Homesteading for the future

Homesteader the word conjures up the thoughts of living in a little rustic cabin without electricity or indoor plumbing. Having to hunt for your meals and struggling to make a living. Well at some point and time this may have been an accurate description now a days the meaning of homesteader brings to mind a whole different idea.

The fact of the matter is that many many of us are already homesteaders, we are urban homesteaders because of want or need we have as a society turned ourselves into homesteaders. We have tried to become more self sufficient and to do for ourselves instead of relying on others to do for us. This new spirit of doing for ourselves is partially due to economic conditions, partially due to a need to provide our selves with the confidence that we are able to take care of our basic needs and not be dependent. I truly believe that we have all had this deep within us and it has been in more recent years all right to become a do it yourself-er.

When you are collecting and using coupons or switching to more energy efficient appliance or fuel saving automobiles you are trying to cut back and conserve these are all basic tenements of homesteading. We are trying to conserve our cash and trying to do things that we have not done before in the quest to be more reliant on ourselves. So in some sense most of us who live in cities and towns are urban homesteaders of sorts. If you grow vegetables and then preserving some of them in cans with Canning Lids  you are practicing urban homesteading. If you opt to build a new shed in the back yard from scratch or a kit you are practicing urban homesteading

To what extent and how much time and effort you want to put into this is totally up to you. It is hard to sometimes describe what you receive in return and to make a one size fits all description. If you were to sit back and think of some of the things that you may have done that have saved you money or made you proud that you could use your hands to build or create something and the feeling of accomplishment you felt. Well that maybe one way to describe being an urban homesteader.

What I think really is important if you want to be an urban homesteader is that you decide what you are willing to invest of yourself. The amount of passion that it stirs will to some extent dictate how much you will even want to do. I like to think that we are all capable of being good stewards of the earth and have a basic sense of caring for our families and communities and work towards enhancing both. This is what I feel is a good representation.