HOMESTEADERS - I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING!

 

New-to-homesteading folks are putting more and more pressure on themselves to do EVERYTHING. Posts and groups are full of overwhelmed and frustrated homesteaders who are looking for advice on how to cope.

“I want to do everything! Spin wool, make soap, grow herbs and make homemade teas, can all the things, ferment all the things, freeze all the things, quilt a quilt for all the kids, make baby clothes, use cloth diapers, knit mittens and socks, I get out of breath just thinking about it all! How do you wade through what you think is really important?”

A popular homesteading vlogger answered this question and she did help with the priorities of farm life, for example, meeting the needs of livestock and garden, which are non-negotiable and time-sensitive. But there's more to this answer that might help homesteaders learn how to prioritize and not just what.

Let's add three underpinnings to developing a realistic homestead life in the 21st century:

1. Wants vs. needs.
   
2. There's still a division of labor in homesteading.
   
3. Everything has its own season.
   

NUMBER 1: Wants vs. needs

There's a big historical, philosophical, and practical gap between homesteaders of the 17th-19th centuries and 21st century homesteaders. And we are very much "wanters" in the 21st century. We are 100% consumers. Most of us have lived lives producing only the money to purchase what we want and need.

Wanting to do everything is already becoming overwhelming to modern homesteaders who have plunged in with chickens and gardens only to find themselves with goats, pigs, dehydrators, canners, pluckers, incubators, and possibly a homeschool curriculum and beehives on top of that within the first year.

Let's use soap as an example. We want to make soap. It's not too hard. Most will spend days on the internet learning soap-making, source ingredients, choose colors and scents, molds, and comparison shop for the best deals. Then it gets ordered, possibly from several different companies. And when the soap is cured, well, most of us would likely give a lot of it away as gifts.

Pioneers adults already knew how to make soap and it was their only cleaner. They got on their hands and knees to scrub the floors with that soap. They spent an entire day doing laundry with that soap. They lathered up a dishcloth to wash dishes which, if anyone has actually done this, is not the same experience as using Dawn. They NEEDED soap. It was the only disinfectant in the home. They washed wounds with it. They stayed healthy because of it.

For modern people, this is an old-timey craft, no longer a life-or-death skill. It reminds of us of simplicity of life. But while using one product is simpler, it's not what we want. We are not going to get on our hands and knees with a stiff brush and soap. We are going to buy floor cleaner and a mop with a long handle - even though we made cleaning soap. 

Cooking from scratch? Baking bread?

Pioneers grew up cooking and baking. And it wasn't fancy. Pioneers ate meat, eggs, starch, and vegetables for most meals. The didn't Google new recipes, order cookbooks, or try out new health diets every six months. They didn't ask themselves what they felt like eating for dinner or spice things up with Taco Tuesday. They didn't have freeze dryers AND dehydrators AND two types of canners AND cheese presses AND yogurt makers AND airlock fermenting lids. Homesteaders before the 20th century had drying, smoking, salting, cold storage, storing in fat, and fermenting as their main preservation techniques. These required crocks and a smokehouse for the most part. 

Having modern preservation tools is not a problem, but if you are overwhelmed by food preservation because you want to try everything while also learning how to garden and care for livestock, then it's time to separate the wants from the needs of your household. 

Being honest about what is a want and what is a need to get from one season to the next is a great saver of time and effort and sanity. In that first year or two (or five?) of homesteading, skills are learned and some of these wants may become everyday skills to fill needs, but we have to give ourselves permission to learn them in due time, not all at once.

NUMBER 2: Division of labor

Butchering pigs used to be an annual event taking up a week or two when the butcher would travel from farm to farm (sometimes paid) to spend a day helping with his skill. Neighbors would also come help you process your pig today because tomorrow you'd do the same for them. There was an assembly line of workers to butcher and preserve: men, women, and children had jobs. 

The same goes for food preservation of other crops. Farmers would rotate to help each other bring in grain or orchard crops. If it couldn't be managed by just the homesteading family - if those were the only people available - it was a field not planted, a herd not bought. People did not take on more than they could do. It would be a waste of time and money they could not afford, Risking health, money, and the winter's pantry was not an option. These days, doing too much just results in selling the goats or hives. It's not a life or death matter.

Most of what we think of as "quilts" for most were in reality patched tops made of the best pieces from old clothes, the rest of which had gone to the rag bag. They were not quilted as we think of it, but tied in intervals to hold the top, the inner sheet of wool or cotton (if there was one), and the back together. If a woman made such a quilt, it was because it was needed and there was no one else to help her make it.

The quilting bee was an ongoing function of very tightly knit communities who often made these quilts for young married couples and designed to last a lifetime. The young homesteading housewife generally did not make her own quilt. 

Knowing more of the history of what homesteaders actually did for themselves and what work they shared helps take the pressure off of modern homesteaders who may have romantic, unrealistic expectations of themselves and homestead life. It took a community to do "everything".

NUMBER 3: Everything has its season.

Pioneers had all winter to sew new or alter old clothing and knit for the family. They didn't go anywhere. Most children memorized from a reader and the bible at home. Aside from feeding the livestock, they were huddled by the fire, trying to stay warm, sharpening tools, mending clothes, entertaining baby, and knitting all day long while the evening's dinner bubbled away on the stove. And to save lamp oil, they went to bed not long after nightfall.

These days we can get off the land more easily, even in a blizzard if we have to. We typically don't spend weeks without leaving the farm. We are mobile, we are warm, and we fritter away hours with the internet into the wee hours. With town school or homeschool, winter gardening and greenhouses, livestock to care for, seeds catalogs to drool over, holiday after holiday, and electronic entertainment or reading, winter may be as busy as summer - it's just a different kind of busy. 

 

Learning a rhythm for seasonal work is new for us. We haven't done this before. These days, we even know how to garden over four seasons. Aside from busy weeks of planting, butchering, and preserving the harvest, and the special events of calving and lambing, we really do have the luxury of squeezing most other homesteading crafts or skills in at any time of the year.

Perhaps it's worth noting here that there may be a Number 4 - Homesteading is romantic. We have created a kind of idyllic image of farm and rural life in our hearts and heads. Mending clothes, hanging laundry, baking bread, raising children, tending the garden, and milking cows. This image somehow doesn't include muddy floors, chicken mites, rainy days, lost tools, and power outages. 

Is maybe just getting rid of this idea - that a 19th century homestead was "simple" - the main thing we should do so we can give ourselves a break?

So how do we prioritize all those skills we will need? Perhaps, once we have settled on what our homestead does and needs -

• how many garden plots and how big?
• what livestock and what's are the chores around them?
• off-grid, on-grid?
• town school or homeschool?
• suburban (still needing to be mowed for appearance sake) or rural?

then we can look at what we actually produce and what we still need to buy or barter for.  

It's that list that will help us narrow down the next skills to hone. That information is the magic of moving forward to realistic self-reliance coupled with community interdependence.

Choices. We have so many choices. But learning the rhythms of seasonal work, working in community, and separating wants and needs will be a great help in eliminating this anxiety of homestead overwhelm and frustration that comes with taking on too much responsibility too quickly. 

We are modern, information age people moving into pre-industrial work that we have romanticized, and it bears repeating that the myth of the "superwoman" is the same with the homesteader. You can probably do everything, just not all at once.