Can We Achieve the Homesteading Life?

Kit Carson -  http://www.kitcarsonhotel.com/

Laura Secord -  www3.telus.net/st_simons/

Louis Riel -    http://www.louisrielday.com/

Growing up in the city, I longed for the days of Laura, Caddie, Laura Secord and others.  Buffalo Bill, Sir Isaac Brock, Kit Carson, Daniel Boone, Colonel Custer, Louis Riel, Tecumseh, Sitting Bull. 
Indian or white, Canadian or American, male or female - it didn't matter.  It didn't matter which side of the 2 wars (1776 and 1812) they were on, either, although I think I might have cared at that time.   All that mattered was that they lived 'back then'.  Back when there were no motors running, you ate your own food, you wore what you sewed, the fastest thing around was a horse then a train.  Appreciation,
manners and gratitude existedand a handshake meant something.  Your hard work, honesty and integrity would stand you in good stead. 

It wasn't about the battle or the danger for me.  I hate battle, war, guns.  They kind of seem like the opposite of the peace and tranquility that most of us are looking for.  It was about the solitude and quiet that existed to a greater extent.  It was about the fact that any energy expended did not return empty-handed.  You got back what you gave.  Families had to spend time together, both working and playing.  Toys were made of the simplest things and played with endlessly then repaired and re-repaired until they could be salvaged no more.  Effort was given because effort mattered. 

I know that it was not all wonderment and roses, though.  People froze, starved, drowned, died of diseases that we can stop now.  I wonder how many woman died of childbirth complications and how many babies?  While visiting a friend's grave last year, I noticed a tombstone with the names of a couple who had died at an elderly age.  On the stone also were the names of their children, all of whom died either at birth or shortly thereafter, all around the turn of the century.  The parents then lived a good many years with no children.  How did they ever manage to go on?  How??

http://www.celiahayes.wordpress.com/

http://www.walkingprescott.blogspot.com/

All most of us want is a tiny slice of the quieter side of the homesteading life.  A home in the country, a garden and a few animals to 'keep idle hands busy', fill our cupboards and our pantries and 'keep the wolf from the door'.  Hand-made crafts (sewing, quilting, knitting, crocheting, rug-hooking, the list is endless!) to allow our creative side to blossom and possibly bring in some extra cash (thinking of Caroline Ingalls here and her 'egg-money').  Even in this crazy, hectic, loud, self-obsessed world, I think that we can still achieve this to some degree.  

Sheep Versus Coyote

http://www.free-extras.com/

Hubby and I have often contemplated getting some sheep for our farm instead of just cows.  A few things have held us back so far.  In these parts, there are some pretty scary stories of coyotes attacking.  They are supposed to be afraid of dogs.  Not true anymore.  They kill dogs by one coyote luring the dog away from the safety of the farm buildings then the rest of the coyote pack circle in behind the dog, cutting off its escape route and killing the dog as a group.  Our 2 dogs are our pets and I'm not willing to risk their lives.

We've been told that coyotes will stay happy for awhile, as long as there is small game such as gophers, rabbits, groundhogs and the like.  As soon as that food supply is gone, your dogs, cats, chickens, sheep and any other animal around become the next best food source.  Coyotes have been seen riding on the back of live, running calves and eating the calves alive until the calf drop.

Fencing against coyotes can be a real joke, an expensive joke at that.  Barbed wire, electric or a combination will not keep a hungry coyote out.  They'll go over, under and through, electric or not.  One woman around here had tried everything to save her sheep and nothing worked.  She decided to camp out with the sheep like an old-world shepherd, with her gun.  A choice only if you can and want to handle it. 

The only things that I've ever heard of working are donkeys, llamas and the barn.  Coyotes are supposedly terrified of enclosed spaces and will not enter a building but then you have to keep your sheep inside all the time or at least herd them in every night and outside again every morning - and nothing says that the coyotes will not kill them during the day.  Donkeys can bond with the sheep herd or at least, think they own the space around them and therefore become very protective.  The agent who sold us this farm had a sheep farm but went out of the sheep industry after he lost so many sheep that he finally quit.

Would still like to have sheep but at what cost?  Have to think this one through a little longer, I guess!

Don't want to meet up with that!
http://www.examiner.com/

Caddie Woodlawn...Cont.

