by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
There is more to homesteading that most people assume and homesteading is not just limited to the boonies. In fact, we much learn to homestead everywhere.
Homesteading does not just mean making a home in the country, in the boonies, in some shack or cabin, and growing your own vegetables, raising your own livestock, baking your own bread, etc.
Aside from the fact that a homestead is where you make it, and can make it, homesteading also means making your own and making do.
Do it yourself, often from what others would regard as “waste” and from natural materials has always been the way of the homesteader, the share cropper, and the countryman and -woman, and the farm laborers, and we must rediscover this way and relevant mindset and skills. Now more than ever.
Many people today rely on buying what they require even if they could make this or that – or even all – of it themselves and spend money that they could use much better otherwise. And that, alas, also goes for many an old and new homesteader.
They go to the stores or use mail order catalogs, often now actually via the Internet, to buy this or that and many of those are things that they could very well make from items regarded as waste or from natural materials. This kind of do it yourself was always part of the life and the way of the homesteader, the squatter and the farm laborer.
Homesteading is, however, not just for the boonies and for the countryside, as I have already said earlier. It has to happen everywhere. Yes, everywhere. At least the spirit of homesteading must become part of everyone everywhere.
Every home a homestead is the only way that we can transition towards a new way, towards a new future.
Think about it...
© 2012
