This means every home everywhere, including in urban areas
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
It may rather sound strange to those that believe that a homestead can only be in the boonies, in the countryside. But we must homestead everywhere, from the countryside all the way into the city. After all, a homestead is but a home with attitude; namely the homesteading attitude of its occupiers. We must do it if we want to find a new way of life and living.
The principles of homesteading, even though it may not be the whole shebang, can be applied in any place that we call home, I should think and, in fact, it must be applied everywhere. Our future and that of our Planet depends on it.
Making do was and still is one of the mainstays of each and every homestead and this attitude can be applied, nay must be applied, in every location where we make our home.
You can also can your own stuff, make your own things and even grow (some) of your own food in town. You do not have to have acres of land. We are talking homesteading and not self-sufficiency, which is anyway but an illusion.
The spirit of homesteading existed in many a small mining town and village in Britain and Europe in the same way as it did in farming villages and this candle must be rekindled in our towns and villages today.
Alas, too many, even in the “green movement”, talk a lot but act very little in accordance with their speeches. A lot like clergy, methinks, and our politicians. They talk about the need to go green, the need to live sustainable, and I am initially talking here about many in the “green movement” today, but then they engage in rampant greensumption rather than making things they need and want from what is to hand for themselves, reusing, upcycling and grow-your-own.
While self-sufficiency is not the goal and even total self-reliance may not be possible in many situations making every home and homestead to some degree and employing the homesteading spirit will reduce our impact on the Planet.
We must, once again, come back to this kind of life that our forefathers lived and when not everything was geared to consumption and to always buying new.
There is great satisfaction , in my opinion, in making the things that I want or need, as much as possible, myself without having to resort to speding money at the stores.
Why not upcycle some nice, appropriate sizes, glass jars into drinking glasses, storage jars or what-have-you? Why not make your own notebooks from “scrap” paper?
Such practices and others were common amongst homesteaders of the past and not the past only and those are all things that do not make a home in the boonies a prerequisite.
Not everyone of us can live in the countryside on a couple of acres or more. It is just not feasible unless population numbers would decrease drastically.
Thus we must make each and every home a homestead, in the same way that every roof must become an electricity generating plant.
Self-reliance is possible in our particular locations, whether in the boonies, the burbs or town, only the degree of it may vary.
I know that this all sounds utopian to many but we must do it and it can be done if but the will is there.
© 2012