The second book about Caddie isn't only about her.  Some chapters are dedicated to members of her family while others are about her neighbours.  The first story is about 10-year-old Caddie who, along with her older brother Tom (aged 12) and younger brother Warren (aged 8) innocently get into another one of their scrapes.  While playing hide-and-seek in the haymow one day, Warren found something 'cold and slick' under the hay.  Hoping that it was 'that buried treasure Warren was wanting', the three dug furiously until they victoriously unearthed...WATERMELONS??!  Certainly NOT what was expected and, as a child, this would have been the focus of my interest. 

Now, I'm far more interested in why the watermelons were there, how long they had been there and how long were they expected to last.  Some quotes:

"But Father sold the last of the melons in town a month ago!" objected Tom reasonably.

'Yet there they were, more than a dozen beautiful green and yellow-striped watermelons, carefully hidden under the hay.  Tom tapped them with his thumb and forefinger, and they seemed to be sound and in excellent condition.'

"But listen!"  marveled Warren.  "The few melons that were left in the field frosted and turned rotten several weeks ago."

 'The magical melon was the best one they had ever tasted,...They would not have seemed magical if it had not been long past the season for them.'

'And it was over a week before they thought of the melons again....the melons were still there...'

'Almost every week now another melon followed its predecessors...and almost every week, the treasure under the hay grew smaller.'
'One Sunday afternoon in late November...'

'And each was carrying a beautiful, big green-and-yellow-striped melon...'

"Well, Sir," said Robert, "I don't know as you know it, but melons will keep a long time if they're packed in hay in a cool place.  So, as there were more melons than could be used or sold,...decided we'd bury a goodly number of them and bring them out as a surprise when the melon season was past."
----------------------------------

All of these quotes show the condition of the melons, how late in the season it was, the condition that the melons should have been in, the shock of every member of the family that this particular food item could be preserved in such a way.  The only thing they don't show is my shock.  I knew somewhat that food could be stored in the basement in pails packed with earth or sand but melons would be subject to mice, rats, racoons, skunks and anything else that happened to wander into the barn.

We did not grow melons this year in our garden but I can't let that stop me.  I just have to buy some melons this year and try this.  What a great idea if it works and it could possibly work also for pumpkins and squash.

http://www.bfbooks.com/

Caddie Woodlawn

There are different things I've read over the years about how the pioneers stored and cooked their food, amongst other things,  that I have read with great interest then promptly forgot.  After all, we have better and safer ways to do things now and those old ways are interesting but unnecessary.  As time goes on, we forget that these  methods ever existed.  We then try to come up with new ways to do the same old thing.  Often, we modern people must reinvent the wheel when, in fact, some of what worked back then will still work now...and just as well!

Two of my favourite books growing up were Caddie Woodlawn and the sequel, Caddie Woodlawn's Family.  Carol Ryrie Brink, Caddie's granddaughter, wrote the first book in 1939 and the second book in 1944, 4 years after Caddie's death in 1940, a matter of weeks before Caddie's 86th birthday.  How exciting it must have been for Carol to grow up listening to the wonderful stories told to her.  Carol was orphaned at age 8 and raised by her grandmother, so had many years to listen to Caddie.  How kind of her to share her grandmother's stories with us!  Without her, Laura and others like them, we would know little about those days.

The outside of the Woodlawn house.
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/

  The inside of Caddie's house.
http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/

Modern Homesteading?

If we can't really be settlers or homesteaders in the original, historical sense, can we be 'modern homesteaders'?  Lots of people throughout blogland and beyond have proven that this is possible because they've done it.

Our needs have not changed over the centuries.  The methods used to fulfill those needs have changed as has the amount of 'leisure time' left over to pursue our wants and desires but our needs have not changed.  Speeding up the time it takes to fulfill our needs has left us with spare time.  As a society, have we chosen to spend that time well?  I'm thinking not.  Might we be better served  as individuals, families and a society if we spent some of our spare time relearning some of the skills that kept the pioneers busy and out of trouble?  I'm thinking yes. 

I've always been interested in the food of the pioneers.  It had to be simple as it had to be gotten easily without daily trips to town.  I grew up thinking that we ate essentially the diet of the pioneers -  meat, potatoes and veggies.  Well, if game was plentiful and the veggie garden was planted on time with seed saved from last year, if the ground was good, if the predators stayed away, if it rained enough, if hurricanes, tornadoes, forest and prairie fires, grasshoppers stayed away - then the pioneer ate what I ate growing up.  Since so many starved to death, however, perhaps all did not go so well. 

http://www.history.nd.gov/

http://www.footnotesfromhistory.blogspot.com/

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In order to know if we can be homesteaders, I need to know what a homesteader did.  I have a general idea but do I really know?  They obviously had to look after their essential needs and if they failed at that, it was simple - they died.  These people all came originally from another country or even a city 'back east'.  Either way, they came from a settled community where things were set up, a certain amount of infrastructure was already in place, families (and therefore a support system) existed, items available for sale in already-existing stores, churches and schools built and fully-functioning.  It had to have been a shock to them, especially the women, when they learned eventually what they had to work with - and worse, what they did not have.

