What is Homesteading?
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If you’ve ever thought about ditching the rat race for a life of quiet simplicity, then homesteading just might be the thing for you. But what exactly does it mean to be a homesteader?
I wrote this article as a way to begin to clarify the meaning of homesteading for myself. I hope it helps you too; especially when people ask, “why go to all that work when you can just go to the grocery store?”
Article Sections
What is the Definition of Homesteading?
How Did Homesteading Start?
What is the Homestead Exemption?
What is Modern Homesteading?
What do Homesteaders do?
Why do People Homestead?
What’s the difference between homesteading and farming?
What’s the difference between homesteading and survivalism?
What’s the difference between urban, suburban and rural homesteading?
What’s the difference between typical homesteading and wild homesteading?
What’s the difference between homesteading and other movements like permaculture?
Is homesteading a religious or political movement?
How Do You Start Homesteading?
To Sum Up it
What is the Definition of Homesteading?
One of the wonderful and challenging things about homesteading is, there is no universal definition. Many people turn to encyclopedias like Wikipedia for answers. While that’s a great place to start, a more complete definition is much harder to find. At its simplest, homesteading is about living your values through everyday choices and activities. But even that is just scratching the surface. It’s easy to talk about the nuts and bolts of homesteading. The how-to stuff. It’s a whole lot more complex and elusive to get to the heart of WHAT homesteading is and WHY people do it.
Defining homesteading can be elusive. There is no simple answer, which is part of the appeal. Image Source: Unsplash
How Did Homesteading Start?
Modern homesteading has deep roots in humanity and agriculture. While a lot has changed in the last few thousand years, human beings still have the same needs they’ve always had: food, water, shelter, and connection. Homesteading started as one way to meet those basic needs while striving for something more.
In the United States, homesteading became a national activity when The Homestead Act of 1862 was signed into law. Over the next 100 years, millions of people participated. There was a clear process to become landowners through the Act. It started with filing a claim for up to 160 acres of unclaimed public land. Then the person and/or family had to “prove up” over the next five years. This included building a “dwelling” where they would live while converting the land to agriculture. The people who participated in these activities became known as homesteaders. If you are curious to know more of that story, check out our article, Digging Down to Our Roots: The History of Homesteading.
Homesteaders “proving up” on their claim in the Pacific Northwest. Source: University of Washington
What is the Homestead Exemption?
While the idea of “free land” ended when the Homestead Act was repealed in the 1970s and 1980s, the term homestead still has some official relevance. Our understanding is that homestead exemptions reduce the value of your residence, thereby reducing your property taxes. They are available in many states and vary widely in rules and regulations. As far as we can tell homestead exemptions have nothing to do with actual modern homesteading activities. If you are interested in this topic, we encourage you to research it further on your own or with the assistance of an expert in your state.
What is Modern Homesteading?
Many of the activities that people undertook as homesteaders in the past remain the same. At the turn of the 20th century those activities might have been required for survival with people living far from civilization, whereas today going back to the basics is more of an intentional choice. But I think the same kind of people - those with an independent spirit and desire to live closer to nature - are still the ones that are drawn to homesteading.
For many years, my husband Kevin and I defined homesteading in a very narrow way. We tied it to property ownership. Specifically rural property. We dreamed about becoming “real” homesteaders when we could one day afford to buy our own land in the country. When we finally made that dream come true, I panicked a little. We had “checked the box” but I didn’t know what to do next. I am a researcher at heart, so I took to obsessively researching how to start a homestead. That’s when I realized we’d been homesteading all along and not even known it.
When most people think of a homestead, it’s usually a farmhouse with lots of outbuildings surrounded by flat agricultural land and forest. But that’s only one kind of homestead. Image source: Unsplash
As I followed my Google search terms and started reading books, I felt like I had found a hidden door into a secret garden. I came across a rich community of people living on big homesteads and small ones. I found people homesteading in urban and suburban places. I found people homesteading all over the world. I realized that homesteading is more about a state of mind than a geographic location. I came to the understanding that there is no one right way to homestead, only the way that’s right for you.
What Do Homesteaders Do?
