What type of homesteader are you?

[momof42003]

My neighbors down the street have chickens for their eggs... So I know that a lot more is possible, maybe just not right now...

[knittingmomma]

Our homestead is right in a village. We are in a neighborhood but I believe there are only about 600 people in total that live here. Our house is set back a bit and we have about.75/acre. WE are growing 1/2 an acre of market veggies and for ourselves. We have chickens for our eggs. We have a newer barn/garage where we have just opened up a shop on Saturdays.

Warm wishes,
Tonya - Simple Living Mom of 5

[Minner77]

A dreamer and a wannabe.... although we bought 12 acres 12 miles outside of Rapid City and have high hopes. Had to postpone everything when DH's company went bankrupt and we had to regroup and continue renting instead of building. Not happy, not fun.

[willow]

I'm not quite sure if we qualify for country homesteader or not. We are 35 miles from the nearest city and live in an unincorporated town of 100 people. At least that's what our sign says. I've been told that during the county fair our population drops in half.

I work for a local dairy and my ds (a college student) is a hired man during the summers so our lives tend to revolve around the agricultural communty rather than the folks moving out from the city.

We have been in the area for many years but just moved to this house last fall. Built in the 1920's our home sits on 3 long and narrow lots. The house sits on the very front so I have a large open back area. This year is being spent getting the ground ready for next years gardening. We also have an old chicken coop that is currently being occupied by dd's 3 pet ducks. I might like to try chickens in a year or so.

I'm hoping to become more self sufficient here and have lots of ideas and projects I'd like to try in the next few years.

[hollyhill]

Hmmmm.......
Off the beaten track, sorta countryish, kinda wild....well.....
We have 2 acres of steep hillside with a magnificent view.....we have cattle for neighbours to the south of us and a manicured equestrian estate behind us....
We have daily viewing of deer, coyotes and frequent viewing of blackbears. We have cougars and Lynx/bobcats (Dd saw a big lynx just a few weeks ago!) which the horse backriders tend to see.....because the scent of horse covers their human scent...We also have many small wild animals and birds.
There are many hobby farms in the area but very few commercial farms.

I love it here...even though it is hard to coax a good crop of vegies from the hardpan clay...so I am constantly soil improving....

[FEsrigoHL]

Anybody know of homesteaders group or club in Pa ? Your posts are more meaninful if your state is mentioned.

[KeithBC]

Sorry, I can't help you with organizations in PA.

However, since you've revived this thread, I guess I'll jump in and take up the original question. I'm a former city boy turned rural. I'm not actually sure what an urban homesteader would be. It seems to me that homesteading implies rural living.

Anyway, DW and I bought six acres of forest with a one and-a-half acre clearing where the house is, about six years ago. We've finally got the buildings fixed up to where we can start concentrating on the garden.

You'd never know it from our dry summers, but we live in a rainforest. The gardening challenge here is not getting things to grow, but fighting back the jungle. So the garden is a bit out of control. However, it is starting to shape up.

[francismilker]

We're very, very rural. It's 25 minutes to town and we're at the dead end of a three-mile dead-end road. We have eighty acres of land that feeds our sheep, goats, and cattle. We put up our own hay and raise a family sized garden on it.

P.S. the kids say they aren't going to live in the country when they grow up! "Too much hard work out in the country."

Well, we'll see!

[vigilant20]

Urban here. I'm just 2 blocks outside of Milwaukee city limits in another large city of West Allis. This is my first home on 1/10th of an acre, so I'm pretty proud of it even as small as it is. I learned about homesteading shortly after I moved here. So I got a test garden dug the first year. Last year was my first year of actively trying to urban homestead. This year I dug up what was left of the yard and completed my Master Gardener training.

I'm kind of glad I had limited space to get started, because knowing me....I'm sure I would have started too big and burned myself out otherwise. It was hard enough keeping things going working full time and being forced to go back to school while trying to run my little homestead.

[Dreamin of a Simple Life]

Rural. 6 miles off the highway on a dirt road. 40 acres of rolling hills with a seasonal creek and ponds. Horses, cows, goats, meat rabbits, chickens and ducks.
Sometimes I think I'm not rural enough.