Homesteading and prepping are not the same thing, not exactly anyway, but they definitely can and should be linked. Homesteaders and preppers stockpile food, are focused on making available and conserving resources, understand what living off grid truly means, and strive to be self-reliant both now and well into the future…whatever it may bring.
We began as small town preppers. Our goal was always to buy a little bit of land to enhance our survival preparedness on all levels. It took only one nearly two week power outage for us to grasp our town prepping had taken us as far as it could, and that, dear readers, was not far enough to ride out the mini apocalypse as well as we would have liked.
The experience was enough to convince my beloved husband to put our rental properties on the market, and buy more acreage than we had originally anticipated and go all in as homesteading preppers.
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After lengthy and intense searching, reviewing, and property designing, we found our dream land, 56 secluded acres with one natural water source, a robust well, a natural spot to put in a pond, a home situated out of view about half a mile from the road, plenty of pasture and good growing plots, and surrounded by hills.
The property was entirely fenced, though in need of what ended up being three month of “date nights” spent repairing it, two great old barns – that needed repair and massive junk removal, and a pole barn. Oh, and I worked copious amounts of used farm equipment and a backhoe into the deal.
The four tiered property was surrounded by woods with great hunting, no neighbors in view on any side, and no easy access to the home or barn areas except via the narrow and winding dirt driveway unless you strapped on hiking boots.
Sound like a dream spot for a homesteader? The perfect place to set up a survival retreat? It was both…. in spades.
All of our livestock could free range completely out of view of prying eyes and we had enough space to raise enough hay to get them all through the winter – making the homestead/survival retreat truly sustainable.
I truly believed homesteading was the best way to completely prepare not just to survive a SHTF disaster, but to thrive during the aftermath when society begins to slowly rebuild. Preppers know that the power grid will eventually go down during any type of long term nationwide disaster.
Learning how to live off the grid and master old-fashioned pioneering skills is a priority for preppers – and homesteaders too, even if not for entirely the same reasons.
There is almost a 100 percent overlap between homesteading and prepper survival retreat living skills and activities.
|
Skill |
Homesteader |
Prepper |
|
Chopping Wood to heat home |
X |
X |
|
X |
X |
|
|
Maintaining a water source/collecting rain water |
X |
X |
|
Hunting for food |
X |
X |
|
X |
X |
|
|
X |
X |
|
|
X |
X |
|
|
Growing your own food |
X |
X |
|
Raising your own meat |
X |
X |
|
Raising bees |
X |
X 
|
|
Using alternative energy |
X |
X |
|
Making your own biodiesel fuel |
X |
X |
|
Sewing |
X |
X |
|
Using natural medicine/home remedies for humans and livestock |
X |
X |
Not all preppers and homesteaders engage in some of the above activities, but if they had the land, the time, and the skills, they surely would want to… and are likely of dreaming of doing so “one day.”
Homesteaders engaging in survival acts on a daily basis, even if the chores are not labeled as such in their minds.
When a homesteading guy or gal toils in the dirt to grow food, spends HOURS slaving over a hot stove canning the harvest, drying herbs, and dehydrating milk, they are thinking about making it through the winter with food to fill their bellies and not wasting money going to a grocery store to buy unhealthy processed food, not prepping for the apocalypse.
But the end result is all the same – they are stockpiling food for the future. If the future just happens to bring about a SHTF scenario that sends marauding hordes violently fleeing from the city, they – the hard-working homesteaders, are prepared to survive and will not go hungry.
When searching for a piece of land to buy, both homesteaders and preppers are focused on the available water sources and determining whether or not the currently flowing creek is seasonal or something they can count on to sustain the family, livestock, and to bring moisture to the garden if a drought hits.
Both a homesteader and a diligent prepper has learned (or plans to learn) how to make their own candles, fuel, soap, and the like, so those items do not have to be purchased in stores…or for when they can’t because society-wide panic has emptied the supermarket shelves.
Raising chickens and ducks is a simple and inexpensive way to infuse more sustainable homesteading techniques into your preparedness plan. Poultry flocks provide a source of both meat and eggs and help rid the area of unwanted bugs that can destroy your growing crops and bite the heck out of you all summer long.
Preppers who only stockpile store-bought shelf stable food and medications and long term storage food are doing themselves and their love ones a great disservice. One day, the food stockpiles will run out. The edible bounty could be stolen in one quick fell swoop – a field of growing crop cannot. A truly prepared individual sees the value in both types of food stockpiling activities – and does as much of both as their budget and space allows.
The most incredible melding over the survival and homesteading communities I have ever seen happens once each year in the mountains of North Carolina at a place known as Prepper Camp. O.k. The place is actually known as the beautiful Orchard Lake campground the other 362 days of the year, but for three awesome days each September, the campground becomes a hands-on summer camp for adults.
Folks from all walks of live converge in the little mountain town of Saluda to enhance their survival skills. The preppers eagerly file into the training courses that teach all manner of homesteading skills that will be essential in the quest to survive a SHTF doomsday disaster.
