Why Everyone Should Want to Start a Homestead

Why you should want to start a homestead.
Pasture of food.

Why You Should Want to Start a Homestead.

Why shouldn’t you want to start a homestead is actually the better question. Well, you get to work from home! It’s not earning a paycheck for you to go get the hottest new phone with, but it is earning you a living (literally). You are growing your own vegetables and raising your own meat and dairy.

There is even more work when it comes to taking care of the animals, and processing what they give. With sheep, you can make wool, with Goats or Cows, you can make yogurt, cheese, and butter. When you have chickens or ducks you get so many eggs that are great as ingredients in other things.

As an added bonus, you will be able to build your own home, barn, and outbuildings (like this greenhouse). You will get to learn some serious home and equipment maintenance.

By growing, building, reusing everything, and doing it all by hand, you will be ultimately living sustainably, and helping the environment while you do it.

Questions to ask Yourself Before you Decide.

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What is the ultimate goal?

There are so many great reasons to start a homestead. But what exactly are your reasons? Take a good hard look at how you live now.

Next imagine how your life will change by going back to nature. It will be slower and likely without many modern conveniences. There is not likely to be a grocery store right around the corner, so you will have to learn how to plan things out. And be able to make things you can’t just go pick up.

  • Is Self-Sufficiency you Goal?
  • Would you like to be more environmentally conscious?
  • How would you like to work from home and be connected to the land?
  • Would you like to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life?

Can you commit to the lifestyle?

Homesteading is not for the faint of heart. It Is Hard Work!

You will get up at dawn to care for the animals. There will be time spent working the garden from working the ground, to building raised beds, to planting, watering, and harvesting. After the harvest, you will need to preserve your goods to last through the winter.

It is not a fantasy, it’s not romantic, it’s not glamorous. You have to truly love it, or you won’t make it.

Do you have a support group?

So you read some books (Where are you going to start a homestead?

Location is everything. You will need some space, along the lines of five acres at a MINIMUM. In some areas, this is just too costly for most folks to pull off.

Then there is the climate. This will affect everything you are trying to do. Are you going to get snowed in every year? Are you going to be able to water crops all summer long? Will you watch your crops wash away in a flood every year?

Different states have different regulations for homesteading as well. Be sure to do ample research before you commit to the ultimate lifestyle change!

See where our research led us in this post!

Barn in a meadow
Overlooking Olsen Barn

Starting a Homestead

The goal is to live freely on your own time, doing for yourself. Living off the land in a sustainable way the way folks used to do in the old times. It’s about taking a step back to actually enjoy life.

Growing your own food, hunting your own meat, and kicking back on the farm sounds so romantic. It certainly can be, but you need to take your time and do a ton of research to be sure you can walk away from that city life.