Homesteading: First Steps
Homesteading: First Steps
Our "accidental" beginnings
In my first post on this subject, How We Started the Homesteading Journey, I boiled it down to four things:
A burning desire for change, both in your mindset and in your circumstance
Learning by doing, starting as small as you need to to get off the X
Learn more formally; many many books have been written on the subject of homesteading in general, and many many books have been written on virtually every particular of homesteading
Persist, just keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how small those steps might be; it’s amazing when looking with the benefit of hindsight what you have accomplished
Maybe you start with a basil plant, one, on a window sill in your urban apartment; yes, that’s a start! It seems like the next question is, what next? And maybe, how far do we go? The answers to those questions will be different for each of us, and each of us will move at his or her own pace based on a variety of factors. I will tell our story, but please know that there are written and/or visual materials available, maps if you will, for any conceivable direction you choose to go in. Because of the internet much of this information is free, and can be accessed from your home or a library; fortunately libraries still exist, though for how much longer I can’t say.
The situation evolved quickly for us, predominantly because we had worked and saved, for over 30 years in my case; that means we had capital to employ in making the shift from working for “the man,” to working for ourselves. I’m fond of saying that we’ve gone from making a living, to making a life. If you are getting started 25 years earlier in life than we did, and with little capital, it’s hard to beat Ben and Penny Hewitt’s story in The Nourishing Homestead. But we’re only discussing our first steps today, so let me rewind the tape.
Maybe this was all accidental, maybe the necessary stars aligned; I believe it was divine Providence. Geri and I went on a trip up to the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) to spend a weekend with some friends. They have a home on Lake Michigamme, the largest inland lake in the UP, and not far from Lake Superior; we’re talking way up there.
We had a blast that summer, and that was it, we were off to the races. This was in August of 2012, just two months before Geri and I were married. We instantly knew we need to have a place to escape to; at first we were just thinking weekends and vacations, and that drove our search. While we visited the UP again in the winter of ‘12/’13, the die had been cast. We started our property search in the UP, but on a good day that was at least 6.5 hours from our Naperville home; too far for a weekender. I set a manageable two to four hour range from home, and that brought in southern Wisconsin, eastern Iowa and even northeastern Missouri, Illinois, west Indiana, and…southwest Michigan. We looked at a few places in Illinois, but the state was “out” for a variety of reasons. It quickly became apparent that southwest Michigan was less expensive than most areas, had more inland water, and as importantly, Geri was familiar with it. A next step was the list; what exactly did we want?
Above is a clip from my Permaculture design project; at left you can see our list. I know I had “the ability to pee off the back porch” on the list, but apparently it didn’t make the cut for my design project submission. Ha! Seriously though, it’s important to know what you want going in. We assembled a list of potential properties using landandfarm.com, which I highly recommend; this was late spring 2013, there was still a bit of snow on the ground, in places. I was looking for bare land, I figured we would build it out over time. Geri was looking for more. We put together a list of about ten potential properties, set up a date with a realtor out of South Haven, and spent a Saturday looking at all of them. I believe it was number six on the list; we walked in, strolled around outside for awhile as I tried to maintain my composure, and got back in the car. I said to Geri, that will be ours. Let’s just say we compromised on more, a lot more; 67 acres and cottage on a lake. We put in an offer the following Monday, we closed in July of 2013, and the rest as they say, is history.
Again, at this point we didn’t intend to make southwest Michigan our permanent home, and indeed we wouldn’t move to Michigan full-time for 2-1/2 years. But still, things moved quickly given the circumstance; we sold our Naperville home less than a year after closing on the Michigan property, so our minds changed in a hurry. There was a lot that had to go on in that 2-1/2 years. More on that, and what went on after we moved, next time.
All the best, and God bless,
John