Stay-at-Homesteading

8 pounds!  Rhubarb Jam anyone?

Ready for winter in 09

Good thing our neighborhood allows clothes lines!

I was at a party a few months ago, and when a woman asked me what my job is,  I answered, "I'm a stay-at-homesteader." She replied, "you must have chickens!" Well, I don't have chickens (yet), but it did get me thinking about what I mean by calling myself this. After all, it's a pretty heady designation given that  I don't live on anything close to a ranch or farm. Or have any edible livestock cavorting in the back yard. (If you don't count the cat, who I consider barbecuing sometimes.  Just kidding, Luna!)

For me, this all started when I was home with my first son, and was deeply confused about what I was doing with my life--I had left my career behind to do what???  I felt completely lost. My self-concept changed for the better for two reasons:  I had unconditional support from my Mom and Husband,  and I read an interview with  a woman named Shannon Hayes.  She wrote a book called  Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture. 
The publisher's description: "Mother Nature has shown her hand. Faced with climate change, dwindling resources, and species extinctions, most Americans understand the fundamental steps necessary to solve our global crises-drive less, consume less, increase self-reliance, buy locally, eat locally, rebuild our local communities.In essence, the great work we face requires rekindling the home fires.Radical Homemakers is about men and women across the U.S. who focus on home and hearth as a political and ecological act, and who have centered their lives around family and community for personal fulfillment and cultural change. It explores what domesticity looks like in an era that has benefited from feminism, where domination and oppression are cast aside and where the choice to stay home is no longer equated with mind-numbing drudgery, economic insecurity, or relentless servitude.Radical Homemakers nationwide speak about empowerment, transformation, happiness, and casting aside the pressures of a consumer culture to live in a world where money loses its power to relationships, independent thought, and creativity. If you ever considered quitting a job to plant tomatoes, read to a child, pursue creative work, can green beans and heal the planet, this is your book." 


 Hell, this is not my book, this is my life!  The cover even has a buffed out lady waiving a rolling pin in the air in a power salute!  Oh yeah!


So, for me, Radical Homemaking and Stay-at-Homesteading, means unplugging in as many ways as I can from having to buy things, so that I am not pressured to make money.  It means living in a 629 square foot house.  It means energy efficiency.  It means pulling the boys in the bike trailer all around town.  It means working at the gym day-care so we don't have to pay for a membership.  It means washing diapers, making my own wet-wipes, and  growing my own potatoes and rhubarb.  It means canning and freezing and preserving as many things as I can to see us through winter.  It means kissing and thanking and thanking my Husband and Mom for helping bring in the money so I can pursue my radical life.  And, one day soon, it may mean chickens.  Or not.  Luna may have other plans for the chickens.