I feel like, as modern, "Western" humans (and maybe this attitude is a distinctly American one), we have this grand idea of the rugged individualist that survives on their own - growing their own...
I feel like, as modern, "Western" humans (and maybe this attitude is a distinctly American one), we have this grand idea of the rugged individualist that survives on their own - growing their own food, making their own clothes, harvesting their own protein, etc., etc. etc. But in reality, in the past there were entire communities that worked together on those functions. No one family grew/built/made everything they needed.
I think there's value in re-examining our currently lifestyle and trying to undo or change how we live and consume these days, but going in expecting to single-handedly provide for a family is impossible, as it always has been.
Even for a community, living without trade would mean severe hardship. Most communities won't have their own mine, steel mill, or semiconductor factory. Not even the Amish try to live without...
Even for a community, living without trade would mean severe hardship. Most communities won't have their own mine, steel mill, or semiconductor factory. Not even the Amish try to live without trade.
At even larger scale, strict trade barriers would eventually be ruinous for any nation, if not evaded.
The knowledge that people in the distant past lived off the land, combined with the 1950s notion that the nuclear family is a discrete unit of society that functions independently from everyone else.
The knowledge that people in the distant past lived off the land, combined with the 1950s notion that the nuclear family is a discrete unit of society that functions independently from everyone else.
My favorite CBC program did a show on this. They track the "Cowboy" and all of the individualist narratives that come with it back a century, exploring or the narrative was invented then co-opted....
My favorite CBC program did a show on this. They track the "Cowboy" and all of the individualist narratives that come with it back a century, exploring or the narrative was invented then co-opted.
From the article: ... ... ... My father had a huge garden when I was a kid and I'm surprised that they're surprised. Eating frozen vegetables (and sometimes meat, after a cow was butchered) much...
From the article:
[W]e bought a property with a large perennial pollinator garden, fruit trees, numerous trellises, a lengthy blueberry hedge, nine large raised beds and the pièce de résistance: a Lord & Burnham greenhouse built over the top of the walkout basement. We saw the house for the first time on a Wednesday. By Sunday, we were under contract and fantasizing about a homestead, where we would strive for self-sufficiency: growing and raising most of what we eat.
But three years later, most of the produce and all of the animal protein our family of five eats comes from Costco, Walmart or our local farmers market. Homesteading was simply not for us — though it did reinforce for me the miracle of modern agriculture.
...
How many square feet of raised beds do you need to meet a toddler’s strawberry demand? I still don’t know. We dedicated 80 square feet to strawberries last season. The bugs ate half our harvest, and the other half equaled roughly what our kid could eat in a week.
Have you ever grown peas? Give them something to climb, and they’ll stretch to the heavens. Have you ever shelled peas? It is an almost criminal misuse of time. I set a timer on my phone last year. It took me 13 minutes to shell a single serving. Meanwhile, a two-pound bag of frozen peas from Walmart costs $2.42. And the peas come shelled.
...
In addition to possums and deer, we’ve faced unrelenting assaults from across the eukaryotic kingdoms: the tomato hornworm caterpillar, the cabbage looper caterpillar, the squash vine borer, the aphid, the thrip, the earwig and the sowbug; cucurbit downy mildew, powdery mildew, collar rot, black rot, sooty mold, botrytis gray mold and stem canker; the nematode, the gray garden slug, the eastern gray squirrel, the eastern cottontail rabbit and the groundhog. All of these organisms reside in the North Carolina Piedmont and like to eat what we eat. Many of them work toward this existential goal while humans sleep, which is why the North Carolina State Agriculture Extension advises growers to inspect their plants at night. No, thank you. And even when we manage to keep the critters out of the beds, we’re still at the mercy of the skies.
...
Many homesteaders enjoy living this way. They are problem solvers. They love working in the dirt and the sun and finding new ways to cook tromboncino squash. Knowing where their food comes from gives them peace of mind; growing it themselves fills them with pride. These two feelings empower them to eat jarred tomatoes for half the year. I honor their truth. But we part ways when the conversation turns to the superior virtue of spending the bulk of one’s time and money avoiding the grocery store.
