and place and purpose and humanity they can carry with them into a very confusing time.”

What I might add is, if today, compared to the 1970 copyright of this book, the student has stopped searching, then we’ve really got something to worry about.

It does seem that the systems have stopped searching.  The educational system, the political system, the social system.  In education we have done exactly what Wigginton hoped against, we have become more dependent on structure, on obscure facts and dates, on standardized tests and curriculum guides.  Not only are we going further away from a direct contact with what gives life true meaning, but we are exporting those ideals as a working model, even though it’s very clear the model is not working.

Wigginton goes on, and again, I couldn’t agree more today: “See, mostly this book is about school, and about community, and about people, and about the great adventure life can be when lived intensely.  And about the fact that instead of celebrating with our kids the infinite variety and ingenuity of nature and man, we are still allowing them to be drowned in the Franco-Prussian wars.”

“We have separated (the student) from his world-have made it irrelevant to our tidy curricula-and yet we count on him to know what to do with that same world, and have creative solutions for its problems, when our time with him is done.  Amazing.”

We continue, in effect, to choose the complicated over the simple, even though  it is more likely when asked sincerely what he wants from life the insightful individual will reply “happiness” before he will say “riches.”  Still we espouse the standard is to teach students to be “successful,” while we have yet to change the rhetoric of success.

There is happiness, for many if not for all, in simplicity.  Mark Twain said, “Let us spend one day as deliberately as nature.” But in today’s world, among “successful nations” at least, few have any idea at all of the deliberate pace of nature.  What good is knowledge of the latest technologies if we don’t know how to put those technologies to work toward the simplest things?

“Man, despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments, owes the fact of his existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil - and the fact that it rains.” ~Anonymous

The modern definition of homesteading has evolved considerably over the two centuries since it was first coined and it has nothing at all to do with the Homestead Act or how the government uses the term homestead for tax purposes.  Most people who are familiar with the term at all understand it as living off the land, but then that’s only part of the definition and that could also include farming.

But unlike how we understand farming, homesteading is a term that is continuing to develop and a more modern and appropriate definition would have to include the words “sustainability” and “self-sufficiency.”  Of course the meanings of these words are also debatable, and I’ll be getting to those too in a future posting.

Homesteading is a whole system, meaning all aspects of life are included.  It is not simply about sustainable lifestyles, not simply about becoming stewards of nature, not simply about living self-sufficiently, not simply about simplifying, but about all these things and many more.

The goals of the homesteader may center on reducing their dependency on external resources, but they also incorporate a communal and global vision including at the top of the list energy independence, small-scale diversified farming and sustainable agriculture, holistic livestock management, and bio-diversity.

Handy hubby and I are a long, long way off from coming anywhere close to these goals, but we have made the first step and it has already proven to be an incredible journey.  Initially, on a very practical level it will require becoming a true jack of all trades:  homebuilding (not just general contracting but also electrical, plumbing, and septic solutions) , gardening and canning/preserving, animal husbandry, bee-keeping, tree-felling and forest maintenance, and many homesteaders would include on this list all the “lost arts” of our ancestors, like candle and soap making, as well as producing one’s own bread, cheese, wine, beer, and the potential list goes on and on.

Where does one acquire such skills when so few in our culture today has ever even witnessed them except maybe on television?  Ironically, the internet!

Here are a few fantastic sites of those that are there, and doing it:

www.sustainablebuild.co.uk (devoted to green building)

www.homestead.org (”rural living principle and practice”)

www.daycreek.com (useful information on cordwood building, renewable energy, and permaculture)

www.sustainablesettings.org (teaching some of the old skills, but many more new ones, including a brilliant philosophy and hands-on training)

Cold Antler Farm (she also hasn’t quit her day job, but she’s way closer than I am and she’s published a book about her experiences and keeps her blog updated with lots of animal tales)

“There need not be any limit to our tenure. We can learn to live happily, producing all the food and other goods we need, without wasting the resources that are going to be needed by future generations. There, in the concept of the creation of a sustainable way of life, is our next frontier.”  ~Robert Rodale Our Next Frontier

I’ll keep including the best of the rest as I keep researching and include a list of great books next time too.