So what are all these people doing to make themselves homesteaders? Let’s start with the simple stuff. Homesteading at its core is about producing some of what you need for your own sustenance and survival. It’s about understanding where your stuff comes from and where it goes when you're done with it. It’s about being mindful that the choices you make have an impact on your health, your family, community and the planet. It’s about being as self-sufficient and sustainable as possible. This can include:
Growing your own fruits, vegetables, and herbs
Raising your own meat and animal products
Cooking from scratch
Preserving food
Brewing your own beverages
Making your own cleaning, health and beauty products
Sewing and mending your own clothes
Building alternative energy systems
Doing your own home repairs and building projects
Developing a local, personal network of suppliers for things you cannot produce yourself
Homesteaders produce food and supplies for their own sustenance or try to find local, sustainable sources. Image Source: Unsplash
Why do people homestead?
Why do people practice modern homesteading when they could simply buy what they need at a store? We’ve been asked questions like this more than once. However lately, the assumptions behind such questions seem less certain. If the global pandemic and increase in natural disasters have shown anything, it’s that creating some margin of self reliance for yourself and your family is a good idea.
Even in times of prosperity and plenty, people still feel drawn to homestead. This is because homesteading helps you to:
Know the sources of what you use
Ingest fewer additives and preservatives
Support the local economy
Find peace of mind
Consume in a more environmentally friendly way
Be prepared for uncertainties
Learn new things
Experience the satisfaction making your own stuff
Meet new people
There are many benefits to homesteading. Image Source: Unsplash
Sometimes it can be easier to define something by what it is not. Below I’ll address some common questions about homesteading by comparing and contrasting it to other similar activities.
What’s the difference between homesteading and farming?
The biggest difference between homesteading and farming has to do with the purpose. Homesteading is more about subsistence and farming is usually a business.
Many of the activities that happen on a farm, like growing vegetables and raising livestock are also done on homesteads, but usually at a different scale. With homesteading the focus is on producing items to be used by you or your family on the homestead. Some items might be sold for cash, but that’s not usually the primary purpose of homesteading activities. With a farm items are produced in large volumes to be sold to others for money.
Most homesteaders (including Kevin and I) often have jobs off the homestead to help supplement what we produce and provide cash for things like buying fabric and paying property taxes. Farmers often enjoy the fruits of their labor but the main purpose is to produce excess that can be sold for cash, which can be used in turn to buy what the family needs.
There’s an old adage that the grandparents homestead, the kids farm, and the grandkids move to town. I think that a new twist on this could be that the great (or in my case, great-great) grandkids go back to homesteading.
Homesteading is about subsistence while farming is a business where a large volumes of a product are grown for selling. Image Source: Unsplash
What’s the difference between homesteading and survivalism?
I think there are some stereotypes about both of these movements, but there are some similar goals. I like to think of them as cousins. Starting with the stereotypes, I think most people picture a survivalist or “prepper” as a man with lots of weapons and commercially produced survival foods like MREs or dehydrated rations. In contrast, I think most people picture a woman or family living off the land as homesteaders to be akin to Little House on the Prairie.
While I’m sure there are people that fit both stereotypes, and might even aspire to them, my experience is that there is far more nuance within each group. In a broad way, what I’ve observed is that people who identify more with survivalism are focused on protecting themselves and their loved ones in the event of major disaster or societal collapse. Whereas people who identify as homesteaders tend to focus more on learning how to use time-tested skills to live sustainably within the modern world.
A sub-group of survivalism, wilderness survival, is where I started my career. But that’s a story for another day.
Homesteading is about long-term thriving in place while preparedness is usually about surviving a major disaster. Image Source: Unsplash
What’s the difference between urban, suburban and rural homesteading?
It feels silly to say now, but when we started working towards our goal to buy rural land, I had no idea that urban homesteading was a thing. Even though that is exactly what we were doing. At the time we were renting a house on a small lot in West Seattle. Fortunately our landlord, who was Icelandic and from a different era, let me dig up the entire front yard and put in a vegetable garden. I became known as the lady who grew corn in her front yard. I also had a worm bin in the closet and cooked a lot of food from scratch. I was 100% an urban homesteader, but I didn’t have the language to describe myself. I thought I was just some oddball all alone in the world.
Since my homestead epiphany, I’ve learned there are lots of people living like I was, even though they didn’t live in my neighborhood. Some urban homesteaders even live in apartments and grow sprouts on their window sill or grow vegetables down the street in a community garden.
Suburban homesteaders generally have more space and might have less restrictive ordinances, allowing them to keep chickens or honey bees.
