In talking to Catholics who are interested in homesteading about what I’ve been working on the past year, though they are interested in what we are doing, many of them have lots of questions about the practical ins and outs homesteading. In this series, I am sharing the things that come to mind that would have helped me over the years. This post focuses more on the mindset. Part 1 is a mix of both the mental aspects and the practical. Part 3 will focus on the practical.

Don’t try to do it all…

Doing it all is unrealistic. Few people have ever truly homesteaded as independently as we’d like to dream. It’s okay to buy some of your food from other farmers or from the farmers market, or even from the grocery store. It’s okay if you don’t make your own soap or candles. It’s okay to buy plant starts instead of starting all of your own seeds.

You cannot do it all!

Don’t feel bad when you realize you cannot do it all. As a homeschooling mother of 8, I only have so much time available in the day. I also choose to make time for volunteering at our parish as needed, and helping or visiting with family, friends, and even strangers. Our older children have become so much more capable over the years, and it is so vastly different from when we were doing this and all of our kids were still little. It has allowed me the possibility of volunteering at church, but it also takes time when I have to drive one of the kids to a driving lesson. As they get older, they do work off the farm as well, which means I don’t always have their help. Just because you can’t do it all doesn’t mean you aren’t homesteading. Even if my husband worked from home and all of our children were completely cooperative, there are still things we’d want to do that we’d struggle to be able to do.

Take small steps.

I touched on this last time, but it’s worth repeating. If we try to take on every step of a process before we try something new, we’ll likely end up overwhelmed and exhausted or not trying things at all. Taking manageable steps with a low investment cost can help you determine whether or not you actually want to invest in a larger venture. You don’t need to milk a cow to make your own cheese. It’s a lot less expensive to fail at making your own cheese with milk from another farmer than it is to invest in a milk cow. Think about the ultimate end goal! Is it cheese? Or is it dairy? There’s a big difference in the two goals, and you might be better off working with somebody else than doing a project completely on your own. The neighbor may want to make butter, while you want cheese, so maybe you need to work together. A cow produces a lot of milk. Are you ready to process all of it every day?

Build your community.

Community is a game-changer. It can be hard to find your community when you first begin homesteading. Online forums are a start, but they are no substitute for in-person community. If you live rurally, start by talking to those who attend Mass with you each week. You might be surprised at what you learn. The Catholic Land Movement can help connect people regionally, so if you need people who are within an hour or two, this is a good place to look. Or look for a local Catholic Rural Life chapter and see if you can get involved there. It’s less homesteading, but you’re still talking with people who may be living a similar lifestyle. Talk to the people at your local feed mill, not just the farm store. At the feed mill, they likely know many of their customers well and can connect you to others who may be able to help you. Your neighbors may be your best resource, so don’t forget to talk to them! Above all, don’t forget that your family and friends are your first community. Community doesn’t build itself. It takes effort. If you’re really fortunate, you may find people with an established community, willing to take you under their wing, but many people have to take steps to create it these days.

Pick 1 or 2 big goals to accomplish in a year.

If you try to set out to build a barn, fence the field, get cows, and start milking all in one year, without any experience, you are bound to burn out. You need to be realistic about your time, finances, resources, and capabilities. One or two bigger goals, well thought out will be easier to accomplish. A couple of years ago, the goal was simply to build a new chicken coop. My husband learned how to pour concrete with the help of our older boys, and a couple of the boys helped me build the coop and run. It took us a slow couple of months to accomplish, and we weren’t able to pour concrete until August, I think, just because of the weather. I was so relieved that was our only big goal for the year!

It’s okay not to meet a goal.

If you stress too much about meeting an unnecessary goal, you have just created unnecessary stress. You do not have to reach a goal just because you told others you hoped to reach it. We set 3 goals this past year. More than we should have, yes, but they seemed realistic at the outset of the year. However, my husband changed jobs at work, and it ended up consuming a huge amount of his time and energy as he went through that transition. We completed one of the goals, and got partway through each of the other two. Though we both wanted to see these things completed, we also knew it wasn’t worth the stress, and that the steps taken towards these other goals were still helpful in the long-run.

It’s okay to give up on something that’s not working.

Maybe you find out that beekeeping isn’t what you thought it would be. It’s okay to sell the animal that you are struggling to take care of. It’s okay to let the garden be overrun with weeds and not harvest anything. I’ve been there. It’s not fun to give up, but sometimes it’s the best decision, for your health, for your family, for your mental well-being. Remember, we are called to be stewards of God’s creation, so if you can’t take care of that animal, it is in the best interest of the animal to find somebody who can. Letting the garden go isn’t going to hurt the soil, though it might leave you with extra weeds next year.

It’s okay to take a year off.

In fact, I would highly recommend taking a sabbatical year once every 7 years. It doesn’t have to be a complete relinquishing of your normal tasks, but it is giving yourself permission to do less, reassess what is working and what isn’t, and decide what is really important to you. Plenty of people quit homesteading because they don’t give themselves breaks. Plan for the break, not just on Sunday, but over the years.

Do what interests your family.

You don’t have to have a cow because other homesteaders do it. You don’t have to tap maple trees because I do. If you want to do blacksmithing, find a way to do it. If you want to raise goats, figure out if you can make it happen.

