Yes. I said it. I don’t like ‘homesteading' anymore. When I first got involved with ‘homesteading’, the word carried a certain endearing quality. It somehow encompassed the animals, the open fields, the freedom, and the community. Most of all, ‘homesteading’ represented being a bit of a maverick. In the very beginning there weren’t that many homesteaders. Today, it seems everyone is taking their shot at homesteading. No longer is what we call homesteading confined to the farm in Wyoming. All across the U.S. and all around the globe people are diving into what I’m now referring to as an old-fashioned lifestyle. Listen today to find out exactly what I mean by this and how you can get involved now.
• To begin this homesteading journey, head to http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/grow to access my full library of resources to guide you down the path.
Yes. I said it. I don’t like ‘homesteading' anymore. When I first got involved with ‘homesteading’, the word carried a certain endearing quality. It somehow encompassed the animals, the open fields, the freedom, and the community. Most of all, ‘homesteading’ represented being a bit of a maverick. In the very beginning there weren’t that many homesteaders. Today, it seems everyone is taking their shot at homesteading. No longer is what we call homesteading confined to the farm in Wyoming. All across the U.S. and all around the globe people are diving into what I’m now referring to as an old-fashioned lifestyle. Listen today to find out exactly what I mean by this and how you can get involved now.
• To begin this homesteading journey, head to http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/grow to access my full library of resources to guide you down the path.
Welcome to the old fashioned on purpose podcast. So I've been doing some thinking lately, which I know is scary, but I've been really analyzing and ruminating. I love that word by the way. Like it's my favorite word to describe deep thought ruminating. Anyway. But I've been ruminating on what to call the homesteading movement or the homesteading tribe, just the collective group of people who are into this old fashioned lifestyle. So it might seem kind of obvious to you and you might be going, Jill, why are you even wasting your brain cells on this? Cause it's obvious at homesteading describes what we're doing and who we are. And honestly that is the term that I have used for almost a decade now to describe not only myself but also you guys, the tribe, the homesteading community. But I've kind of been thinking that, I'm not sure if that name fits anymore. Now before you freak out, hear me out, keep listening and I will tell you a little bit more about my revelation. I'm your host Jill winger. And for the last 10 years I've been helping people just like you who feel disenchanted by modern life. I'll show you how to create the life you really want by learning how to grow your own food and master old fashioned skills. So from the time of Christian and I starting our homesteading journey, and back then when we started, we didn't even know it was called homesteading, kind of picked up that title down the road to where we are now. From then to now, a lot has changed obviously, right? Not only in our personal life but also in just the homesteading movement in general. It's picked up speed, it's more mainstream. I wouldn't say that everyone's doing it, but there is more familiarity around it and it's not as hard to explain what it is, is it used to be? So back in the day I really liked the term because it felt a little bit unique. It felt a little bit special. And honestly when I was, when people say, why do you have land and a milk cow and a garden and why are you baking bread and making soap instead of trying to explain that we don't really farm for commercial purposes and we just had a little bit of land, but it was more than a hobby farm for us and it was more of this lifestyle choice, blah, blah blah. I've found that just saying we're modern day homesteaders just was easier. It was like a nice little bow to put on this package of our lifestyle. And over the years, as I have shared about our life and built this community online, that is the Prairie homestead community, I have reiterated over and over and over, you know, we call it homesteading, but you don't have to live in the country to do it and you know, you can do this wherever live. And I wrote back in the day, my first ebook was your custom homestead and it talked about how you can take this mindset and apply it to your current situation wherever you are. But even with all of those caveats, I feel like a good number of folks have still kind of got this impression that if you want to be a true homesteader, you want to be in a cool homesteader club, you've got to go buy the land, get the cow, get the tractor, and do all the things. Now that is absolutely an admirable goal. I get so excited when people tell me that that is what they're shooting for. They're saving the money, they're getting out of debt, they're going to go get the land and the cows and build a fence and do this, this, this stuff. But that is not, in my opinion, the essence of homesteading on its own homesteading is truly a mindset. And it is a choice and it's a little bit counter-cultural and it takes a special type of person. I think very naively, when I first became enamored with this lifestyle, I had this kind of Pollyanna philosophy that everyone wanted to homestead or that they