Originally we were interested in homesteading for the food. Healthy, nutritious, organic food was our goal. Later on we realized homesteading could provide so much more than that. The more you can produce on your property the more sustainable you will be. This means if the power goes out for a week (this happened to us this past fall!) or you lose your job, your family won’t starve. Homesteading provides food security. Of course this depends on how you do it but with a desire to be self-sustainable you are already better off than your neighbor should a disaster strike.
(Some of our dry good storage until we can get more ball jars)
As I mentioned we have already experienced one of these situations. Hurricane Irma knocked out our power for 6 days. You can check out that post here. While annoying we were generally speaking fine, there was never any danger of starving to death. At the time we were barely homesteading, we had the ducks but they weren’t producing anything. Our good fortune came down to preparedness and wood cooking skills. It would have been extremely easy if we had been producing our own food at the time.
(Some of this is homemade like the dog treats, herbs, apple cider vinegar and vanilla. The rest is store bought dry goods)
Moving forward to present day we are threatened with a government shutdown. This situation affects a lot of people including ourselves. For now my husband will be paid through the 14th of February this could be just enough for our government to get their acts together or it could be detrimental. Like a lot of military families we live paycheck to paycheck. Come February 15th our bills could go unpaid, debt racked up on a credit card so that we can eat. Not only that but most of the services that make the minuscule amount of money he makes get us through, will no longer be available. Through all of this he is supposed to report for duty. It’s a shame on our country that this is a possible scenario.
(Our 'prepper' goods. Every time we go grocery shopping and we end up a little under budget I grab a can or 2 to build up our supply. The tomato juice and kidney beans were purchased in preparation on the government shutdown since our grocery store will close.)
I don’t think it will come to all of that but it really brings home the importance of a self-sustainable life. Chris wasn’t on board with homesteading in the beginning. I know weird normally the husband has to convince the wife! He came around slowly first open to the idea but not really getting it. This year I have seen the biggest shift. Now that we are actively working on our homestead it’s evident that he is enjoying it. Just yesterday he mentioned that the government shutdown put homesteading into perspective; that it’s important for us to learn how to take care of ourselves because we can’t rely on anyone else to do it. He is 100% right, it is evident from this situation that we cannot rely on the government to take care of us and homesteading is the way that we ensure we are secure should the worst happen.
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