I just finished being interviewed by a reporter for Vice. The subject was on food storage, preparedness, and homesteading. One of the questions that the reporter asked me was something along the lines of do I consider myself a prepper, a homesteader, or a mixture of the two. My answer was quite honest. “I’m a prepper, but I’m a homesteading wannabe.” And it’s very true. We have grand dreams of having our own homestead, but we aren’t ready for a full homestead right now.
And so, we are working on learning about homesteading on our little 1/4 of an acre. One of the HUGE upsides to only having 1/4 of an acre is that I’m not overwhelmed by it. We had a chance to purchase 11 acres, and the thought of it honestly completely overwhelmed us! Now that wasn’t the only reason we ended up turning it down in favor of where we live now, but that was part of the reason!
Here, on our 1/4 of an acre, I can plan and dream. The wonderful thing about this, though, is that my plan has very limited bounds. This means I can’t get as overwhelmed as easily! I’m going to start by sharing my homesteading plan. As we go along this series, I’m going to share ideas that we have that we are either currently implementing or planning to start. I’ll also share ideas that might work for other people, but don’t work for us where we are either because we don’t have the room or the laws and ordinances of our area won’t allow it.
The whole point of this series “Homesteading in the Burbs” is to inspire you with all the things that you can do to live a more homestead-focused lifestyle while you perhaps aren’t on acreage.
Where to Start
To start, you need two things – Dreams and a Map
Dreams
Right now, just dream. Will you have to cut some of the items off your list later? Maybe. But there is a way that you may be able to have more than you think, so dream. What do you want on your property? Do you want to have animals? Decide what animals you want to have. Do you want to have fruit trees? Awesome! Which ones do you want? How about nut trees? Do you want a big garden? Do you love the smell and feel of clothes hung out on the line? Add a clothesline to your list. Do you want a pond? Put it down. Do you want to tap maple trees in the late winter/early spring? Put it down!
A Map of Your Property
Start with a “map” of your property. You should at least have the basic outline of your property and, if you’re lucky, your existing structures. I found my property, driveway, house, and garage outline on my county’s GIS system. If you google your city and county name along with “gis” you will probably find your county’s Geographical Information System (GIS), if your county has one.
Do you have a hilly piece of land? You can use this website to see just how hilly it is and find the best places to plant your garden (if that’s what you want) so that it’s mostly flat.
Once you have both of these items, you can go to the next step.
What If You Can’t Have One of Your Dreams?
So let me tell you a little about one of my homesteading dreams. I really wanted to have chickens. I know I’ve mentioned in the past that I live in Central Illinois. Well, in my county in Central Illinois, unless our property is zoned as agricultural, you can’t have chickens. Recently someone mentioned to me that even if you can’t have chickens, that there are certain breeds of quail that you CAN have. So I did some research, and sure enough, we can have quail which we can keep for meat and eggs. Are they exactly like chickens? Nope, but they’re close enough for government work.
Do you want a pond, but you only have a 1/4 acre like me? Maybe you could have some kind of a fountain?
Think your yard is too small for fruit trees? I’ve found a type of fruit tree from Gurneys that are called “Reachables” which only grow to about 4-6 feet tall! We’ve bought two apple trees and next year, as we have the ability to, we plan to add peach, pear, and plum “Reachables” for our small yard.
If you think you can’t have something you want, start researching it and see if you can find an alternative!
But how do you set up your ‘homestead plan’ once you have maps and dreams? We’ll get into that in next week’s post!
What about You?
Do you have dreams of homesteading? Or maybe you just want more from your current yard than you have now. I’d love to hear about it! Leave a comment below or respond to this if you got it by e-mail and let me know.
Remember, knowledge isn’t knowing something, it’s living it!
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