Get the kids involved.

A two-year-old can snap beans. A three-year-old can pluck peas. A four-year-old can put dishes in the sink, carry a basket, or drag a shovel for you. Little kids want to help, so find an age-appropriate way for them to help. Sometimes “helping” just means watching, at least from their perspective. As they get older, let them take on more responsibility, and don’t get upset when they get bored half-way through a task. That’s normal. If they help plant or dig one row of potatoes, that’s better than no help. Sometimes, you’ll need to make them see a task through, but often times, just having them participate for a part of the time is enough. I’m not above bribing the kids to help from time to time, either. On a hot summer day, when I need help to get a task done quickly, I’ll offer to take them to the beach or to get an ice cream cone when the work is finished. They’re usually quite cooperative. The “bribe” helps them to see that work can be balanced with fun, and that working together makes the work go faster.

Work with their strengths.

Our kids are all learning some basic skills- how to do the laundry, how to cook, etc. But as the kids get bigger, we try to work with their strengths more. One of the boys loves the outside chores, so he willingly helps with snow removal, lawn mowing, and vehicle maintenance. Another loves to cook, so he’s usually glad to make dinner if I need help. It saves a lot of struggle to work with their likes, and it is incredibly beneficial to the family to have them work on what they like over what they hate.

The person primarily at home will be the primary decision-maker for the work done there.

As much as both my husband and I would love it if he were home full-time and able to make certain decisions for our homestead, but that’s not our reality. I have to make many of the decisions for our homestead, which is sometimes hard for him and for me. He’d like to see things done one way, but without him here to do the work, it has to be done in a way that works for the kids and me. His opinion and desires are always taken into consideration, though they can’t always be met. That can be a source of frustration at times, but it’s something we’ve come to terms with more and more over the years. This isn’t about authority or headship, or even exclusion. Managing a homestead is a big job, and managers have to make informed decisions on their own all of the time.

Know your domain.

Related to that last point, understand who is taking care of what responsibilities. I have neither the time nor the desire to do vehicle maintenance. He oversees the care of certain buildings on our property, and I others. He takes care of certain parts of our land, and I am in charge of others. We help one another as we are able and as is needed, but we are also respectful of the fact that the other is responsible for particular tasks and areas. This isn’t about, “a man’s place is here and a woman’s place is there,” it’s about knowing where your skills are best suited and where your time is best spent. There are things my husband can do that I just can’t because he’s significantly stronger than I. But I can also carry babies inside of me and nurse them with my body, and he can’t. This has an impact on what we do.

Work with your spouse.

I mean work together in decision making as much as possible. Get on the same page with your goals. They probably won’t be perfectly aligned, especially if one of you works away from home, but the more in line they are, the better. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve talked about getting a milk cow and decided against it because we agreed that the timing wasn’t right. We’ve debated pig-keeping, and finally took on that endeavor when we were both ready to proceed. Our big goals and the decisions that need to be made to reach them are nearly all made together.

It’s okay if you can’t work with your spouse.

It’s okay if you can’t work side by side. Do it when possible, by all means, but don’t feel bad or resentful if you can’t. We have a large property, do a wide variety of things, and have a large family. My husband would love it if I could work with him on projects when he’s home on the weekends, but we typically have to divide and conquer. The baby needs to be fed or the toddler needs to be played with or I’m inside cleaning the house and prepping meals while the kids play outside. Meanwhile he’s splitting wood, grafting trees, or doing vehicle maintenance. On the other hand, sometimes working side by side feels impossible, because you have different ideas of how things should be done, or maybe you just need to learn to communicate better. If working together is not necessary and it’s causing potentially sinful behavior or it could cause a dangerous situation to arise because you’re distracted, don’t feel bad if you need to step away (with their agreement). Keep looking for opportunities to work together. Pay attention to triggers of frustration, and learn how to mitigate them. Do keep trying, though, when the project allows for it!

Discern.

Pray, go to Mass, go to Adoration. Ask God to guide you, ask your guardian angel to walk with you, and ask the saints to pray for you. Seek God’s will in all things. Remember that His answers aren’t always loud and obvious (in fact, they usually aren’t). Does a theme or idea keep repeating itself? If so, is there a logical reason why, or does this seem random and coincidental? Have you thoughtfully considered some of the points in the list above? What kind of gut feeling do you get about a project? Do you logically know that something is right, but your gut is saying “no”? Are you pushing for something to happen because you want it to, or have you relinquished your desires and asked God to lead where He wants you to follow? Sometimes, we think we know what we should do, but we’re actually biased by what we want. In those cases, I find it is best to say “God, I give this to you. I know that this is what I want, but I don’t know for sure that it’s what you want.” Remember that discernment isn’t about all of the little choices throughout the day, like, “Should I have peanut butter and jelly today?” but more like, “We want to buy a tractor, but we aren’t sure that’s the right way to invest such a large sum of money.”

Advice is easier heard than accepted, and you will have to go through your own trial and error process to figure things out. But if there is one piece of advice I hope sticks, it’s this: Homesteading is a lifestyle. It’s going to take years to grow in your skills, knowledge, and generally ability and resources. It’s an exciting way of living with endless possibilities. You’ve got time! Enjoy the process.

In Christ,
Danielle