Rural homesteaders are often what people think of when they imagine homesteading. These homesteaders often have the space and community acceptance for big gardens, orchards, and farm animals like goats and pigs.
Even with a lot of land, it can be hard to produce everything one needs for their own survival. What we’ve seen on the most abundant homesteads is people connecting with others off-homestead to learn skills and buy or trade for products that others have a gift for producing. For example, I don’t have enough space to grow wheat, so I buy flour from a farm in my valley. And I’m great at sewing, but not at some other stuff, so I might trade with a neighbor who has different talents.
Homesteading is about doing what you can and using what you’ve got, wherever you find yourself. Image Source: Unsplash
What’s the difference between typical homesteading and wild homesteading?
Homesteaders are a different breed and even in this unusual group Kevin and I often feel like outsiders. That’s because we don’t practice typical homesteading, we do something we call wild homesteading.
In typical homesteading, choices are usually made with some overall consideration for sustainability and the health of the planet, but with little specific regard for the wellbeing of local flora and fauna. There is more of an attitude of dominion or man-over-nature than working with nature for success. In our valley we’ve seen this lead to a lot of unnecessary heartbreak and conflict with wildlife.
Kevin and I came to homesteading with decades of working in environmental education, wildlife biology and rehabilitation. Together we have more than 50 years of professional experience in these fields. We even fell in love after returning a Bald Eagle to her wild home. So we’ve approached homesteading in a different way than many with whom we’ve talked. We are working to enhance and restore the wild areas on our land to encourage wildlife while designing the more domestic parts of our homestead, like our gardens, to be unappealing to our wild neighbors.
If this sounds appealing to you, be sure to check out the Outdoors and Wildlife category of our blog.
Wild homesteading is about doing all the usual homesteading activities while finding ways to peacefully coexist with nature and wildlife. Image source: Unsplash
What’s the difference between homesteading and other movements like permaculture?
We are by no means experts in any of these methodologies or approaches, but we see a lot of overlap. We gravitate towards the term homesteading to describe this approach to living for a couple of reasons.
It’s a time-honored term with deep roots. We tend to like things that have a long history. Perhaps some of these other approaches will do just that, but only time will tell.
There’s no one supreme definition of homesteading. It doesn’t easily fit in a box. While that makes it harder to explain, it appeals to our independent spirits.
There’s no certification course or board of judges to determine whether you are a “real” homesteader. While we understand that these kinds of labels and structures can be helpful, homesteading is more of a process with lots of grey areas. We appreciate that everyone gets to make it up for themselves as they go along.
There’s a lot of overlap and similar goals with homesteading and other movements. Image Source: Unsplash
Is homesteading a religious or political movement?
Since homesteading began in the United States in the 1800s, it’s been associated with a wide variety of social, political and religious movements. But it is not specifically tied to any one party or camp. In my observations, there are people from many different walks of life involved in homesteading today; all are focused on living with integrity according to their values.
Homesteading is about living your values. Image Source: Unsplash
How Do You Start Homesteading?
By reading this article you have already begun! Homesteading starts with a mindset. Once you begin developing an interest in learning more and developing new skills, you are well on your way to becoming a homesteader. There are many books, digital courses, and online groups dedicated to this lifestyle. We’ve got FREE resources to help you get started.
You can start homesteading wherever you find yourself. Image Source: Unsplash
To Sum Up it
During these troubled times people are hungry for meaning and connection. We believe that when we use our own hands to create some of what we need to survive, we begin to thrive. And when we extend that way of living to include our neighbors, both human and wild, we are building hope for the future of our planet. This kind of resilience is at the heart of homesteading for us.
I think homesteading can be summed up in a quote from researcher Brene Brown’s book Dare to Lead, “Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; it’s choosing what’s right over what’s fun, fast, and easy; and it’s practicing your values, not just professing them.”
While defining homesteading isn’t easy, here’s what we know for sure:
There is no one right way to homestead, only the way that’s right for you.
There is no one right way to homestead, only the way that’s right for you. Image Source: Unsplash
Now it’s your turn: How do you define homesteading?
Thank you for reading all the way to the end! If you’ve come this far I have a feeling you're a kindred spirit. How would you define homesteading? How do you describe your activities?
Comment below or share your thoughts on your favorite social media platform.
