Homesteading, Prepping, Sustainability and Peace of Mind

 

The world of homesteading is full of buzz words. Sustainability is one of the big ones. So let us get at the question “can you be sustainable on your homestead?”

In 1930 my dad was born on a little homestead on 5 acres in Harlan County Kentucky. Paw worked every day in the coal industry and farmed every evening. He and Maw had 5 acres of as sustainable a homestead as anyone around. They raised a huge garden, smoked their own meat, raised hogs, had a milk cow and a mule, raised chickens, rabbits, a huge garden, had sheep, turkeys, and the occasional duck. Paw loved to hunt small game because that was pretty much all that was left. But, were they sustainable or not? 

We have it so easy today. We set a slider on our heat pump and our house is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Back then if you wanted heat you chopped wood or hauled coal in order to heat your home. There was no air conditioning. Even when I was a kid they still heated with coal. Maw would get up at 4:30 in the morning and build a fire in her coal cook stove. The night before Paw had brought in the coal and an assortment of dry corn cobs. Maw used the dry corn cobs like kindling to start her fire in the morning. By 5:30 the kitchen was warmed up and it was time to start breakfast.

It was that way every morning, day in and day out. Homesteading and being sustainable takes that kind of effort too. There is something that needs to be done on this homestead every day. Most days there is more to be done than can be done and the “on the list” grows and grows. Eventually you will get everything done on your homestead if you keep at it and then you will die. However, the dying is not the destination, the journey is!

There is no such thing as “Sustainable.” Tom Hanks in castaway was an example of a sustainable life. It was an existence! We have a saying today that it takes a community to raise a child, well the homesteaders of old knew this all too well. Even the pioneers knew it. We think about the mountain men like Kit Carson, Jeremiah Johnson and others, they were not sustainable. To be honest they were just remote workers for a company. They lived from rendezvous to rendezvous or from resupply to resupply. They depended on the wares that they could trade for or buy at the meetings and looked forward to the next one. They traded with Native Americans and with each other.

So what are they talking about when they talk about sustainable? To be honest it is anybody’s guess. Most of the time when you hear someone in the homesteading community go on and on about becoming sustainable it is an effort to sell someone on their new/old concept of what you should do. They are selling some kind of book or some other way to make money. I am a youtuber and a writer and an educated man, and I hear Youtubers call themselves influencers. Youtubers try to influence you that their type of lifestyle or thing they are touting is better than other types. Most homesteaders believe it is better for our mental and physical health as well as better for the planet to live this lifestyle.

Now me I am a little different. While I encourage you to watch my videos and am happy for the Youtube advertising money, which to this point is nearly nothing, I still apparently had that monetary goal in mind. But, as far as the lifestyle goes it is just what we have done our entire lives. We do try to be as sustainably frugal as one can be. We save our own seed from year to year and we preserve large quantities of our own food. We have 4 freezers and hordes of canning jars full of food. But like the mountain men of old we have to buy essentials that we can’t create. There is no sustainable beyond a bare existence. When you pin down these folks fawning about sustainability they are no more sustainable than any of the rest of us.

You didn’t make the fencing, the hoe, the cloth, the sugar, the concentrated yeast, the gun powder, the iron, the lead, the glass, the flour, etc… etc…. Humans need other humans. So know that when a group is touting how sustainable they are, there is another motive afoot. Myself, I am retired and live on our retirement. Our attempt to become a little more sustainable allows our retirement income to stretch a little further. Sometimes it feels like mighty little further. But in the dead of winter and in the wake of rising prices it eases the sting to know that everything is laid in for the winter. Wait! is that homesteading or is that prepping?

Homesteading and Prepping are one in the same thing! Appalachians were the original preppers and we live an Appalachian lifestyle!

I hope you can find a way to live as sustainable a lifestyle as is comfortable for you. However, don’t stress out if you can’t, because we all need one another. In a previous blog I talked about peace of mind. Peace of mind leads to inner peace. Until you achieve inner peace the world will run you down like a bulldozer felling poplars. So when you approach life remember that Life, like Homesteading is a Marathon Not a Sprint – Slow Down and Enjoy The Ride!!  Do what feels right for you and your family!!

 

Be Certain to Visit our Homesteading Channel on Youtube at http://Youtube.com/c/collegehillfarm  as we create and live on a modern homestead like our ancestors before us. Also check out and add your name to follow our weekly blog channel at https://collegehillfarm.blogspot.com so you do not miss our weekly ponderings on the past, present and future and on our Facebook page at  https://www.facebook.com/College-Hill-Farm-295659074295747