Embarking on Our Homestead Journey: Transitioning from City Life to Self-Sufficiency

The word “homestead” has never crossed my mind. I always thought of gardening, raising cows, and running a store. Honestly, I had no idea what it meant to be organic or to grow and increase your food. Read more to learn how we started our homestead. This journey led us to build our homestead lovingly.

How did we start our homestead?

Up until my 6th-grade year, I lived in the city. Our yard was green with a small garden, and our fruit trees were growing. Our homestead wasn’t built when I moved to the country. We lived in the garage. In the spring of 2007, we planted a large garden. We grew tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, lettuce, radishes, and onions.

Self-sufficiency is the goal of homesteading. Gardening, raising animals, preserving the harvest, and learning time-honored skills help us become more self-reliant. These are all characteristics of self-reliance on our homestead.

I decided a while ago to commit fully to our homestead. We also started raising beef cattle to increase the size of our garden. At the homestead, we honed our skills in homemaking and preparedness efforts.

I want to teach my children the importance of working hard. They should also enjoy the fruits of their labor. Living a healthy and frugal lifestyle is also a priority for my family. This post explains my reasoning.

Composting – what is it?

I thought about getting rid of our manure one day. Without a big tractor, it was sure to pile up. It’s an issue we face on our homestead.

Moment of clarity! Why not start a compost pile? Compost is easy to dispose of.

While researching composting techniques for our homestead, I found some chicken websites.

While researching chickens, I found many blogs discussing the health benefits of free-range eggs and raw milk.

Raw milk seemed strange to me.

My research revealed that raw milk is illegal in most states. In some places, choosing raw milk is a legal grey area.

My knowledge of traditional, natural foods grew as time passed. I’ve found that having a homestead and cooking real food complement each other beautifully.

A few reasons led me to the homestead. Here, we are doing all sorts of things that I never thought we would: Raising cows. We butcher our own meat and cultivate a large garden annually.

Garden harvest

I can’t say this was my original plan, but I love this place. It truly feels like our homestead.

If you’re interested in pursuing a similar path to ours, you can start here. Learn more about crafting your homestead.