  So many of these homesteaders travelled with enough of their 'luxurie' items - pianos, hutches, fancy dishes - that the wagon axles often broke from the extra burden.  Rather than hazard that happening, the extra items went overboard, literally 'ditched'.  For the women who really did not want to participate but had to because the social decree of the day demanded that they follow their husbands regardless, these items would have represented a connection to their past when they would arrive at their new home.  These items would have represented the only 'constant' in their newly ever-changing world and would have been a source of comfort and peace-of-mind.  These items may also have been irreplaceable heirlooms.

The worst item by far to be left on the trail were bodies.  Sometimes up to 2/3's of the entire wagon-train and entire families died from cholera, falls under the wagon wheels, thirst, freezing in the mountains and they had to be left behind.  People tried to bury the dead deep enough to prevent wolves, coyotes, etc from eating them.  This was hard to do when the ground was rocky, packed hard, frozen solid, etc. and the wagontrain members were thirsty, hungry, tired, cold, diseased, depressed, pregnant, etc.  People drove on, leaving their dreams buried in the ground with their children and I think I can safely guess that many would become bitter and angry forever.

Compare all of this with us renting a mover van or the van with workers and all.  If we move for our jobs, some companies hire people to pack and unpack - all we do is get ourselves there (my niece and her family were this lucky!).  And if we do have to actually move ourselves, so what?  How hard can it be?  We can stop and buy food along the way and sleep in hotels, camp in full-service campgrounds, fill up at full-service gas stations, pop into the emerg. department of any hospital if we feel sick, use the cell phone to let the real estate agent know you're on your way so he/she can meet you with the keys to your new house or let your family know about your progress.  I know, moving's still a nightmare but, in comparison...

Oregon Trail 1900

http://www.education.boisestate.edu/
It's impossible for us to recreate this aspect of the homesteader life.  There are too many laws, too much common sense and too much scientific knowledge now.  We know better than to drink from any stream unless it is first tested and we know about germs.  If we were cold, we'd be using fleece blankets and sleeping bags,  heavy winter coats with hoodies underneath, boots, mitts, scarves - you name it, we can get it.  There'd likely be a TV camera there - at the very least, camcorders, cameras, cell phones.  There would be a police escort part of the way and well-wishers.  If anything happened to our children along the way, we would be charged with murder or man-slaughter, neglect, child-abuse, child endangerment.
We simply cannot be homesteaders in this respect and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing!

Oregon ferry crossing, Kansas River

http://www.kshs.org/

http://www.zug.com/

I don't think that we can actually be 'settlers' in this day and age.  It's hard enough to find a piece of land with a bit of privacy.  Forget finding a spot that has been untouched completely unless we are interested in desert living (some people find a way to do this successfully!) or swampliving.  These seem to be the only kinds of land not being used. 

If we can no longer be settlers, can we still be homesteaders?  According to http://www.dictionary.com/:  'homesteader - squatter:  someone who settles lawfully on government land with the intent to acquire title to it.'  A squatter in the same definition as a homesteader?  Really?  I think of homesteaders with great respect and awe and I think of squatters with DIS-respect and awe-FUL.  The very same http://www.dictionary.com/ says 'squatter - a person who unlawfully occupies an uninhabited building or unused land.'  Homesteaders worked hard to tame the untamed with blood, sweat and tears.  Squatters take what isn't theirs and did not work for.  I don't think that there are too many people who aspire to be squatters but lots would love to be homesteaders!  The most famous (infamous) squatters I know of were the Black Donnellys.  Things would not have turned out as they did had the 'squatter Donnelly's' been kicked off the land properly.

Human needs do not change.  We need the same things that the homesteaders needed, we just do not need to work so hard to achieve them.  Food, water, clean air, sleep, shelter, warmth, clothing, health care, spiritual needs, light, transportation, sanitation, cleanliness and some form of entertainment.  The necessities of life do not change, only how we acquire them.  The homesteaders worked extremely hard just to stay alive.  I cannot imagine how they found time for barn dances, neighbourhood gatherings and church on Sunday.

