Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
What you really need to know, new homesteader, is that you do not need all the many products paraded before you by social media influencers. Do you need a few of them? Sure. But most of them are matters of convenience rather than necessity and many more of them are about aesthetic rather than practicality. So let’s get really honest about homesteading and what it is really like. REAL homesteading, not the carefully curated squares and reels you see on Instagram.
Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
We come from generations of homesteaders dating back to well before this nation was ever a nation. That’s right, that’s how far back it goes in our families and I promise you there was no line of products that made their lives instantly easier. What made their lives easier was to improvise tools and ways of surviving using the resources they had on hand. The idea that one must obtain product after product in order to “homestead” successfully is really a modern one. Do you really think all of the influencers you see on Instagram “homesteading” were really doing everything they appear to do now, using all or any of these products even just five years ago? I don’t. Most are simply using what was given to them for free in exchange for posts, reels, and stories. In far too many instances, homesteading has gone from a way of life to merely a fad.
Are some of these products useful? Sure they are. Will some of these influencers still be living this lifestyle in five years? Maybe.
You, new homesteader, need to find your happy medium that is between improvisation using your current resources and purchasing only what you actually need. Homesteading does not have to be expensive. If it was our families could never have survived and would have never carefully passed down the traditions, gardenways, and folkways that they did. This lifestyle is one meant for survival, not for show. You don’t have to live up to anyone else’s standards. Don’t ever forget that.
What do we think is actually needed?
- Good knives
- A couple of pieces of good cast iron cookware
- A pressure canner (which can double as a waterbath canner when used without the lid)
- Basic Kitchen Utensils (you don’t need that danish whisk to make sourdough, a fork will work just fine)
- Seeds
- Canning jars and lids
- Gardening and canning skills
- Basic farm and garden tools
- Animal care skills
- Fencing, food, and shelter if you choose to bring animals to your homestead
- Herbal and foraging skills
- Hunting and fishing skills
Pretty much everything else is really just gravy. Are all the fancy tools nice and do they make life easier? Sure, but those could be borrowed, rented, or bought second hand for much cheaper than the farm store would sell them to you. You will learn as you grow in your homestead how to do more and more things such as improvise tools you don’t have, how to fix the things you break (thank God for youtube, am I right?), and how to become more and more self sufficient. That, after all, is the goal.
Real life homesteading isn’t picture perfect and you’ll need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Not everyone in your life will agree with your new found ways. They’ll think you’re crazy and possibly even tell you so. Not everyone will understand why you’d rather milk your cow, process the milk, churn your own butter, and make your own cheese. That’s okay. Homesteading is endless but rewarding work that involves all sorts of uncomfortable things like working all day in the hay fields, making the decision to end the misery of an injured animal, processing your own meats, and standing all day long in front of the stove canning while your feet and back beg for you to call it quits.
It isn’t easy. It isn’t comfortable. But trust me, it’s worth it.
