Homesteading Now and Later

If you've read my previous posts, you know that we're currently renting an off-the-grid solar and passive solar house in New Mexico.  It has a garden and a lean-to barn.  It is and has been a good situation.  I've been happy this year to have the limited responsibility that comes with renting a home and property, rather than an underwater mortgage on a tract-house that needs lots of work, like my old place in Maryland.  The move out here was an enormous jump into the unknown in many senses, but especially economically.  I had no idea how I would support myself when we moved out here, whether my disability applications would be approved, if I'd have to somehow get a job here, or even move back to Maryland to my old job at the university.  But now that the disability applications have been approved, things are more settled financially.

I'm itching to have a property of my own, one that I'd have for the rest of my life.  I want to be able to invest resources such as money and my own labor into things like perennials in the garden and yard, a weather-proof barn, fencing, a chicken coop, etc.  I want to plant things that take several years to reach maturity, like rhubarb and asparagus.  At the same time, I have to admit to myself that I'm not up to starting from scratch right away;  I don't think it's reasonable that I could just move to a piece of land and begin building.  I don't have the financial resources to have someone build me a home and I don't have the physical resources (nor do M or my mom) to build a place from scratch before cold weather comes. 

It seems that the best option would be to continue to rent here while also buying a piece of property elsewhere and gradually developing that property as my physical condition and financial resources permit.  There are some major investments that would need to be made in order to live full time on a property:  in addition to a bare bones cabin (or something like a portable shed or two, or a yurt), I'd need money for a well or cistern, solar panels and converter, and a wood stove.  Likely I'd need money to develop or improve a road and driveway, and I'd certainly need to buy some tools that I don't have now such as a chainsaw and a generator. 

Maybe I'm overly cautious, I don't know.  But homesteading while disabled and middle aged, with a parent who is also disabled, and a partner who has back problems is different from homesteading while young, healthy, and with no dependents.  I have to honestly consider factors such as how much weight any one of us can lift, how many hours and how many days a week we are physically able to work, and a desire for privacy that implies two separate housing areas. 

I guess I'm a planner and a person who flourishes with long term goals.  While I'm content to sit and admire the scenery, and I get a lot of pleasure out the process of doing things, I also feel a desire and a need to plan with an eye toward the future.  It makes me happy to plan projects.

On further  reflection now, I realize that many of the projects I plan, or the future I plan toward, are really about situating myself to engage in processes in the future.  For example, my planning now for a homestead in the future is about getting myself to a place where I can be engaging in certain processes more often and more fully than I am now:  I want to be caring for livestock such as goats and horses, and I want to be planting gardens and preserving food. 

I suppose it's good to be in what appears to be a holding pattern right now.  It gives me time to transition from my old way of life to a new one, to rest and see what my health is like away from the stress of a more-than-full-time job and the city, and to figure out what it is that I really want to be doing and how to do it.  As I've said before, it's homesteading with training wheels.

With that, I'm off to go do some reading in the Mother Earth News archives. 

I'll close with an appropriate song that's been in my head a lot for the last six months.

Beck, Gamma Ray

Trying to hold, hold out for now 

But with these ice caps melting down 

With the transistor sound  

And my Chevrolet Terra plane 

Going 'round, 'round, 'round
 

Come a little gamma ray 

 Standing in a hurricane  

Your brains are bored like a refugee 

 From the houses burning 

And the heatwave's calling your name
She's got on a cactus crown 

With a dot, dot, dot on her brow 

And she speaks inside a cloud  

With the cavalry turning around
 

Hit me like a gamma ray 

Standing in a hurricane 

And I'm pulling out thorns  

Smokestack lightning out my window  

I want to know what I've lost today

 
Come a little gamma ray  

Standing in a hurricane  

When your body's bored like a refugee 

From the houses burning 

And the backbiters calling your name