Homesteading is a Marathon, Not a Race
We all have big dreams, not matter where we grow up. Some want to be firemen, policemen, doctors, power rangers, superman, farmers or the CEO of a big company. We work toward our goals for the first 12 years of school with rose colored glasses on. Our future looks all laid out, rosy and bright. We graduate high school, some go to college, get a job we think we will be at forever, fall in love start a family and hit a brick wall. Real life is nothing like we dreamt of, unless you are lucky enough to have grown up the child of a farm family or a family that lived the simple life from the beginning and you stepped right into your parents’ footsteps. No one warned us about bills, mortgages, sick kids, jobs that come to a sudden end, an economy that collapses over night or pandemics. While our life got suddenly stressful, our dreams changed. We decide “there has to be something better than this”. A quiet, laid back, self-reliant dream starts to emerge. “That’s it!! We’re going to get back to our roots, maybe live off grid. Grow a garden. Build a barn. Get chickens and a milk cow. Make our own bread. Slow down.” You jump in the car one weekend, find a piece of land, a small house that needs work and the nightmare begins.
I say nightmare in jest, but for some beginning homesteaders, that’s the reality of changing lifestyles. I was raised as a homesteader of sorts. We called it farming when I was growing up. (I’m a 1962 model, as my husband describes me). I was 16 years old, before I realized not all the kids I went to school with, grocery shopped in their basements, root cellars or freezers in the garden shed. When my mom and grandmas went to the grocery, they picked up things like 50- pound bags of flour and sugar. They bought things like toothpaste in bulk, toilet paper by the case and other supplies that we either couldn’t grow or make ourselves. It was a collective effort for the whole family. A five-acre garden. A 300-hen laying barn. 50 breeding meat rabbits. A herd of beef cattle, dairy cows and a 40-sow farrow to finish operation. We even had our own orchard. I think I was spoiled and I’m so thankful for that lifestyle when I was growing up. This may be the kind of life you dreamed about, but somewhere along the way it goes off the rails. You may have tried to accomplish too much when you started out. Maybe you wanted a garden for the first time and bigger sounded better. If a 20’ x 20’ garden is good, 50’ x 50’ will be better. Then the nightmare takes over. Plants die. Seeds don’t sprout. The weeds took over when you leave town for the weekend. The deer and rabbits ate almost everything. You may not know how to can or preserve the food you managed to save. You can’t afford to quit your job. Everything you had planned, failed. Now your ready to throw in the towel and walk for the rest of the marathon. You’re out! What were you thinking?
I try to make it my goal to help other beginning “homesteaders” as much as I can. I love to answer questions, help solve problems, lend a hand when they are afraid to start the canner or build a chicken coop. I hear the same questions and comments a thousand times. “What if I can’t do this? What if I fail? What if I can’t get everything done before winter, before the next year? How do I get this lifestyle started? What if my homestead doesn’t run like the ones, you see online?”
All are legitimate questions and concerns. The answer is simple. Homesteading is a marathon, not a race. There are no written guidelines. No stone hard rules. And STOP COMPARING YOUR JOURNY TO EVERYONE ELSE!!
The first and best step to starting your homestead journey is make a simple plan, one that will allow yourself time to breath and adjust. Maybe you can’t move away from town in the beginning. So, plant some window boxes of herbs. Buy your produce from a farmers’ market. Take a baking class. Visit a local farm or homestead. Ask questions from other homesteaders. Join our group. Start small. Stock up on some staples for winter. Homesteading doesn’t mean everything has to be home grown or home raised. It means you are taking steps, lots of little steps, to becoming more self-reliant. Buy local. Buy fresh baked. Learn to make grape jelly at home from store bought grape juice. Barter with a neighbor who had a garden. Small, simple steps can have big payoffs.
Failure is part of the journey. Learn from failure. And take small tasks from your list. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is a homestead. The word homestead is a verb. An action word. Homesteading is something you work at, hours, days, weeks, months even years (I’m 60 and I’m still working at homesteading). It’s an action that grows. Not overnight. Not in a month. But a lifetime. It’s a marathon to a better way of life. A lifestyle that you are in control of, not the guy next door who thinks you’ve lost your marbles, and not those people who race around in their lives looking good on the outside but hating every minute of their life on the inside. So, what if you get 12 chicks, and half of them die from being too cold. It’s a hard lesson, but you learned from it. That’s not a good enough reason to give up in my book. It’s another step in the marathon.
If you try to race your way through homesteading, you’re going to miss the connections that homesteading can bring to you. You’ll miss those of us who have made the same mistakes, taken on too much at a time, been knocked down, gotten back up and had the cheering section pat us on the back for not giving up. We are your cheering section. Those people you meet along the way. The ones who have been in your shoes and figured out how to stay in the race even though we’re not the fast group. Start small. Make a plan. Ask for help. Make new connections with like minded people and start your marathon, make your big dream come true with help from the Homesteaders of Indiana. Join our marathon. The results will be amazing.