Anyone these days can learn a language, hop a plane, dress up, and appear from the outside to be quite worldly.  But how many people do you know who can repair the truck, plow the field, and help birth a colt, all before her lunch hour?

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy defines a redneck as a glorious lack of sophistication that we are all guilty of at one time or another.  Now that’s just plain honest.  To me it is this good-natured, fun-loving, and lively self-satirizing that has been the hallmark of the redneck since Hee Haw first aired.  Whether the work you do is considered remedial labor or intellectually complex, if you think you’ve never committed a faux pas, then you need to step down from your high horse.

Leave it to a redneck to take a word originally coined as indisputably derogatory–meaning an uneducated, bigoted, poor rural farm worker–and redefine it with a positive connotation–meaning strong, independent, and worthy of an entirely new era of comedy and song lyrics.  This is just the kind of attitude I find inspiring.  It demonstrates that for every negative characteristic, there’s a positive one to balance it out, and that a word is just a word and within our power, like everything else, to change.

Like me, you might not agree with the notoriously selective values of the redneck, who ironically, in Texas at least, more often than not call themselves conservative Republicans.  For example, why does the government need to stay out of his pocket but not out of her womb?  Or why is conservation so low on the conservative agenda when they not only are so semantically similar, but seem logically to go together.  Now I can’t quote the Bible, but surely it includes something in there about not exploiting others and respecting the Earth?  Around here, unquestionably, that kind of morality makes you a liberal.  Luckily politics and religion have always been last on my list of chosen conversational topics.

Still, I do on occasion listen to Rush Limbaugh.  Or rather scream at the car radio while Rush is on.  I find this enlightening:  This type of intellectual stimulation is typically more educational than talking to like-minded thinkers.  After all, I’ve long ago mastered their ideologies.

Rednecks are far more interesting and authentic conversational company than they’re given credit for.  While you might not share their religious and political convictions, at least you can be sure they have them, and that’s a hefty helpin’ more than I can say for the last east coast suburban folks I’ve met.

Most importantly, there is a real can-do attitude in this very Republican state that reflects a pioneering spirit worth emulating.   It is not only a quality I respect, but one I feel I might even share:  Over the course of the last week I have moved about 6000 pounds of dirt, and it has been a far more rewarding endeavor than I’ve ever felt after a day of intellectual activity.  Just lil’ ole me and my shovel.  Guess it shows that these days this educated mid-westerner is feelin’ as proud as a Texas redneck, not to mention fabulously fit.

Choosing a place to homestead is far more challenging than buying a home in an urban area.  First of all, once you choose the general geographic location it will most likely cover a far wider area than any single Realtor will be willing to research.  We worked with a half dozen Realtors, each of them knowledgeable and willing to travel only around a small radius from their own town.  Those that “specialized” in rural properties were the worst of all and rarely returned calls or followed up on properties.  I was routinely surprised at their lack of professionalism and their laissez-faire approach.  Ultimately we did all the work ourselves, then worked with the Realtor who represented the seller of the land and got an attorney to represent us.

There are so many variables to consider when choosing a place for your future homestead, but the most important factors will be proximity to family, urban centers, per acre cost, and possibly work.  In our case, with family spread out, that was not a concern.  We wanted to be as far away as possible from any city, large or small, but with an international airport within a few hours drive.  Our priority was to feel as remote, preferably on a dirt road leading to nowhere, so far from any main road that there would be no reason for cars to be on it unless they belonged to one of our very few neighbors.  We spread out the map, started driving, and took notes.  Areas with a lot of evidence of drilling, logging, or mining were immediately x’d as were areas that were along main roads or had the potential of becoming main roads based on other factors.