The instant sense of acceptance and community is readily apparent at the annual gathering, even before you fully unpack our camping gear. Attendees never want to leave when the hands-on “prepper expo.” No one asks which label you belong under, prepper or homesteader, everyone there is a survivor in training, earnestly learning how to prepare themselves and their retreat to live a sustainable and self-reliant existence both now and when circumstances dictate doing so if a must to make it through another day.
Some homesteaders are vegetarians and more of the hippy-not-into-shooting-guns than other homesteaders and nearly all preppers, but the similarities far outnumber the differences between the two groups. Thinking of homesteading as a lifestyle choice only aging flower children make is not only short-changing yourself and the survival plans you are making for your loved ones, but is being a narrow-minded as the “Sheeple” who think we all wear tin foil hats and never venture more than a few feet from our bunkers.
Regardless of where your live, you can engage in some type of homesteading. You do not need to live on a 56-acre spread. You can homestead in an urban apartment by growing food vertically on an interior wall, patio or terrace, keeping rabbits in cages, and growing medicinal herbs in windowsills.
If you live in suburbia, you have ample space to cultivate the bulk of your own groceries, even if forced to live under stringent HOA rules.
All preppers should find a way to move out of cities and the suburbs and work from home or online. Not only will you have more space to homestead and become as self-reliant as possible before a doomsday disaster or even a local natural disaster hits, you will be far more safe on a daily basis.
Living amid the unprepared masses will likely get you and your loved ones killed when the SHTF. We live in a rural county where there is no zoning, no permit office of any type – except a well digging and septic tank installation permit at the health department. I could have walked outside my door when being a townie prepper and build a room onto our house and a 15 foot tall purple fence with my own hands on a whim, if I had so desired.
Even without all of the government intervention that has become commonplace in almost every community, not a single house has fallen down because it was not built by professionals, there are no eye sore properties in our county, and bars built next to churches – common decency and community standards are all the “rules” we need to keep our neighborhoods a nice and extremely safe place to live.
There is simply not a single downside to being a homesteading prepper. Living off the land in a sustainable manner will only serve to enhance you chances of surviving a SHTF scenario.
“I just don’t want to be too prepared,” said no prepper….Ever!
Ready to get started homesteading for survival? Click here.
All of that sounds nice but from what I have read the first few months will be the true time of testing. It will be kill or get killed . Maybe a SHTF in the USA will be different but I doubt it. We are not what we once were as a nation. The only thing that can truly unite People is Christianity . Without Christ we will turn on each other in a blink of an eye.
BB…
you’re right on both counts. Hopefully the first 3 months will cause whoever is left to pray.
For a good real life account of what people will be like look up Selco on the net. He survived a year trapped in a city in Bosnia with no law, water, electricity or food getting in. The only weapons they had for protection were what they could take from the soldiers. He has a website called Selcoshtf where he gives you a pretty good rundown. For more detailed accounts he wants you to subscribe. Somehow I accidentally back doored his for pay site but didn’t think to download it. It was one terrific account of how it will be here for 6 to 12 months.
The main lesson he stressed is what Iv’e said forever. You can’t have enough guns and bullets. They are the gold coins of shtf because if you can’t protect yourself and your food you won’t have either.
When we were trapped when the Tet offensive broke out the only things of any value were bullets and food. If we hadn’t been on a river, water would have been included in that.
Its either high mobility, or high renewability. Either course stinks in an extended wrol situation. Either you’re doomed to forever foraging, or making yourself a target of foragers-turned-marauders. Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em. 🙂
“There is simply not a single downside to being a homesteading prepper.”
My wife has been on board with me for 99% of what I wanted to do prepping wise. It’s the “living in the middle of no where on 50 acres” that she won’t buy. To me, having no neighbors and total peace and quiet would be a dream. To her, she’d be scared shitless having no one around. So, we live in the exurbs of a major city, on an acre, with neighbors a 100yards away and hope for the best.
Same on 2.5 For all you folks that plan to bug out at home a thought. Most likely your walls are stick frame construction. How do you plan on stopping return fire from unwanted ‘GUESTS.’
Footsie.
Sandbags. You don’t have to fill the right away. They should be cheap right now but later on when the spring runoff gets going they might be hard to find.
Best article so far. Location for the homestead is critical. Too close to a major population center you just get overrun. Preppers, at least my customers are focused on short lived emergencies like hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards vs. an extended breakdown in social order, power supplies and of course the supply chain. Community is the key to homesteading survival….both on site (a couple of families together) and connections to a broader group for defense and relationships with remaining government or emerging government. Hate to say it but “it takes a village”…or you end up like the family in the opening scene of Hostiles……
I whole heartily agree about the article and with your comment, one of the reasons I stashed walkie talkies and a case of batteries for the three neighbors boarding my place. They are also heavily armed and one has a rep of being one of the top bow hunters in the state…that skill will come in handy.