First Pioneer Picnic, 1886, Labarge
Caledonia Main Steet 1912
Looking East
Caledonia, Kent County, Michigan
http://www.kraft-mi.org/

What Is a Settler?

I think of the words 'settler' and 'pioneer' as interchangeable but maybe they're not.  According to The Free Dictionary By Farlex, a settler is #1. Someone who settles in a new region.  and #2. One who settles or decides something.  The second sounds like a judge and the first could be anyone who has moved.  Nowadays, people are always on the move so I guess everyone's a settler.  The third definition it gives is #3. A person who settles in a new country or a colony.  I've always thought of a settler as someone who is the first ever into a new, unsettled area of land.  If you're new to a colony, that means that the colony already existed.  The colony may have been started by settlers but you were not one of them, so I can't think of you as a settler. 

I think that the difference between those who actually 'settled' the area and those who came after is massive.  Those who came first had the tough task of choosing the land and hopefully you would choose enough good land for a large group of farmers and a great spot for a crossroads (town).  If you didn't choose wisely or were too hasty, others would not join you.   They'd march on by and you'd have to close up shop and follow or go it alone on your homestead.  You'd end up having town located weeks away instead of a few days.  You didn't need town all the time but you did need to get to town occasionally.

You wouldn't do well even if you did convince others to stick around in a poor area.  They or their animals could starve or freeze to death over that first winter if they were not prepared.  Having a poor crop would help ensure that they were not prepared and it would be your fault - or be perceived to be your fault.  You would wish that they had moved on.  Cohesiveness and comradery were so essential to the settlers and they could not afford a divide.  Besides, any misfortune that befell your neighbours also befell you and your household.  Since everyone was a settler and therefore in the same boat, there was no one to help you out, no government agency to save you.  You truly were on your own.

 So it was imperative that the first family pick a good spot from the beginning...something we have lots of help with today.  Anywhere we choose to live today, someone has already lived there before or if we're building new, someone else lives somewhere near enough for us to know the general gist of the land.  We have computer maps, aerial views, previous photos, surveyor reports as well as other sophisticated scientific equipment.  It is truly impossible for us to understand what the settlers suffered through...before they even got to plant their first crops.  I think, therefore, that it's impossible for any of us 'to go where no man has gone before' and perhaps equally impossible to truly be 'settlers'.

http://www.seilifestyle.blogspot.com/

What is Homesteading?

 I've found from my foray in blogland over the past few months that, as much as I like a wide variety of blogs, my favourite by far are the homesteading blogs.  Whether the blogger is living the life or just researching and producing the occasional post makes no 'nevermind' to me.  I just enjoy the whole subject and could read on forever - too many Little House books and shows when I was young, I guess!  There are few amongst us who have not read or watched Laura's life as it unfolded and wished that we were there.

I've been wondering though, what we really know about homesteading.  After all, what have we ever done regarding this way of life besides 'read' and 'watch'?  What would we be willing to give up for this life and what would we be willing to live without?  Do we even have the knowledge of how to do it and, if not, would we know where to get the info. that's needed?  If we could not get the info., would we be willing to learn on our own, at the risk of failure?  More than anything, would we be able to simply do without?

I'm doing this bunch of posts for myself more than anything as a way of studying homesteading and learning, not because I already know lots and have the ability to teach (I don't!).  Feel free to add anything you wish along the way (do so kindly!)  So many of you have knowledge and experience that the rest of us (well, me anyway) would love to hear about.

The definition of homesteading according to wiki - "Broadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of simple self-sufficiency....As of 2010, the term may apply to anyone who follows the back-to-the-land movement by adopting a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle.  While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading remains as a way of life.  According to author John Seymour, 'urban homesteading' incorporates small-scale, sustainable agriculture and homemaking."

According to Wikipedia-Dictionary.com-Merriam-Webster-The Free Dictionary, homesteading is described as "1. Life as a settler on a homestead. and 2. The granting of homesteads to settlers."  Well, I think all governments have gotten past the 'handing out free land to people in exchange for them living on it' thing so that only leaves #1 - Life as a settler on a homestead.  What is that lifestyle comprised of?  What are the different elements?  What equipment and tools are needed?  What is the test for success?  What is an actual 'settler'?

http://www.edhird.wordpress.com/