This will not and most likely should not be the main criteria for the potential homesteader.  After all, it excludes us from considering the city as a place to sell whatever crafts or crops that might someday help to support our lifestyle.

Yeah, but why East Texas?  I get that a lot.  I have family on both coasts and scattered throughout the mid-west and Texas initially was at or near the bottom of my list of places to live.  First choice would have been Northern Spain, second choice Alaska, but they both pose a whole new set of challenges.  Maybe someday?  I’ll keep dreaming.

Before coming here I had the same stereotypes of Texans as many people do.  I thought they were annoyingly proud Bible-preaching rednecks and not my lot of folks by a long shot.  Still, we had to be within a reasonable commute to hubby’s job in the Gulf of Mexico, so that limited our options considerably since commuting by plane would not fit into our view of suitability, not to mention our budget.  Furthermore, flying commercial airlines in this country has become more maddening than traveling on a Soviet-era bus.

After two tries to live on the Gulf, both times shooed out by 100-year hurricanes, New Orleans for Katrina and Galveston for Ike three years later, I developed a deep fear of the deep south.  It got crossed off the list permanently.

Since coming East Texas I must now admit, I have a whole new respect for the redneck, and actually intend to emulate them myself.  I hope that statement sparks your curiosity enough so that you tune in next time when I’ll tell you why!

Welcome wanna-be and expert homesteaders and those just curious.   I start today with the where, will  next time approach the what, and follow with the why.  I will then begin to explore the meaty how-to’s and those controversial topics like humanure, appropriate power supplies, the real meanings of organic and sustainable, and anything else that happens to come up.

We bought this place in East Texas three years ago, but until 2 months ago it was our “camp” as they say here in the South, where we would come, schedules permitting, to enjoy the nature and begin building our cabin.  We bought it as raw land, no water, electric, or sewage.  Our first order of business was to build an outhouse and long-drop, our “poop with a view” I named it, and we hauled in drinking and shower water and used a generator for the occasional necessary power tool.  During that time we slept in a tent, including all through winter, which even though it’s Texas the temperature regular hovers around 30 degrees.  I experimented with two garden spots during those first years, but as work, weddings, and evacuations kept us from coming all summer long we were never able to enjoy the proverbial fruits of my labor.  But it’s pretty doubtful there were many anyway.

We have 50 acres and a mule, just as the old family farms used to be, only our mule is a gently used Massey tractor that has been invaluable in helping with such varied tasks as bush-hogging, pulling stumps, tilling the garden, and hoisting up the walls of our cabin.

In East Texas gardening is a bit like playing beat the clock.  The “growing season” reportedly runs from March through November, but the sweltering season falls squarely in the middle of it, burning all but your most robust crops and making your garden upkeep unbearable.  Plus there’s an annual late frost around Easter, occasionally even a snow, so planting most fruit trees is something of a risky business.  The plan is to have a green house by next year, but because the latest garden spot, the now permanent one, needed serious soil adjustment, I had to skip the cool-season crops for now and start straight into the summer stuff.  I won’t bore you with the laundry list, but as a novice gardener I’ll cry tears of joy if just a small fraction survives the lethal combination of perpetual winds, blistering sun, gorging insects, birds, deer, boar, and inexperience.

Meanwhile handy hubby does the skilled labor.  At the moment he is building us a large covered deck overlooking our gently rolling hills, majestic pines, and stately oaks .  Occasionally I am helpful to him, making me feel briefly skilled myself, kind of like a nurse, as he calls out his needs:  clamp, saw, drill, level.   Other than fetching and occasionally holding the tape measure, I am useless to him.  His sketches, complete with math and other foreign elements, might as well be rocket science.

The other most useful tool besides the tractor has been our bi-monthly issue of Mother Earth News.  Seriously informed and surprisingly well-written, who knew those homesteaders and gardeners had such exceptional literary talents along with their astounding how-to skills!