Homesteading

A Beginners Guide To Homesteading

Nancy Ross

• Publisher: Nancy Ross
• ISBN:
  9781508056492
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Horticulture
• Index: Biological Sciences

Do you want to learn how to live more self sufficient by using the tools of homesteading?

Whether you want to learn how to raise your own livestock, garden for yourself, or preserve your own food this book will help!

Here Is A Preview Of What You'll Learn...

• The Basics of Homesteading
• Raising Your Own Livestock in Your Backyard
• The Magic of Gardening for Your Own Food
• Preserving Your Food for Winter
• Making Your Own Clothes
• Making Your Own Household Items
• Much, Much, More!

Chapter 1: The Basics of Homesteading

The world is full of many amazing technological advances. We are used to hearing all about the latest and greatest that was invented to help make lives easier and to help us interact with other people. We go to the grocery store or a fast food restaurant to get all of our food. We go to the department store to get our clothes or any other household items that we may need. We also have to rely on the utility companies to supply us with our basic energy needs.

All of this may have made life easier, but it has certainly made us dependent on other people and may cost us quite a bit. Many people are getting tired of all this dependency. They don’t like that they are forced to pay high prices for items to make a company rich when they could make the same items at home. Out of this frustration came the whole idea of homesteading.

Homesteading is an idea of becoming self-sufficient. It is the realization that you are able to do a lot of these tasks, such as raise your own food, make your own homemade products, and even grow a garden to help you get by. Now, there are varying degrees of homesteading. Some people may choose to grow a few vegetables and raise some chickens in their backyard to create a little bit of self-sufficiency while others will go all the way and never rely on department or grocery stores ever again because they can do all the work on their own.

There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to homesteading. Every little bit is a big step to protecting our earth and helping you to save money. While the term is meant more towards those who go back to the roots of homesteading and can provide everything for themselves, the whole movement realizes that some people may not be able to do this. If you work a full time job and are rarely home, or live in an apartment building, you may not be able to grow all the food that you need, make your clothes, and provide your own energy source. But the idea is to reduce the human impact on the environment and to stop relying on the ups and down of corporate America to provide us with these basic necessities.

The History of Homesteading

To get a better idea of the homesteading movement, let’s take a look at some of the history that comes with homesteading. During the 1800s, homesteading became a popular term thanks to the Homesteading Act of 1862. This act basically provided land grants of up to 160 acres to any adult citizen. You would need to pay a small fee to register and then live on the land for five continuous years. After this time, you were given the deed to this land and could do what you would like with it.

This was mainly to encourage people to go out and start living in the western parts of the country. Those who had never stood a chance of owning their own land would flock out to these areas for practically free land and set up their own farms and families in that area. It was widely popular and allowed many people to own the farms they held for years.

This program technically ended in 1976 thanks to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, but it started to end in 1935 when President Roosevelt began his conservation programs by using public domain lands. During the years that it was available, more than 783,000 men and women moved out to these areas and made it the five years to keep the land for themselves.

Back to the Land

After the Homestead Act was officially over, the term homesteading began to take a change. It was during the 1970s that this term started to evolve into what it means today. Homesteading is now more of a way to leave the modern conveniences of life behind you and returning to more rural roots. Tens of thousands of young adults as well as those with a bit of adventure in them decided to leave the suburbs and big cities in order to go back out into the country and start to take care of things for themselves. This continued to be a trend for the next thirty years and started to include those who were trying to live self-sufficiently even while living in a city as well as those who were in rural areas.

Modern Homesteading

The modern definition of homesteading is all about being self-sufficient. The ideal is to be self-sufficient in every aspect including providing your own food, making your own clothes, and providing everything that you need without help from outside sources other than from perhaps a few neighbors. Of course, providing this self-sufficiency takes a lot of time and patience and not everyone is able to take this kind of commitment, which is why all forms of self-sufficiency are welcome in this definition.

Even if you are only able to raise a few chickens and grow a small garden, you are taking the right steps to doing homesteading. Many people start out with these simple steps and find out that they love the homesteading so much that they will continue on until they are completely self-sufficient. Others decide this is all they have time for and that is perfectly fine as well. The main idea is to decrease the dependency that you have on modern conveniences and the big corporate world and instead go back to your roots and enjoy the simpler things in life.

Sometimes people are turned off by the idea of homesteading because they think they will need to jump into the lifestyle 100% or else they can’t be a part of it. While some people relish the idea of owning their own farm and raising all their meat and food while also taking care to make t...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Basics of Homesteading
• Chapter 2: Raising Your Own Livestock in Your Backyard
• Chapter 3: The Magic of Gardening for Your Own Food
• Chapter 4: Preserving Your Food for Winter
• Chapter 5: Making Your Own Clothes and Household Items
• Conclusion