The Survival Homestead

Living a simpler life doesn’t mean living an easier life. In reality it is just the opposite. Living a simpler life tends to be a harder life. At least harder in the context of work required to live that kind of lifestyle. Even though it’s a more challenging lifestyle… it’s a more rewarding lifestyle.

I’ll be the first to admit that my consumerism lifestyle has made me fat. I work a job that doesn’t require a lot of physical labor, I pay other folks to do things I could be doing, and as a result I’d added on around 60 pounds of excess weight. If you think about it…. were our grandparents or great-grandparents overweight? I’m guessing probably not. They worked manual labor for a living and/or tended a garden and farm animals for food. Something else to think about…. aside from lung cancer from smoking how many cancers did they have to contend with?

Around a year ago I decided that I needed to wean myself off a consumerism lifestyle and get back to a more simpler time. Like most folks that think about making this leap, I had several reason that moved me forward and got me into researching my desired lifestyle. By living a simpler life, not only am I improving my life but there are other advantages as well. Since this is more of a thought provoking article vs. a how to article… I am going to toss out some things to think about.

This guest post by  Petticoat Prepper and entry in our non-fiction writing contest. You can read part one here, part two here and part three here. The first few weeks have passed and your bees have been busy. You’ve kept the 2:1 sugar syrup in the feeder and they’ve built comb and the queen has laid thousands of

The big day has arrived; your bees are ready for pickup! I was both nervous and excited when mine came. Something I wish I’d had and will for this next group of bees is a sprayer bottle of water. You know those plastic plant misters? It was hot the day mine came and I picked up in my car. The girls rode in the trunk. I was worried about them over heating and stopped often to cool them down. I was afraid some police officer would see me on the side of the freeway fanning my open trunk frantically and think something was amiss….

I always wanted to be a “homesteader”. Yes I hate labeling myself or anyone else but I woke up the other morning and thought that must be what I have become. It is hard to live that kind of lifestyle when your drowning in debt. A huge factor in not only getting to the point of being debt free but also to having actual say in your own life and time is saving and spending wisely.

About fifteen years ago, when I went to Oklahoma with a friend of mine, we met a man in his mid- to late-fifties that offered to sell us some land that he said he owned. When we went to look at the piece, we saw a small travel trailer sitting there, surrounded by dense stickery brush, and he told us what a good deal he would make us.

This guest post is by Papabear and entry in our non-fiction writing contest. The Dallas Observer published a report1 recently that Texas has worst electric grid in the nation. This was based on a North American Electric Reliability Corp report2. That’s not very encouraging. They are also reporting that there is the possibility of rolling blackouts in

This guest post is by J.E. and entry in our non-fiction writing contest. Blacksmithing is a hot, dirty, and hard job, but it is one of the most rewarding things that I have accomplished. The smell of the fire, the sound of the hammer falling on the metal, and the pure enjoyment of forging useful tools, gives

This guest post is by Victoria S and entry in our non-fiction writing contest . Horses are herbivores. There are isolated examples of horses eating meat in extreme situations, but 99.9% of the time, horses will not eat meat. (Horses will eat meat more often if it’s part of something else – I used to feed left over tuna

This guest post is by Michael C and entry in our non-fiction writing contest . Recently someone wrote about the O2 Cool battery operated fan. I liked the size of the fan (10 inch) and the battery operation. I was impressed enough with the review (on MD’s web site) that I went through the (MD’s) bookmark and looked at

This guest post is by Victoria and entry in our non-fiction writing contest .  Note: you can read part one here. Horse people have their own specialized vocabulary, like most hobbies or occupations. Some of these words are familiar to non-horsemen, but most are very arcane. Some can even be a source of confusion to the non-initiate.