Does this lifestyle appeal to you? If not, are there any particle elements that do or do not appeal to you? Have you ever lived a "back to basics" kind of life? Did you grow up in a rural environment, or did your parents practice an alternative lifestyle that kept you on the fringes of society? Tell us about it.

Do you think that "homesteaders" or other like minded folks are a bunch of freaks, or is this an important option for people who find modern living increasingly unhealthy for them?

-- Anonymous, August 14, 2000

Answers

actually, ive looked into it alot, and plan to do it once i have enough money... (er, hmmm) if you want to do so just to get away from the pollution and noise, well, you will get away from the noise. illegal dumping of waste chemicals happens more in the less-populated areas, as one might imagine.

if you want to do it to improve the quality of your social interactions, there are few better lifestyle choices. if forming/joining a community, one finds they are surrounded by SUPPORTIVE individuals, not competitors. besides, a return to basic living (and home schooling) is arguably preferable over urban (and most suburban) environments for raising children (should you desire to in the future.)

i believe i recently heard on CNN that the average back-to-school expenditure for parents per child is approx. $430.

aside from why that is obviously bad... the hidden bad is how we came to feel that this (and similar things we have come to do "naturally" in order to conform to what we've built) is a normal thing to do in august. imagine the issue of back-to-school clothes/crap not even coming up!

okok, Jim Rambles...

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

I grew up in a rural environment and would love to live in a similar environment one day, but only if I still had access to all my creature comforts. So I can't picture a day where I'll abandon modern living entirely, even if I do end up on a 20 acre patch with all those horses I plan to buy one day.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

if you want to do it to improve the quality of your social interactions, there are few better lifestyle choices. if forming/joining a community, one finds they are surrounded by SUPPORTIVE individuals, not competitors.

I would suggest, though, that you'd better be sure you are joining or forming a community if that's what you're after. Don't just assume that country folk are of a similar mindset to you, or that they are automatically interested in being part of your community. A lot of folks prefer the countryside because they aren't particularly social. For me, growing up in the country was a little like growing up on a deserted island, at least in the summer. If my parents had homeschooled me, I would have been able to count the times in a year I saw another little girl (or any child my age) on one hand -- probably with fingers left over.

And if you are joining a community, be realistic about your own personality. Some people don't fit into that kind of environment. Some of those intentional communities can be full of what those of us outside the community would call busy bodies. Know the community and know your own need for space, that's all.

(And know where you're going, too -- my parents live seven miles outside of a small town, and it's much noisier at their house than it is at mine most days, even though I live two blocks from a freeway and two blocks from the train tracks. They live near an airport, and sheep never shut up.)

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

We have a home in Central Pennsylvania, about forty minutes drive from the nearest incorporated town. It has all the creature comforts (including a hot tub we fill with well water!) but it is isolated, quiet, beautiful and green (in all senses of the word) and definitely a place I could see spending some years -- in the future. But for now, we're happy being urban separatists with a refuge away from it all when we really need it.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

http://www.justme.org/00/00aug/85.htm

I actually just wrote an entry titled "Foxfire Dreams" based on just this question. I didn't call it homesteading though but a pioneer or hillbilly.

I wish it were an option and maybe someday it will be...probably when me and mine are too old to benefit.

I grew up on in the Alleghany Forest of Western Pennsylvania and spent much of my childhood wandering through the woods camping out and such.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2000

I am copying and pasting this from a journal entry of mine:

I don't remember anything before the cabin. I know I was born in Florida. I know that my family (Mom, Dad and I) lived briefly in a tent and briefly in a motel.

We moved into it when I was about one and a half. My parents were poor. They used all of their savings to buy the half-acre of land with the cabin on it.

The half acre of land was what would be called a "holler." It was a ravine. To get to the cabin, you had to follow a makeshift trail of boards and rocks. An old, sturdy, piece of lumber acted as a bridge across the foot wide branch (We never really considered it a creek. It wasn't large enough.) The path was well worn with age, like a favorite hiking or animal passage would be.

The cabin was 200 square feet, when we moved into it. The outside measurements were 10 by 20 feet. A few years later that size would be doubled by an addition. It had two rooms. It did not have electricity.

For a few years, we did not have running water indoors. Dad eventually made a gravity-fed system that brought in water from a spring. Then we had a sink and cold water but if we wanted warm water we had to heat it ourselves.

There was an outhouse. I suppose I was potty-trained in it. I don't remember. I do know that, as I got older, I would go out to it in the middle of the night, barefoot and in my pajamas, even when it was snowing. I wouldn't remember it in the morning.

We had an aluminum tub to bathe in. Actually, we had two. One was a small (about two feed in diameter) tub. That was the one that usually was used. The other tub was longer, oval, and about twice that size. I only remember using that once in a while. Remember, we had to heat water to fill these tubs and it took a lot to fill the big one. The summer was special because we could wash in the river (that the branch flowed into.) Pull on the swimsuit, grab the soap, and take off to the river. To this day, when I smell Finesse shampoo, I think of that.

We heated with a wood stove. We cooked on a gas stove. We lit with kerosene lamps.

The most desperate point was early on. I was very small and have no recollection of it. One night, the car broke down. It just needed a small part, but my parents only had seven dollars. Total. Dad hitchhiked into town and bartended for the evening. For tips. To get enough money to buy the car part.

I am sure, by governmental or other standards, that living in the cabin would be considered poverty. I sure don't think it was. I was never lacking anything; I didn't know any different. There was always food, shelter, clothes and everything else I needed.

My parents were never on welfare. We didn't do food stamps but we did do wic.

One of my parents always worked and the other one stayed home with me (and eventually, Ben and Erin.) Dad stayed home first. Mom waited tables. This was not for long, though. Things changed and Mom stayed home. Dad began working. He stayed at this job for sixteen years (until last December.) He worked hard enough to make his way up in the company. He made enough money to buy a new house, a "normal" one where we now live. Not that there was anything wrong with the cabin, it was just getting too small for our growing family. We moved when I was eight.

I loved the cabin. I still do. I would not be the person I am today if I had not lived there.

I blame the cabin for my love of country music. We had two radios there. A big one and a small one. The big one took more batteries so we only listened to it on special occasions (such as when the Riders in the Sky program was on.) The small radio did not use much battery power, but it did not pick up FM radio stations, either. The only reasonable AM station was a country music one. We listened to country music a lot. That is what you do when you don't have a TV.

Reading was always good. I learned quickly and it was my favorite thing to do. This is another thing that comes when not raised in front of a TV.

I climbed and explored quite a bit. I would hike up the branch. I would make forts out of rhododendron thickets. I had an imaginary friend. I very clearly remember sliding down a hill, with my imaginary friend, on my butt. Not a grassy hill, either. We didn't have those in our little holler. A forest floor hill. Picture what those pants must have looked like.

There were some pretty incredible neighbors, but that is a whole different entry.

I would move back to the cabin in a heartbeat, if I could have my computer and hot showers.



-- Anonymous, August 16, 2000

Renee -- our house is technically western, I guess, in truth, because it is right on the outskirts of the Allegheny Forest. If I have my forests remembered correctly. Maybe I'm thinking Cook Forest. . .

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000