should want to homestead or they could homestead, and I've changed my tune a little bit. This lifestyle isn't for everyone. Now do I think that everyone should be aware of where their food comes from? Yes. Do I think that everyone should be understanding how to do basic cooking and uh, some basic skills? Absolutely. But as I've grown up a little bit in and a lot of, you have watched me mature I think as over the course of this time being publicly online and sharing our homestead journey for everyone to see, I've realized there's a good number of people, a lot of people, who would rather they go to jail than be a homesteader. It's like there's people out there who don't want this. There are people out there that would see, you know, this lifestyle of having to go out in the garden and grow your carrots before you put them in the soup or having to go do the chores at night before you come into your warm house. And that is like a fate worse than death for them. So I am now quite aware and quite cognizant of the fact that homesteading is not for everyone. Not everyone secretly wants to do this. Like my younger self thought and it's really a very special type of person. It was interesting. I was at a book signing last weekend. It did a couple of one in Cheyenne, Wyoming, one in Loveland, Colorado and I met some local homestead folks. And by the way, when I say local that's like anybody in a two to three hour radius that's local out out West. But anyway, so I was talking to some folks and there was one couple in particular. They're super sweet. They came over and introduced themselves and I signed their cookbook and she was telling me that, over the last blizzard we had, which was a week ago or so at the time of our conversation, she said she had been traveling and was out of town and was actually disappointed because she likes the coziness of being home in the middle of a snow storm and taking care of animals and kinda keeping everything running and safe. And she, she felt like she missed out because she was in a different state actually in warmer weather and she was bummed out that she wasn't home for the blizzard. And she said her friends thought she was crazy cause her friend was like, you lucky dog, you got to leave. And we were all here and we were kind of laughing over this. But as we were talking I thought, that's it. Like that is the personality type. That to me personifies the homesteader. We kind of run towards the harder thing. We run towards the thing that is not the easiest option. That is not the most comfortable option, but there's something in us that knows that, I don't know. It makes us feel a little more human to live those parts of life that make us a little cold or a little hot or a little uncomfortable or a little sweaty. Um, and figuring things out and doing things from scratch. It just makes us feel a little bit more alive. And I'm starting to pick up on these different traits that I'm finding are common among homesteaders. Whether they live on 500 acres in Kansas or they have a quarter acre backyard in LA or they live in an apartment in New York city. There are these personality traits that are tying all of us together who are these old fashioned weirdos for lack of a better term. And I say that with all the love in the world because I'm a weirdo too. But we're definitely a special breed and it is definitely a little bit counter-cultural. And when I think about why Christian and I started homesteading, I've done a lot of unpacking of this over the years because at first I thought it was just because we wanted to grow food and then I thought it was because we wanted to do it for our kids. And those are all valid and true reasons. But ultimately when I've really, really dug deep into the root of why we were initially drawn to homesteading and why we continue on with it a decade later, for us, it's really about being a little bit rebellious, being a little bit of a cultural Maverick. And Christian and I don't like to go with the flow and be like everyone else. And I remember very vividly when we first got married, I didn't know, you know, where we would end up location-wise or career-wise or what our future would be like. I didn't have homesteading on the radar obviously, but I remember thinking everyone else I know at this point gets the minivan, 2.5 kids, little house in town. They go into the routine of soccer games and doing the mom and dad and kid things and then the kids leave and then they retire and it's the end. Now if that's your dream, I'm not picking on that at all, right? That there's nothing wrong with that. But for Christian and I, we just would look at that trajectory of what everyone else around us was doing and what we were just expected to do. Oh, you're married now, step two, here you go. And we just weren't happy with that. We wanted something a little bit different. And we've done different in a lot of different ways with our finances and staying debt free and with where we live, you know, 40 miles from town and growing her own food and doing all these things. But homesteading was really a great identity for us to jump into because it just fit that idea of being a Maverick in a modern society that really is all about least resistance and comfort zones. And I see this same exact trait in so many of you who I'm connecting with through the Prairie homestead, YouTube channel and Instagram page and Facebook page. Like you guys have this same traits and has absolutely nothing to do with where