Home before homesteading

It’s no secret that folks are flocking to the world of baking your own bread and growing your own food in a BIG WAY.

But what the IG and TiKTok homestead influencers aren’t talking about is the number of fights and arguments this phenomenon is creating.

Many people came out on the other side of Covid watching the emergence of homesteading as a new more common lifestyle all over the United States and they want in.

The problem is:

A. You can’t Amazon Prime your way into homesteading-it takes time; and

B. It’s can be a HUGE household cultural shift for some folks-a shift that not everyone is on board with, depending on how immersed in it you, the mama, become.

While some families maybe have children and wives and husbands that are uniformly all about learning to live more closely to the land, it has been my experience in chatting with people that this is often not the case.

Older children who are used to a certain lifestyle do not necessarily want to transition to hoeing garden rows and plucking chickens.

Husbands that work hard all week so they can relax on the weekend are not always wanting to build chicken coops and attend homesteading conferences in their free time.

Many women are already over committed and exhausted, have no idea of how to care for themselves and therefore have zero room for new farm animals and land management UNTIL they’ve made some shifts. Yet it’s largely the women that are the driving force in this shift to self sufficiency.

We are accustomed to mess and endless tasks like laundry and dishes, so why not add in a goat or two?

But our partners and children don’t necessarily agree and that’s where the tension begins which leads to fights, discord, division and sometimes divorce.

When we marry our spouses we don’t know what life is going to bring we don’t know the ways in which we will change and our values will shift and we can’t control other people.

It’s ideal that when shifts and changes come, the couple sees eye to eye the best and most appropriate solutions-but it doesn’t always work that way.

Additionally the lifestyle that is homesteading is a lot of work doing things most of us have no idea how to do so we fail and make mistakes.

Mistakes cost money and time.

Failures can create stress and chaos and some households struggle to absorb such things more than others.

My husband and I started growing our own food and learning farming skills within the first year of our marriage. Our cynicism about the world at large combined with our “can-do” attitudes and insane habit we have of taking on crazy new projects has leant itself to us being able to undertake what we do every day without very much conflict.

But that’s unusual. We started on the same page and continued in the same page but even so we still have discussions or arguments about how and what things should be done.

And when that happens we have to look at everyone outside of our marriage and make adjustments so that our covenant is protected and honored, so he doesn’t feel overworked and or I don’t feel overwhelmed.

That is most important and guided our every decisions.

Right now I see women doing a complete 180 from wanting a conventional lifestyle of takeout meals, Target runs, Disney vacations and SUV’s to desiring to wear a skirt, churn their one butter and shear alpacas for wool they’re going to spin and I think it’s beautiful.

I also understand why some of y’all’s husbands are a little confused and maybe not so much on board-yet.

I also see mamas trying to DO IT ALL with little ones in tow, running themselves ragged for the cause forgetting what the cause should be about in the first place.

Ladies be baking bread, making yogurt, growing veggies, canning jam and schlepping it all to the farmer’s market every week and finding very little time to enjoy their lives and their children, to sit and just be.

So I’m here to say a few things.

Homesteading should always be secondary to homemaking.

If you have no home to provide for, then there’s no need to “homestead”.

Homesteading is the act of producing various products to me the practical needs of your family.

It should NOT be confused with “home-making,” the art of creating a safe and nurturing place where everyone including yourself, can be loved and cared for.

Is it beautiful to have your home feature a lovely homemade table cloth on your farm table that is set with colorful eggs hatched by your chickens, home churned raw milk butter, freshly baked bread with the jam you made from harvesting blackberries with your children?

Yes.

But it’s not essential and it’s certainly not more important than peace.

If baking bread, churning butter raising chickens and making jam brings peace and that peace builds your home into a space of love and connection-then your homemaking and homesteading are overlapping. Yay! How lovely!

But if keeping chickens, baking bread and making jam creates stress and strife-robs you of your peace, makes you snap at your children, leaves you too tired to make dinner and puts you in a bad mood when your husband comes home from work, then you’re homesteading has become home wrecking.

This is why I think it’s so important for each household to slowly integrate new ways to live close to the land and for mamas to brainstorm what are the changes that they can make to create a home life that is technically more nutritionally secure and healthy while also being nurturing to everyone involved, mamas included!

It’s also why we matriarchs need to learn the art of culling -look that word up in the dictionary. Get rid of the hobbies, activities, projects and animals that wear you out and run you down. They aren’t worth it.

Household peace is more important than having chickens.

Marriages come first.

Doing too much at once is going to run you ragged and make you a less present,less happy mother and wife which will rob you of your joy and create problems.

So the next time you see someone milking their own dairy cow and you start looking on Craigslist for your future Jersey, maybe pause and look at how full your current plate is.

Do you have little ones? Are you sure you need the responsibility of yet another mammal to care for right now? Do you have room and energy for such things?

Is your husband on or are you already experiencing challenges in your marriage that needs some attention?

Is there a smaller version of this particular plan that might fit better into your current lifestyle while you GROW to be able to manage your dream of having your own cow?

There is.

There always is.

Figure out what that is because it might save you many a sleepless nights and some unnecessary fights.

You, your family and the home that you’re making deserve better.

It’s easy to watch what everyone else is doing and feel “behind”. It’s easy to watch these power couples and homesteading families crush it as they raise their own food and thing, “why aren’t we that?!”.

It’s easy to want to buy all the things, start all the projects and try to go full “Ma Ingalls “ all at once.

What is difficult is to realize that the Lord gave you your husband and your family and even your life .

If He’s calling you to something different, He will make the path.

Your faithfulness to Him and your family,

Your diligence to pray FIRST before starting project,

Your willingness to give Him the desires of your heart and let Him make them happen will help you find the way forward to a new lifestyle WITHOUT losing what’s most important.

💙

The enemy can use even something as innocent as homesteading to steal from you. Stay vigilant.

The wise woman builds her house,
    but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

Proverbs 14:1

I’m Sarah Smith!

I live in North Carolina and have been working on the art of balancing home-making and homesteading for 15 years now.

I live on a 93 acre farm with my family where we raise and butcher all of our own meat,

milk our dairy cows and homeschool our boys alongside my husband, Jeremiah.

If you are interested in learning to homestead without losing your head and or your marriage, I’m here to help.

I have begun offering 1:1 mentorship including

packages for time at our farm over lunch or tea for aspiring homesteaders to come and see what we do, discuss what they want to do (find land, get animals, start a garden, start homeschooling, get a cow, etc.) and ask how to prudently and wisely get started.

We will specifically address your current location, resources, budget, partners level of involvement and enthusiasm and your physical emotional health as we create an action plan to get your started.

For more information, you can contact me here.

I highly recommend getting advice and input from older experienced women if you are new to homesteading, have young children and want to serve the Lord in your quest to live off the land.

So if coming to Fourth Man Farm is not an option, find someone who can mentor and guide you.

Xoxo,

Sarah