My father had a huge garden when I was a kid and I'm surprised that they're surprised. Eating frozen vegetables (and sometimes meat, after a cow was butchered) much of the year was perfectly normal, and we still bought plenty of food at the grocery store.
Maybe this is a result of the social media version of homesteading that has gotten popular lately, but I am really surprised at how much surprise there seems to be in the article about the work...
Maybe this is a result of the social media version of homesteading that has gotten popular lately, but I am really surprised at how much surprise there seems to be in the article about the work involved. Growing food is great, but it’s a huge effort and a massive portion of that effort is in processing the harvests so that you can keep eating it through the year. I have a decent sized garden that is tended by two people, it’s definitely a hobby we enjoy, but also a massive pain in the ass chore. I am already dreading harvest season.
Though I do have to note that while shelling peas is annoying, I think shelling dry beans is very relaxing.
I recommend growing sugar snap peas and snow peas instead of shelling peas. They are a lot less work. Also, at least where I live, shelled peas are easily available in any supermarket, very cheap,...
I recommend growing sugar snap peas and snow peas instead of shelling peas. They are a lot less work.
Also, at least where I live, shelled peas are easily available in any supermarket, very cheap, and quite tasty (if snap frozen), so I don't get a lot of value out of growing them myself.
Instagram/YouTube homesteading is great when you're making bank on ad revenue. The article doesn't mention it, but I'm guessing these people have full time jobs in addition to raising kids. I'd...
Instagram/YouTube homesteading is great when you're making bank on ad revenue.
The article doesn't mention it, but I'm guessing these people have full time jobs in addition to raising kids.
I'd imagine that if your only job was homestead agriculture, you'd be able to meet a family's basic calorie needs (not necessarily all the out-of-season, dairy, refined starch, sugar, spices, etc. demands) without too much strain.
But then you wouldn't have the cash income necessary for that three acre homestead with the fancy greenhouse.
Most cultures that practice subsistence agriculture still trade among farms for specialty products. And subsistence agriculture nations are prone to famine when the weather is poor and everyone is running short.
There's a lot of things like this where people who do it full time while it looks like they're just like you or I who do it as a hobby or side project, and they can do it full time because they...
There's a lot of things like this where people who do it full time while it looks like they're just like you or I who do it as a hobby or side project, and they can do it full time because they get paid for making the videos or 'content'.
Even something as simple as playing a game. In Path of Exile, that game has tons of little details and complexities and such that an ordinary player may never encounter because there's not enough time to play it if you have anything else to do. But there's a segment of people who make a living playing the game, making content for YouTube videos or streaming it on Twitch etc. so they can set standards for the game based on something that's actually unrealistic for the average person who is watching them.
FWIW, I did this on my own for about a decade. Not enough to live on, but enough to learn how to do it all, with the option to "scale up". I kept chickens, rabbits, bees, worms, had two dogs, grew...
FWIW, I did this on my own for about a decade. Not enough to live on, but enough to learn how to do it all, with the option to "scale up".
I kept chickens, rabbits, bees, worms, had two dogs, grew a wide array of perennials, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, 4 kinds of raspberries, Jerusalem artichokes, horseradish, rhubarb, grapes, mushrooms (mostly oysters), apples, cherries, assorted herbs and spices plus all the usual annual fruits and veggies.
I composted extensively, saved seeds, learned how to save seeds (it's different for almost every variety; some are easy, but many are incredibly difficult to save while maintaining the genetics properly).
I experimented extensively with home-brewed biodiesel. I ran a proof-of-concept aquaponics system for a couple years.
I could go on. It was all during my "Peak Oil" phase.
Thru it all, I also maintained full-time (sometimes more-than-full-time) employment.
This was all by myself, part-time. Overall, I probably covered ~20% of my (and the dogs') dietary needs. For a few years, honey and mushroom sales paid my mortgage.
Full time, with a partner, with access to some kind of farmer's market for trading, this is absolutely a viable way to live.
I don't want to belittle this guy's experience, but "learning to homestead" is roughly on par with earning an advanced degree. In <3 years, the author barely scratched the surface.
I feel like, as modern, "Western" humans (and maybe this attitude is a distinctly American one), we have this grand idea of the rugged individualist that survives on their own - growing their own food, making their own clothes, harvesting their own protein, etc., etc. etc. But in reality, in the past there were entire communities that worked together on those functions. No one family grew/built/made everything they needed.
