My Homesteading Journey

A few months ago I moved to a beautiful piece of land to begin emancipating myself from the industrial system. Immediately I set to work planting my gardens, which are now producing much more food than I can keep up with eating. My hens lay plenty of eggs, and there is a river running through the land that is full of fish. My current objectives are to build myself a cabin, secure a system for purifying water and irrigation, and begin to foster a permaculture ecosystem for food.

There are many reasons why I’ve decided to work towards being off-grid and self-sufficient. I have a deep need to be independent from the system and rely on my own labor. I need to have a connection with the land and my food, to run my hands through the dirt, sew the seeds, and pray for its growth. I went increasingly crazy when I lived in cities, whereas now I have essentially no symptoms of psychological distress. I believe in practicing what is preached, i.e. de-industrializing my life except for what is needed to undermine the system, such as spreading ideology. I could go on and on elaborating my motivations. This dream has been inside of me, festering for years. I have at last arrived at the place where I can walk down this path.

At the moment I’m living on the land in my RV while I plan and build my cabin. This, along with my gardening and other homesteading topics, will be documented on my youtube channel, where I recently uploaded a video canning my garden vegetables to preserve them for the winter. A central focus of all of the projects I’m undertaking is to do so without the use of industrial machinery, and so far I have accomplished this with my garden. My cabin will also be built without machines, a task which I fully understand the difficulty of, even more so because it is going to be largely underground so that I don’t have to use air conditioning (the ambient temperature of the Earth is around 50 degrees fahrenheit (10 celsius), and it stays that temperature inside both during summer and winter).

I have had the time of my life building my relationship with the land. I cannot articulate the feeling of the divine natural, as I’m sure anyone with a spiritual connection to nature can relate. I have never been happier since the days of childhood innocence. This post is much more personal than my regular writings, but since I write about anti-industrialist philosophy and collapse, I’d like to share my own personal de-industrialization and prep.

I plan to sell vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, and nuts once I get the hang of how much I need to grow to eat year round. The selling-point of my business will be that I use no machinery at any point in the process, which will be targeted towards green thumbs and health-conscious people, but also to general consumers. However, I’ve been hung up on what to name this business. Something is needed that is relatively concise and communicates that I use no machinery. Immediately I thought of ‘Luddite Gardens’, but I’m pretty sure most people don’t know what a luddite is. Another is ‘Primitive Gardens’ or ‘Gardens Without Machines’. If any of you have input on this issue I would be grateful for it.

When I reach the point of selling at a large scale, I will be getting a mule to drag tilling equipment as a replacement for what would be done with a tractor. I will also be caring for horses, which will be my main mode of locomotion across my land. Again, this will all be documented on my youtube channel, so if this sounds like something you are interested in, I welcome you to check it out. I narrate my writings, film my activities, am considering making a regular podcast to discuss topics similar to what I write about, and I have an audiobook for Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How in the works. The next video to be uploaded is picking blackberries on my land and making blackberry jam and pie.

So, what is the future for me here? I have been sort of asocial for a long time, but even the most reclusive, introverted man will eventually wish for some form of company on occasion. It is not that I don’t like people, I just prefer more solitude than most; however, I am perfectly fine in small groups. At the moment I have an aspiration to form a group of people I trust to work the land and take care of one another, sharing the fruits of labor and community. A commune essentially. This is not a certainty, it will only happen if I really trust the few people who would join me and if these people are as into homesteading as I am.

I may do more personal writings if I find this a welcome addition to my website. If any readers aspire to homestead one day, feel free to contact me with the contact tab at the top.

Stay safe – Normandie