(VIDEO) Quick Tip: Notice Your Surroundings
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Welcome to the Quick Start Guide to Homesteading series, where you will find everything you need to know to get started living a more sustainable life, whether you are in the city, country, or somewhere in between.
Today we are going to talk about the first idea in the Outdoors and Wildlife category of the fundamentals framework: Notice Your Surroundings.
This is just 1 of 36 tips in our free downloadable PDF. If you haven’t already, you can download the FREE Quick Start Guide to Homesteading at our website.
We think if you watch these videos, read the guide, and start practicing what you learn, you will be well on your way to becoming a homesteader.
We are so excited to share this tip with you! It’s really at the heart of our lives, and has been the basis for our professional careers. In the homesteading world, it’s often overlooked or underutilized. But if you start to practice this one, it could truly change your life and give you a huge helping hand in homesteading.
What does it mean to notice your surroundings in homesteading?
What we mean by noticing your surroundings is to engage your senses to achieve greater awareness of what is happening in the natural world all around you. This includes utilizing your senses of smell, sight, sound, touch, and taste. When you start to notice your surroundings regularly over time, and record those observations, you can get some really powerful results.
Why is it important to notice your surroundings on the homesteader?
There are many practical and also less tangible reasons to notice your surroundings. Let’s start with the practical. We’ve all heard of the four seasons, but there are many subtle cyclical patterns happening in nature throughout the year. These can have big impacts on your homesteading efforts. For example, on our homestead, the patterns of sun and shade vary widely depending upon the angle of the sun and how leafed out the trees are at any given time. So in the summertime, one end of our garden gets a lot more shade. Because we’ve been paying attention to our surroundings, we can plan to grow more shade-loving plants at that end.
Another practical reason to pay attention to your surroundings is to understand the behavior of wildlife. In the spring and early summer, there can be more pressure on gardens and livestock as wild animals are caring for their babies. By noticing your surroundings and anticipating this, you can prevent predation and other conflicts.
A less tangible, but important benefit of noticing your surroundings is feeling more connected to nature. Multiple studies have shown that people who spend time in nature experience improvements in their mood as well as physical, mental, and emotional health.
The data is so compelling that as part of the national health program in Japan, they recommend something called Forest Bathing, which is really just time spent noticing your surroundings in the woods.
How do you notice your surroundings on your homestead?
You don’t need to go way out to a remote national park to start noticing your surroundings. In fact, we recommend you start right where you live. Even if you spend most of your time in an urban environment, nature is still there, just waiting for you to notice.
First, pick a place you can easily go regularly. This can be a place where you can walk around or sit. It could be a chair on your patio, or a trail in a natural area. Set aside a few minutes, a few times of week to go there and just focus on paying attention to your surroundings.
We will walk you through a simple sensory mediation you can start to practice:
As you take some deep breaths, start to notice how your skin feels. Is the air cold or warm? Can you feel the sun? Next start to notice what you see. Let your focus soften and see how much you can see with your peripheral vision, without moving your eyeballs. Are animals moving about or clouds passing across the sky? Can you see any trees or plants? Then start to notice what you hear. Can you hear any birds? What about wind or rain moving across the landscape? Now start to notice what you smell. Can you smell blooming plants or snow? Finally start to notice what you taste. Sometimes even the air can have a flavor. If you are confident in your ID skills, you can sample nearby plants to notice how they taste. See how long you can stay in this state of expanding awareness. If you notice your mind wandering, that’s no problem. Just bring it back to noticing your surroundings.
Once you’ve completed this activity, record your observations. This can be done on your phone, in a nature journal, or even a spreadsheet. As you make more entries over time, you will start to become more familiar with your wild neighbors and seasonal patterns. If you are anything like us, this will make you feel happier, healthier, and much better prepared to work with nature instead of against it in all your homesteading endeavors.
When you notice your surroundings, you will be well on your way to becoming a homesteader.
So here it is, your quick tip of the day:
Notice your surroundings: Start jotting down your observations like the weather, plants, and animals in your environment. Over time this practice can help you understand seasonal cycles and feel more connected to nature.
Please Help Us Spread this Knowledge
The world seems more uncertain than ever, but if we all start connecting more with nature, and creating some of what we need for our own survival, there is a greater chance for us all to have a thriving future.
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And remember, there is no one right way to homestead, only the way that’s right for you.
