Homesteading is important to me because..

We know our food is unfit to eat, our water poisoned, our air polluted.
We are all gears in a machine built to satisfy our desires, delivering an insubstantial illusion of fulfillment. It has gnawed, beaten, and twisted us to fit its inner workings. Succumb to its design, we sell our very lives for $7.50 an hour for the privilege of rotting in front of our televisions.

We live vicariously threw the rich and famous to distract ourselves from our own purposeless lives, all the while accruing debt we can not pay, passing it along as a virus to the next generation who's shackles will be all the tighter because of it. Until all will or want of release has passed, our souls bought for less then what a beggars cup could hold.

But not all,

Some of us choose to stand up, to break our shackles, to give our jailers the royal salute and
go forth our own direction.

We choose the path less trodden, trusting the slow wisdom of our elders. Born of a simpler time when men and women stood on firm ground with eyes to see the world as it is.

We choose not to relinquish control of our lives but to draw a line in the sand, planting ourselves
legs wide on a side of our choosing, throwing our heads back with arms thrust skyward. We proclaim,

"I and my blood choose life! We choose freedom! We choose to depart from you never to return! We choose homesteading!"

At its very core, homesteading is the act of living for a living. I look forward to beginning each day with the sense of purpose it brings, knowing my life is my own and being beholden to no one.. a freedom rarely seen in the world today.

The work is hard and more often then not you find yourself having to make do with little, but both are a price I pay willingly.

My Background

As far back as I can remember I have had a passion for all things growing. This was a result of living beside my grandmother who's passion for gardening is second to none.
She not only introduced me to gardening, but wild edibles at a young age.
We would not only work in her garden together, but scour the neighborhood collecting wild foods such as berries, dandelion, and poke weed. Her influence grew in me and still does.

Many years later, having at this point already a good store of knowledge, I got hired on at an 47 acre inn that had at one point been very prestigious.. As the gardener, the only one!

There was only myself and the maintenance man to keep the place going, but was still the best job I have ever had and indeed have had to this point.
I had an office, my own company truck, a huge green house filled with orchids, and adequate pay..
Alas all good things must come to an end.

I can still remember it,

Me and the maintenance man were taking lunch together as we always did when the death pole sounded, shaking my very core… The inn had been sold and all staff were to be let go. I knew then life was going to get tough as neither me or my wife had any real official education or savings to fall back on.

I was in the green house later that day lamenting our loss, doggedly going forth with my duties as gardener though little point now remained. For two years I had labored on these grounds, but no more.

Wishful thinking ensued..
'I wish.. ' I thought, 'I wish there was a way I could just pay myself to do this work. Then my life wouldn't be subject to the whims of people who neither knew, nor cared for it.'

This line of thought in time lead me to homesteading and while it has been a very long and hard journey, now years later we not only have a functioning homestead but my very own greenhouse. Not only built on my own land, but by my own hands.

I choose not to step into my grave, but to step back and let my enemies bury themselves in it. For it's to their design, and their minds are alien to me.

-digger.