I love the idea of homesteading. I love the idea of living off the land, maybe in some kind of rustic cabin I built with my own two hands deep in the woods. Really, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a huge fan of Thoreau. The first time I read Walden, that was it. I knew that there was no other lifestyle for me Of course, I didn’t really take into consideration that he would regularly make the 2 mile walk into town to pick up a bottle of alcohol, but that was only a minor detail. He lived off the land, and in doing so, he made a hero out of himself to millions of people just like me.

Homesteading is an interesting concept. In the beginning, it was the act of building your home on government land, but over time, it had evolved into something much different. Really, it had become a hydra of sorts. With as many definitions of the term as there are people in the world, there’s a good chance that my definition is different from yours, and yours is different from the person sitting right next to you.

For myself, homesteading is about living a sustainable lifestyle and living as stewards of our homes, our communities, and the Earth. Though there are some who would consider homesteading a simpler way of life, as it engages a different time when people would grow and prepare their own food rather than shop at a grocery store for everything that we need, it’s actually far from simple. Being a homesteader requires endless research, work, and experimentation. For such a simple way of life, there are a very few people who could even fathom doing the work to achieve such a lifestyle. For most, it’s sacrifice, but for us, it’s absolute freedom.

What’s your definition of a homestead?