you live, but it has everything to do with how you think. And I'd love to hear if this resonates with you, if it does, shoot me an email or drop me a DM on Facebook or Instagram or leave me a comment like I'm curious to hear if you see yourself or hear yourself in any of these ideas that I'm sharing. And I think that for most of us, we're drawn to this idea of being counter-cultural, not because we want to be historical reenactors, like I always have to kind of preface that with some people because they're like, Oh, little house in the Prairie. Well are you going to eventually like stop driving cars and you're going to wear dresses and sun bonnets? And I'm like, no, those things are fine. They're cool and historical, but it's not my goal to be a historical reenactor and it's not even my goal to go off grid. I want to be able to be prepared if we have a massive power outage someday, but living off grid permanently is not necessarily my ultimate goal. And I still like technology still use technology and I don't have any intention of completely getting rid of all that, but I want to still take the best pieces of this old fashioned lifestyle and ideas and weave it into what we're doing now. Because I know that you and I, we both see where modern culture is heading and we see things in modern culture, in all different aspects of it that I don't know about you, but I say I think if they keep going the way they're going, it scares me to stink what is going to be like for our kids in 20, 30, 40 years and how disconnected we are as a society from just nature and life skills and food and basically just the things that human had just been a part of the human existence since the beginning of time. We're losing touch with all of that so it's not about going off grid. It's not about looking like Laura Ingalls Wilder on a day to day basis. Although it's cool if you want to do that. To me it's about taking these old fashioned pieces and making sure they don't get lost in the hustle and bustle of a very fast paced technology driven society and that my friend as you know, can be done anywhere. I don't care where you live, I don't care if you can never buy land. I don't care if you are in the middle of the biggest city in the U S you can still choose to be a little more self sufficient, little more independent and a little bit more of a Maverick. So I've had this idea or this statement or this manifesto for lack of a better term, floating around in my head for a couple months and I was feeling super inspired this weekend. So I finally sat down with my pen and paper and wrote it out and here's what I came up with and I posted it on social media last week and you guys really resonated with it. It seemed, you really gave me some great feedback on it. You said yes, that's me. So I wanted to read it to you here on the podcast in case you missed it there. And I want love to hear your thoughts on this. So here's to the ones disenchanted with conformity. The ones who swim upstream, while the societal herd rides the river of least resistance, the ones who favor homegrown and handmade over cheap and mass produced. The ones who embrace sweaty summer days and frigid winter nights instead of chasing constant comfort. The ones who grow, shepherd, nurture, produce, need and craft rather than simply consume. And the ones who are old fashioned on purpose and choose to truly live, not merely exist. So if you're canning in your apartment kitchen, that's you what I just read. If you're growing a garden in buckets on your balcony, that's you. If you get a little thrill from doing chickens in your, from doing chores for the chickens in your backyard, as a storm's coming in and you're battening down the hatches and you're kind of filling that thrill and the adrenaline and you kinda like it, that's you. If you spend more money to buy local at the farmer's market, then just to go to the big box store for everything that's you. And if you choose to knit, sew, bake craft, build or create in this culture of ours that is obsessed with easy, well that's you. So my friend, no more guilt. And if you have been feeling left out because you don't have the picture perfect stereotypical homestead or you don't think you're going to be able to buy land anytime soon, you're still a homesteader and I am so dang proud of you for what you are doing, where you are with what you have now. It's not about being in the perfect homesteader club and crossing off all the boxes. It's just about being a little more independent and pushing back just a little bit on this culture that sometimes threatens to sweep us away. So keep up the good work. Really, really proud to have you in this community. And we're definitely going to be making a splash, one chicken and one tomato and one can of Apple sauce at a time. So if you're liking what you're hearing and you're ready to take on a little bit more of this old fashioned on-purpose lifestyle, I have something that'll help you out. I have an entire library of resources I put together for people just like you who are ready to learn more and do more, and you can grab complimentary access to it over at theprairiehomestead.com/grow. I'll leave that link in the show notes, but one more time. It's theprairie homestead.com/grow and that's it. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you'd pop over to your favorite podcast player and leave a quick review and I will be back and we'll chat more in the next episode of the old fashioned on purpose podcast.