4 ms·
Homesteading I guess I'd say "cool" is in the eye of the beholder, but here is what I really enjoy about it: - It reduces my dependence on mainstream living.
by balabaster 11y ago
Homesteading
I guess I'd say "cool" is in the eye of the beholder, but here is what I really enjoy about it:
- It reduces my dependence on mainstream living.
- It increases my ability to live sustainably.
- It reduces my cost of living immensely which frees up my income for more interesting projects.
- It's incredibly cheap to get into, it costs next to nothing for seeds for a few plants to start small and a handful of chickens cost about $10 each, $30 will buy you a bag of seed that will last months. You can get a reasonably decent chicken coop/hen house for $300(ish). In return: They give you free eggs every day; they'll eat all the bugs eggs and bugs you give them access to; chicken poop is fantastic fertilizer for your lawn/plants. So you only really need to spend what you want to spend. Aside from the cost of the coop, 3 chickens will pay for themselves inside of a month - depending on how many eggs you eat, our 3 hens give us enough eggs that nobody in our extended family needs to buy eggs. We give most of them away and still have enough left for baking and Sunday brunch.
- It helps reinforce my inner MacGyver... which was already strong to begin with.
- It allows me to connect with nature and nurture something that makes a tangible difference in the world. Something we all live for.
- Having animals, plants and trees around you gives you a sense of peace and well-being that can only be purchased by many thousands of dollars in therapy.
- It gives you as much exercise as going to the gym.
- It's immensely satisfying watching it all come together.
- It's the only thing I've found that constantly engages me in the same way programming does. There's always a problem to be solved and there's always many interesting ways to solve it.
- It's nowhere near as much work as everyone said it would be, and the work there is feels like it has real value.
- I get to drive a tractor... albeit a miniature one :P
- slayed0 11y agoThis is the dream... Unfortunately it doesn't seem feasible to set something like this up in my SF apartment so for now it will have to wait.
- balabaster 11y agoI ditched an apartment in an area I couldn't do this a few months ago for that exact reason - we weren't even allowed to grow plants on our balcony for God's sake - because the nitrogen in the fertilizer is a fire hazard. I was done with all the crap that comes with city living. The kids spend their entire time on a tight reign, they can't just run around and be kids without a constant fear of the neighbours complaining/judging about their noise/behaviour. You have to follow a metric ton of rules that come with living in close proximity to a million other people that nobody who lives in the country cares about. Most of all, the tranquility of effectively having a campsite literally in your back yard is amazing... and you can see the stars. My commute to my real job is now an hour and a half instead of just 30 minutes, but I wouldn't trade it to come back to the city. We've been blogging about our transition at http://ourcrazyhomestead.life/ http://ourcrazyhomestead.life/ As they say, sometimes you have to follow the dream and make everything else unfold the way it needs to in order for that dream to transpire.
- balabaster 11y agoThe problem isn't that it's not feasible. The problem is your SF apartment. If it's really the dream, reprioritize, find a property that does allow it, ditch the apartment and never look back ;)