Who Is A Homesteader? What Is Homesteading?

I’m asked a lot, “What does it mean to be a homesteader?” And usually, the person quickly follows up with, “I don’t have any land or animals.”

I ask, “Do you can or preserve any of your foods? Grow anything? Sew? Mend clothes? Bake bread? Knit? Make gifts?”

Typically they’ll answer yes to at least one of these. And so I remind them: You are a HOMESTEADER!

Doing at HOME inSTEAD

I came up with this definition because I believe we all have to start somewhere! When I’d share about my 6-acre farm and the animals and gardens on my homestead, I’d hear the longing in their voices as they’d say, “Wow! I wanna be a homesteader someday!”

Folks, NO ONE wakes up one day and has an entire homestead (fences, animals, gardens, tools, a tractor, etc.) right outside their door!! It takes YEARS to get to that point if that’s your vision of a homestead. The journey is slow, seasonal, intentional, and takes time – patiently working to fulfill the dream of self-reliance.

My homesteading journey? It began in 1990 when I learned to make soap, in a suburban neighborhood, houses so close you could see into my neighbors’ windows. Next, I learned to garden on a tiny piece of yard on my postage-stamp-sized lot. I started. I learned to do at HOME inSTEAD.

And so can you! Do you have a dream to homestead? Just start by doing at HOME inSTEAD.