Homesteading |
So just exactly what is homesteading? I think every homesteader has a different answer, but they all have a common theme. Homesteaders are trying to increase their self-reliance and reduce their consumerism. Survivalists who talk of setting up a "retreat" to live on "after the crash" are anticipating a homesteading lifestyle, whether they know that's what it is called or not.
My advice to "retreaters" is similar to that found in the featured essay by Fernie, Find you a place you want to live after "tshtf" and move there now. You will be learning a lot once you start depending on your own hands and the land for your food and supplies. Start now before it becomes a matter of life or death. I also encourage you to find a group of other people who want to live the same way. Adjacent farms offer a "safety net" in many ways - help is nearby, neighbors may (and should!) have skills you don't, and a cluster of houses is easier to defend than a single isolated home. Villages existed for a reason, after all. You can visit The Gulcher's Guide for more information on how to set up your own community.
I can't make this a "complete homestead resource" site, nor should I. There are a number of good sites already out there and I have put in links to those pages. What I will do here is post info gathered from newsgroups, mailing lists, emails, and other resources that I run across that I feel is valuable and worth your time.
When it comes to making your life from the land, there is much to learn. One of the main reasons I started this site was to learn, myself. I decided there were probably lots more out there just like me who needed a guiding hand, so I'm using this site to show others where I have gone and what I have learned.
I can't even begin to tell you what the "good" homestead mailing lists are, anymore. Sometime after 1/1/00, my favorite list pretty much disappeared. Currently, I subscribe to three lists, all run from eGroups - or I guess now it is YahooGroups - Homestead Friends, Homestead-2000, and Homestead-Earth. HF is the highest-trafficked list, coming in somewhere under 25 messages a day. I'm sure there are other lists out there, I just don't know where they are. Here's a couple that might still be active:
Homestead Youth Need Homestead Friends -
- Subscribe to Young Homesteader
Send E-MAIL to Yonderway
in the body of the letter type subscribe ystdr
To subscribe to the list FRUGAL-ED, email to Listproc with the following request:
subscribe FRUGAL-ED