These are good conversations to have. I’ll put in my 2 cents: except for my time at college, I have lived rural my whole life. I can adapt and overcome most any difficult circumstance that might arise. I have a reputation of being amiable, caring and generous. But also as someone not to be fucked with. I like that balance.
But I would recommend against relocating to a rural property where you would be too isolated. While an out-of-sight homestead might seem ideal, it is a double-edged sword; it could also give the Bad Guys the bravado to think they could ‘have their way’ with you in perfect privacy. Something to consider.
I’m isolated, but have a neighbor a few hundred yards down the road, and within view. I like that security. I leave my vehicle keys in the ignition and have never locked my house in 35 years (including many week-long vacations). There are many benefits to having close neighbors.
It can easily happen that by trying to be an anonymous ‘loner’ by moving to a rural area, it will put you on everyone’s radar in the area.
Admin has posted his best series ever. Hit the tip-jar.
Keys must be safeguarded like firearms. While visiting the brother’s our 3 year old son started a tractor ran it up on to few cord pile of wood then shut it off. When the 3 year old grandson comes to visit the search for keys gets serious.
Homesteading is fine and dandy for us.
Kids learn to swim early, learn gun safety when ready, practice martial arts, horses for the girls, (Horses are like men; they are not very bright, for all the work you get little pleasure, reflexes are faster than human and they do kill.) and our kids operated a firewood business for Christmas money and it did fail when wood prices collapsed. Failure and recovery is as important as love and food.
I prefer Walmart.
What if I live in a condo in LA with 20 million people around me?
You are done. You can prepare for an earthquake (which is long over due, I was there in West LA for Northridge in 1994) but without a firearm if its the “big one” you are in real trouble.
JR.
All the more reason to read selco’s account of being trapped in a city with no law, no public water or power, no food but lots of people becoming animals.
It happened in Bosnia.
selcoshtf.com.
If you can’t get or afford guns and ammo, I can teach you how to make cheap slamfire shotguns to use to get real guns.
Homesteading is a better way to live. Period.
I came to it later in life after trying- and doing fairly well at the so-called American Dream life of high income/big house/more stuff lifestyle. Living a life dependent on other people to maintain your home, teach your children, look after your health, clean your house is a form of bondage. It’s bad for your body, your family, your soul and the better you do the more people around you envy what you have. You don’t inspire them to new heights, but to drag you down. And because you don’t want to lose what you have you make compromises in what you say and how you act and what you wear or drive, the list is endless.
A homestead is a place of refuge where the life you ought to live is possible. it requires effort, sure and discipline and hard work, but those things are not burdens, they’re rewards. You spend more time with the people you love the most, you keep your body and your mind functioning at their peak, you work in the most beautiful and varied environment in all kinds of weather dealing with challenges and hardships, and reaping the benefits of resolving them on your own terms, by the sheer will of your determination and grit. You eat better, sleep deeper, stay youthful longer, meet a better class of people who know more and share it freely. You depend upon your neighbors and they come to rely upon you, your life becomes one of the most useful tools imaginable, by solving problems and tackling projects and exigencies you could never have imagined before. Your skills sets continually expand and become better with each use. You improve the environment around you instead of leeching off of it, you beautify the world and inspire other people not to undermine your efforts, but to re-double theirs. You start to understand your purpose in life as it was meant to be, not just as society or conventions or corporations or governments find useful, but as it relates to those worthy of your time and your energy. You stop being a commodity and become an industry. All around you you begin to produce not only a sustenance, but a surplus and instead of your energy flagging it builds up steam and gives you even more energy to tackle things you never could have imagined doing before because the only thing that ever stands in our way is our own doubt about ourselves.
And here’s another thing- most people ask themselves “am I cut out for it? Can I really handle it? The work, the sacrifice, the isolation, giving up the stuff that I like that I can’t take with me?
Of course you can. Think about the people who came over in wooden ships with nothing but a couple of hand tools. if they could hack it, you’ve got a huge advantage. And since we were designed to be problem solvers and tool users you’ll be surprised at just how easily it all comes back to you, those hundreds of thousands of years of passed down genetic predispositions to do those very things with an ease and familiarity that will blow your mind if you just give it a shot.
I always thought I was a fairly successful and intelligent guy and the way I lived my life was satisfactory by any standard, but until we decided to become homesteaders I had no idea just how much we were leaving on the table. Does homesteading prepare you? I suppose it does, but as with any eventuality you’ll only know when the time arrives, but what it does that is far more important is to allow you to live- to really be in the moment every waking hour between now and then and to do it without fear of whatever lies ahead. I can’t imagine ever living any other way now and I pray that God that when my time comes he allows me to pass on with a shovel or a hammer in my hand, outdoors, doing what I was meant to do.
HSF has it figured out all right. Homesteading is the best way to survive in normal times. It is a real good way to survive in bad times. It is almost the only way to survive in shtf times. He’s a good and honorable man a true libertarian. I’m thankful I’ve had a chance to know him on TBP. He has a firm grip on reality that’s why nobody should mess with his homestead or his people.