[paw4Him]

I didn’t. It chose me.

Or if you are the believing sort, God chose it for me. I’m just along for the ride. 🙂

[Nighthawk-Meadows]

Yes. I was driven (I believe by God) to this life in 2008. Boy, what a ride.

[paw4Him]

(((hugs)))

[Grampa-J]

Working on trying to get back to it. Was there for a while as a kid. Some of the happiest and peaceful memories.

[Loco-PhilNomad]

Here here – I got a calling from my Grandma to continue her legacy way on the other side of the world

• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by  Loco-PhilNomad.

[TagNBee]

said perfectly….

[Jypsy19]

I believe God puts people in our lives and allows things to happen to shape and mold us. Because of these, we (Louise & I) try to live a life as free as we possibly can.

[JesusIsOurSaviour]

Amen to that. That’s a beautiful perspective! God bless ya’ll!

[Quail_and_Manna_Farms]

Second the motion. Amen

[potpourri_of_life]

I agree 💚

[Mottshillhomestead]

Outside the military this is the only life i have ever known.

[KramitDreams]

To be close to my creator. A reminder of what I can do, why I need him, and all the miracles that happen. The plants ,the wildlife, life in the garden..it’s all miracles! I plant, he waters 💧and gives the increase. It’s hard work (the sweat of my brow) and not always easy but the simplicity also keeps me humble.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by  KramitDreams.

[MountainMike]

Miracles, that word sums it up for me every morning I wake up and walk outside I feel truly blessed, it only takes one look around to realize the miracles I’ve been given.

[TagNBee]

yep, 100% on vacation.

[NeverAlone-Homestead]

It is just who I am. Serenity,Peace. It was how I was raised. I love so much living a homestead lifestyle. Grow and produce my own food.

[Summerhat-n-Chicks]

I grew up on a homestead and got away from it for too long. I actually love the smell of Natur and healthy earth, my hands and feet in it. My parents raised goats and sold products at the farmers market where I helped them often. It was hard work and I learned a lot, but the greatest reward was the people I’ve met and worked with. Absolutely invaluable ❣️

[JoanneB]

Same except we had a milk cow, pig, chickens and huge gardens.

[Summerhat-n-Chicks]

👍

[Baldwin-farm]

We choose this life to see the fruits of our labor. God has blessed us with a big garden cows for milk and hogs and chickens,rabbits for meat. So far it is a wonderfull life. May God bless the rest of the Freesteaders on here.

[SarahKay]

I grew up on a small family farm and it’s in my blood. God has blessed us to be able to carry on. We don’t have a lot but we have enough and our kids are learning about hard, honest work.

[Hippiemimi]

I grew up homesteading. I have had such a calling to get back to what makes me a whole person again. My husband is a city boy and never had animals so it has been a 35year struggle to get him on board. I have slowly gotten chickens and rabbits and quail for our small town back yard. He doesn’t care much for it but he knows it’ makes me happy. We finally purchased our 5th generation off grid family homestead last year and although we are only living in it on weekends for now until we get it updated and more manageable, I’m so happy and yearn to live there full time. We have our garden there and we are working so hard on clearing trees and brush and replacing roofing and adding on. It has become our haven. He loves it as much if not more than I. Being self reliant is the most rewarding and satisfying feeling. There’s nothing to compare. I feel we have prepared in perfect order so that if there were any disaster man made or otherwise we would be perfectly comfortable.

[wiggle2]

In my view the life my family lives now is more than simply homesteading. We also raise and homeschool (more like unschool) our kids (now ages 19, 17 & 15). We established & maintained a home-based Internet business, which we continue to run as a family, all the while having pursued truth and aligning ourselves with it. What I see in the life we live now is that we are in the process of building our own tiny village for our offspring & neighboring friends.

We abandoned mainstream media, conventional food & medicine, politics & organized religion, mainstream holiday celebrations and much of our indoctrinated knowledge of history & science well over a decade ago, and this caused us to become very isolated & lonely.

We didn’t think, act or look like anyone else around us, and we didn’t have anyone to mentor us in the path we chose to take. But we knew in our gut, this was the way for us.

As of about 2008, we intentionally began to leave a figurative Egypt (because we knew that it was an oppressive house of bondage). And we chose to be led through a figurative wilderness with the hope of coming into a land flowing with milk & honey (because we trusted our Maker & His design, and we believed there was a better way intended for mankind to live).

While we’re not completely out of Egypt yet, there’s no looking back as far as we’re concerned because we believe in our heart of hearts (and have been able to witness with our own eyes & now experience on a daily basis) that the grass is far greener on the other side (in more ways than one). 🙂

[HG-1]

Wow, right on! You are an inspiration 👆

[Redcap]

Your video is amazing. Good to see you were true to yourself at your job. The upheavals certainly led you to better days and a better kind of life.

<font face=”inherit”>I’ve always been a societal drop-out. I just never believed that money = life. And I chose what we’re doing for a lot of reasons but mostly because it’s efficient and can be sustained if infrastructure fails. </font>

While I’ve been wildcrafting for medicine and food and living simply for decades, homesteading, per se, is new for me. During “The Madness”, homesteading YouTubes caught my eye, which was especially interesting to me since I’d finally settled down in one place and at 63 am unlikely to move again.

We tried to fit into the traditional farming homestead model; it didn’t work for us. Our land is too shady, and we can’t physically get enough water regularly to the only sunny spots on the 3/4 acres we have. Gardening has been a major loss and has not produced food for the last four years. Because the land already provides fruit, nuts and seeds, greens, and a small amount of roots, we are focusing now on growing starchy roots and tubers, foraging, and spending more time raising meat and egg animals. This is turning out to be a more efficient use of our time and effort. And it is actually feeding us with little cost or heavy work.

I also chose to avoid “alternative” infrastructure, for electricity or gasoline-run, for example. Rather than wonder just how long we could rely on a back-up generator and then have to defend it from marauder’s or not be able to get parts for a solar system, I chose to prepare for needing none of it. We can bring the small livestock into a large mudroom in the house if we need to. I chose this level of simplicity because my back is not good so there’s a lot I can’t physically do, and this kind of life is not as physically hard or time consuming as an agricultural life. Plus it’s not desirable to outsiders or as much of a government target. It’s kind of like being a medieval peasant, really, or an early colonist out in the wilds rather than in a settlement. It’s not super “American lifestyle” but I don’t think a survival lifestyle, should it come to that, will be able to be what we’re used to. I think we’ll have to go back in time and learn from earlier times.

So we chose it for simplicity, invisibility, and historical proof of success. We can sustain it and it works for two older people who are getting less able to manage farming techniques than young folks with families.

[CircleD]

I choose this way of life to be close to God and to honor him! I live it one day at a time! My Homestead is ever changing! I’m a free man and that’s the way I live! 60 years and counting!