003. How To Start Homesteading

Many people want to know how to start homesteading.  On this episode we will discuss what  some of the basics on starting your homestead journey.

To learn more about our journey be sure to visit our website at www.thetwoacrehomestead.com

Be sure to read our online magazine:  The Two Acre Homestead Magazine

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Questions?  Email me at lisa@thetwoacrehomestead.com

Transcript

Welcome to the Two Acre Homestead. Come along with us on our journey from a small suburban homestead lifestyle to our new lifestyle homesteading in the rural countryside of Southern Arizona. We'll share with you our tips, tricks, successes and failures from both our past suburban lifestyle to our new rural lifestyle all on The Two Acre Homestead.

My name is Lisa and I'm your host. Today we are talking about how to get started homesteading. And I'm super excited for this episode, because I feel like the last two episodes have been kind of like more of an introduction as to who we are, why we've chosen to do what we do. And now I feel like I'm Woo, we can get into the nitty gritty of how you can get started homesteading!

Because if you're like me, it can be overwhelming. You could be looking at YouTube videos, reading things online. Maybe you have a friend or two that are kind of living this lifestyle, and you're kind of thinking to yourself, wow, where do you go? Where do you start? You know, some people like, like, for myself, I fell into it by gardening, you know, but maybe you're thinking I don't have a green thumb. I can't grow anything. You know, maybe I should look at animals. Should I start there? There's a lot of questions. And there's, there's, sometimes we can get, what is that expression paralysis analysis. And so we are going to discuss today how to overcome that paralysis analysis and just dive into the deep end so to speak and just start swimming.

So the first thing that I will say, point number one, if you were looking to get started into doing homes...into homesteading, the first thing that you're going to want to do is pick what you like. I can't stress that enough. Pick what you like, why do I say pick what you like because if you are doing something that you like, you're going to keep doing it, the likelihood of you keeping keeping up on that particular project or that particular thing is high. If you don't like gardening, for example, you're probably not going to stick to it. But if you like let's say, let's say for example, you like animal husbandry, my husband is that way he doesn't gardening isn't really his thing. But he loves animal husbandry. Animal husbandry is taking care of animals. So for my husband, he is all about the chickens. He...those are his chickens. They used to be my chickens, because I always like chickens, but he is all about the chickens. I he can tell you everything about the chickens, what to do with them, how to handle them when they're sick. Everything the man he he's read books, I've literally sat in watched him read books on chickens. That is his thing. And that's totally cool. Because at the end of the day, animal husbandry isn't really my forte. I'm too busy trying to deal with my children and gardens. Animals kind of falls through the cracks for me. But my point is, pick what you like.

Well, how do you know what you like? Because this may be a lifestyle that you've never, you've never you've only seen maybe in pictures online or through YouTube videos. You've only seen that but you don't know if that's something that you like, and what if you're the kind of person you're that that person who's living in some sort of downtown Metropolis city, where you only have a balcony. So you don't know if animal husbandry is your thing. You don't know if gardening is your thing. Then how do you know what you like?

Here's a tip. Most cities, at least in the United States, most cities have what they call community gardens. I don't know what they call them in other countries I know. I know Europe, or I should say England, I know England has, I can't think of what they call them. But they have like plots, I think is what they call them. It's like a community garden where you know, you have a certain section of land that is yours that you can work. And you can belong to an association, but I know here in the United States, we call them community gardens. Most cities here in the United States have something like that. Go find them. How do you go find them? Simple. If you have the internet, I'm guessing that you do, because you're listening to this podcast. So Google it, look it up for your city, find out if your city has community gardens, and go try to become a part of those community gardens.

Okay, let's say you don't...let's say you live in a city that doesn't have a community garden? Is there someone in your family circle of friends who has a garden? Who has the yard space for you to try? Could you ask them, Hey, can I have? Can I use just the section of your yard? I want to try to see if I can grow something? If you don't have that? Do you have access to pots? If you live in an apartment, or even if you live in the...if, even if you have a backyard, and you just don't want that commitment, or maybe your spouse doesn't want you to make that kind of a commitment. Do you have a couple of pots? Take a couple pots, and maybe try something as simple as trying to grow food in a couple of pots. That way you can discover, hey, do I like gardening? Do I have a green thumb? Is something that I can learn? And then what you do is you go and you watch, you read. You read about gardening. You watch YouTube videos about gardening. And if you do read and watch YouTube videos, in regards to gardening, this is a pro tip for you. Make sure you're watching people who are in your general area. So for example, for like people who live like myself, we live in Arizona, Arizona has a very, very unique climate. The way we grow things here in Arizona is diametrically opposite of the way somebody in New York, as far as the timing is concerned, it's opposite to somebody who lives let's say in upstate New York. We grow our lettuce and greens, and so forth, we grow all those things in the winter months. That's the best time. Somebody who lives in upstate New York, they're going to grow all that in the summer. If we tried to grow salad here in Arizona in in the summer, that's a fool's errand. It's never going to grow, or at least not properly. So my pro tip to you is watch people who were at least in your general area, because they will be able to tell you how to grow for your specific area.