I think there's value in re-examining our currently lifestyle and trying to undo or change how we live and consume these days, but going in expecting to single-handedly provide for a family is impossible, as it always has been.
Even for a community, living without trade would mean severe hardship. Most communities won't have their own mine, steel mill, or semiconductor factory. Not even the Amish try to live without trade.
At even larger scale, strict trade barriers would eventually be ruinous for any nation, if not evaded.
The knowledge that people in the distant past lived off the land, combined with the 1950s notion that the nuclear family is a discrete unit of society that functions independently from everyone else.
My favorite CBC program did a show on this. They track the "Cowboy" and all of the individualist narratives that come with it back a century, exploring or the narrative was invented then co-opted.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-the-idealized-cowboy-helped-build-an-imagined-america-1.5762273
From the article:
...
...
...
My father had a huge garden when I was a kid and I'm surprised that they're surprised. Eating frozen vegetables (and sometimes meat, after a cow was butchered) much of the year was perfectly normal, and we still bought plenty of food at the grocery store.
Maybe this is a result of the social media version of homesteading that has gotten popular lately, but I am really surprised at how much surprise there seems to be in the article about the work involved. Growing food is great, but it’s a huge effort and a massive portion of that effort is in processing the harvests so that you can keep eating it through the year. I have a decent sized garden that is tended by two people, it’s definitely a hobby we enjoy, but also a massive pain in the ass chore. I am already dreading harvest season.
Though I do have to note that while shelling peas is annoying, I think shelling dry beans is very relaxing.
I recommend growing sugar snap peas and snow peas instead of shelling peas. They are a lot less work.
Also, at least where I live, shelled peas are easily available in any supermarket, very cheap, and quite tasty (if snap frozen), so I don't get a lot of value out of growing them myself.
Instagram/YouTube homesteading is great when you're making bank on ad revenue.
The article doesn't mention it, but I'm guessing these people have full time jobs in addition to raising kids.
I'd imagine that if your only job was homestead agriculture, you'd be able to meet a family's basic calorie needs (not necessarily all the out-of-season, dairy, refined starch, sugar, spices, etc. demands) without too much strain.
But then you wouldn't have the cash income necessary for that three acre homestead with the fancy greenhouse.
Most cultures that practice subsistence agriculture still trade among farms for specialty products. And subsistence agriculture nations are prone to famine when the weather is poor and everyone is running short.
There's a lot of things like this where people who do it full time while it looks like they're just like you or I who do it as a hobby or side project, and they can do it full time because they get paid for making the videos or 'content'.
Even something as simple as playing a game. In Path of Exile, that game has tons of little details and complexities and such that an ordinary player may never encounter because there's not enough time to play it if you have anything else to do. But there's a segment of people who make a living playing the game, making content for YouTube videos or streaming it on Twitch etc. so they can set standards for the game based on something that's actually unrealistic for the average person who is watching them.
FWIW, I did this on my own for about a decade. Not enough to live on, but enough to learn how to do it all, with the option to "scale up".
I kept chickens, rabbits, bees, worms, had two dogs, grew a wide array of perennials, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, 4 kinds of raspberries, Jerusalem artichokes, horseradish, rhubarb, grapes, mushrooms (mostly oysters), apples, cherries, assorted herbs and spices plus all the usual annual fruits and veggies.
I composted extensively, saved seeds, learned how to save seeds (it's different for almost every variety; some are easy, but many are incredibly difficult to save while maintaining the genetics properly).
I experimented extensively with home-brewed biodiesel. I ran a proof-of-concept aquaponics system for a couple years.
I could go on. It was all during my "Peak Oil" phase.
Thru it all, I also maintained full-time (sometimes more-than-full-time) employment.
This was all by myself, part-time. Overall, I probably covered ~20% of my (and the dogs') dietary needs. For a few years, honey and mushroom sales paid my mortgage.
Full time, with a partner, with access to some kind of farmer's market for trading, this is absolutely a viable way to live.
I don't want to belittle this guy's experience, but "learning to homestead" is roughly on par with earning an advanced degree. In <3 years, the author barely scratched the surface.
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