Suburban Homesteading

I guess it’s official. Lianne and I are suburban homesteaders. What does that mean? It means we’re moving toward a simpler, more self sustaining lifestyle. We’re expanding our garden, planting fruit trees and bushes, composting, collecting rain water, and learning to harvest honey from my dad’s bee hives in our backyard. For some proof, here’s our garden photo album for 2010. We’ve made a decent amount of progress since our first 9′ square garden plot back in 2007, and we’ve got many more plans in store. I was thinking about some of our future plans recently and that great human question started rolling around in my mind. Why? Why are we so into this?

When Lianne and I talked about it one of the first things we thought of was the fact that it’s fun. We enjoy getting outside and planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting. We would both much rather be outside working in the garden than inside working in the kitchen. There’s something enjoyable about working with your hands and producing tangible things. Maybe part of it is some genetic predisposition ingrained within us that brings satisfaction out of living off the land. There’s also the joy of knowing that the work we’re doing is leading directly to our survival, as this article points out. Modern society is so detached from the survival instinct. The vast majority of our jobs are completely disconnected from our needs. This is one of the reasons many Americans are dissatisfied with their jobs. Punching away at a computer, or attending business meetings, often lacks meaning and purpose. Tilling the ground, planting seeds, and reaping a harvest, on the other hand, is fulfilling.

Home grown food is healthier. We’re moving slowly toward natural foods and away from processed foods. It’s amazing to me that our bodies manage to function at all with all the junk we put into them, but that won’t last a lifetime. We’re killing ourselves slowly with all the garbage we consume. Local food is better for the environment as well, and we’re making every effort to preserve natural resources. We’ve got two 55 gallon rain barrels set up already, with plans for many more. We don’t use insecticides, we’re composting, and we’re looking into alternative forms of energy.

Homesteading is also educational. See, it’s more than just planting a garden. It’s a lifestyle. It’s community. Homesteaders know how to do things and make stuff. They’re tapped into a simpler, less hectic life. Kind of like these guys. It seems like Lianne and I are constantly making trips to the thrift store to drop off an ever increasing accumulation of things. What if, instead of buying a new bicycle, we take the kids out to fix our old ones, Brady Bunch style? What a neat learning experience, not to mention all the knowledge we’re gaining about nature. We’re educating ourselves on a daily basis.

Lastly, I do have some concerns about our economy, our dependence on oil and on the dollar. I don’t know if we’re going to see a major collapse or a steady decline over the next decade, but I do know that we’re headed in the wrong direction as an economy. Too much debt, too little real work. The more we know how to do things for ourselves, the more prepared we are for whatever may come. I also see a lot of problems with the way big agricultural businesses are working in collusion with the government to control the food supply. Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Perdue, and others, are all using patent law, campaign finances (bribes), and outright corrupt business practices to maintain a hold on the agriculture and food markets. I don’t want to be dependent on some fat cat businessman, or a corrupt government bureaucrat. Actually, those two are often the exact same person since there is a “revolving door” between government agencies and big businesses across many different markets, whether it be agriculture, oil, health care, or finance. The less I interact with companies like that, the better.

So, we’re moving toward sustainability. Who knows how far we’ll get with our little 1/4 of an acre here, (we’ve already found out it is illegal to have chickens) but we’re going to do our best.