What if you discover you know, gardening is just not my thing. I have a black thumb. There's nothing wrong with that. That doesn't mean that you can't be a homesteader. That doesn't mean that you can't live this lifestyle. So try something else. Again try animal husbandry. Well, you say I live in the city. I can't have chickens. There's an HOA here. Can you keep rabbits? Have you tried keeping rabbits? Most HOA's...I'm not a legal person, by the way. Just as a disclaimer, and I'm not encouraging you to go against your HOA as a legal disclaimer. But, you know, can you keep quail? Most HOA's recognize rabbits and quail as pets. Not as they don't view them as poultry, like chickens. So could you keep something like that?

Rabbits and quail, those are very, very, very quiet animals. I've heard of people who have kept quail, and rabbits in an apartment. And they've never bothered their neighbors at all, because they're so quiet. So there are ways around it. If you let's say, for example, I'm just gonna stay with the example of a person living in an apartment. If you live in an apartment, could you make an investment and get to know a farmer, a local farmer, and buy maybe a quarter of a cow, a quarter of a pig? Could you make the investment and actually buy a cow, buy a pig, even though you're having somebody else raise that animal on their land, but that animal belongs to you. It's a start. It's not the end result. It's just the start.

When we're talking about getting started in homesteading, you are looking for something that is going to take your idea and your experiment and light it on fire, so to speak, you're looking for a spark. You're looking for something that's just going to give you that push, you're not looking to be a person who's homesteading on 40 acres. And frankly, if you're a person who's living in a big metropolis of a city, to change pace and go from living in an apartment to 40 acres, I'm not saying it can't be done. But I'm saying that would be quite the shock and very overwhelming for you to make such a huge change.

So start off, and that leads me to point number two, start off small, whatever you do, start off small. Let me give you an example. When we lived downtown Phoenix in our small backyard, I was determined to grow as much broccoli, and as much cauliflower as I possibly could. Now, I've always been a huge fan of broccoli. I love broccoli. Cauliflower. It's, it's okay. But it's not broccoli. For whatever reason, that particular year, I decided to grow, I guess because we had realized by that point that we needed to eat most if not all of our own food, our own home grown food and nothing bought from the store. So I decided I was going to grow 21 heads of cauliflower. This from a person who may eat cauliflower, cauliflower, maybe three times out of a year. I decided to grow 21 heads of cauliflower. Needless to say, that was a disaster. I wound up giving away cauliflower to anybody if you even walked past our house, I was offering you cauliflower. I offered cauliflower to our next door neighbors at that time that we just absolutely could not stand. They didn't like us. We didn't like them. And I don't even know why. But I wound up walking over to their house and giving them two bags of cauliflower because I couldn't get rid of the stuff fast enough. Because instead of starting off small and something that I could handle, I decided to go full bore and over did I did way too much and got overwhelmed frankly, got overwhelmed and overran with cauliflower because I did too much.

So start off small. And when you're starting off, start off with what you can handle. If you do too much, then you're going to get yourself overwhelmed, overworked and you're going to be that person who's tromping over to your next door neighbor's house. Giving them food when you don't even like them. Terrible story but the principle is the same. Start off small, start off with what you can handle.

The other thing when you are getting started homesteading. When you are actively choosing to make this your lifestyle, always make sure that you have in your circle of friends, if it's possible, having your circle of friends, either online or in real life, preferably in real life. People who are already living this lifestyle, people who have already made this choice. Now I say, in real life, it's better to have somebody who's who can kind of mentor you, and who can help you in real life. But I do recognize the fact that that's not possible for everybody to have because there are a lot of people who have most people don't choose this lifestyle. So you may have to find your own people online. And that can be through YouTube, that can be through podcasts, that can be through Instagram. And, by the way, you can always connect with us on Instagram. Our Instagram handle is @thetwoacrehomestead. So you can always look us up there and we'll always cheer you on for homesteading.

But always look for your people, look for people who are going to encourage you and who are going to give you some help when you need it. Because it is you...it's very easy for you to get overwhelmed because you are going against what is considered normal in society. Society teaches us to look down on people who are willing to work hard physical labor. Why on earth would you want to produce your own food when you can just simply go to the store? You know, if you're worried about the chemicals in your food, just go ahead and buy organic and then when you retort if you're like me, I'm trigger happy with my mouth. So if you're like me and I look at people and I say I grow better than organic and better you know people look better than organic, what's that? You're going against the grain and so you're gonna need that support. You're gonna need somebody who will cheer you on. I guarantee it because otherwise without that support it's just it's so easy to just fall back into I'm just gonna go to the store and I'll just buy organic. Why? Why would you do that when you can grow it yourself?

So that is some of my tips and tricks into how...as to how you can get started homesteading. Now, we've talked a lot about how to get started homesteading. But what if you are married? What if you are not the only person in your house? You live with somebody else? What if your family is the ones who are looking at you like, you're crazy! Why would you want to do that? Why do you want to live that lifestyle? How do you convince your spouse and or your family to homestead with you? So that's what we're going to talk about on the next episode of The Two Acre Homestead. So I hope that this podcast is found you and your family well. And until next time, be safe out there.