Some people, like myself, foolishly thought that owning a farm or homestead meant you had acres of maintained green lawn, huge hay fields, a big red barn, or at the very least a big log house. Mmmm? I must have read too many books growing up because not only does my homestead look like a cross between a garage sale and a junkyard sometimes, but I don’t even own a barn. Or a log house for that matter.
Six months of the year my homestead is covered by snow and my yard looks like the idealistic homestead of my childhood fantasy. By the time spring finally makes an appearance, snow melts, the projects start, my yard looks like a college student on a weekend bender, chaos and stuff everywhere. Sometimes I try and fight it, I’ll throw a pickup load of debris and refuse in my truck and take it to the dump, or I’ll buy some rosebushes and try and cover up my chain link fence. But eventually the weeds grow over my rosebush and somehow again there is something that is slightly broken laying in my yard again, waiting to be fixed. Then I face the truth, that a homestead is not always pretty and neat, but what it really, truly is, is functional.
The word functional, meaning designed to be practical and useful, rather than attractive, describes my home to a tee. Over the years I’ve had to give up some of my dreams of white picket fences and manicured lawns to be more practical. It’s like a marriage, you have to compromise. For example, some compromises that I can live with are there will be piles of firewood in my yard but I will fight to keep the firewood contained to one area, always a compromise with the idealistic and the functional.
To keep my homestead and my life in balance I’ve come up with a list of rules. This list keeps my yard from becoming downright trashy but also allows it to be functional as we work on a lot of projects. As a bonus it keeps me from stressing about the mess.
My Sanity Saving Homestead Rules
- I can only have a maximum of four cars or trucks at one time in my yard or driveway and at least two have to be working. This seems like a no-brainer but my husband really likes to buy cars and is always looking for a good deal but we also like to buy cheap cars, and the older they are the more likely they are to break.
- Everything has a place and I put it back in its place; be it lumber, bikes, firewood, tools, or toys. Even if the ‘place’ is a neat pile of lumber on the side of the yard.
- If I don’t use it within two years I get rid of it. I don’t care if it was a great deal or free, I get rid of it.
- I plant at least one type of flower every year because they are beautiful.
- I keep the actual lawn free of lumber, animals, and tools, so the kids can run barefoot on it.
- I try and keep large yard toys for the kids to a minimum.
- If I build something large that I mean to keep for a long time, such as a picnic table or outbuilding, I build it right, and not slapstick it together out of scrap wood.
- I try and not do more than two major projects at the same time and I don’t start another, unless something breaks, like my car.
- I don’t save everything just in case it might be useful. It’s not and my home will quickly become overrun. See my list of things to keep here.
- I clean my piles, woodshed, outbuildings, and yard at least once a month. It helps, trust me. And while I’m doing that, I get rid of things I don’t need.  I also have my kids help, some of that mess is theirs as well.
- Have one, and only one, compost pile. That includes animal manure piles.
- Daily my kids have to pick up their toys out of the yard.
- I try to minimize things in my yard covered in tarps. Now I know there are exceptions but tarps are ugly and are like band-aids, temporary fixes.
- If it’s broke and can’t be fixed, get rid of it. You might be seeing a pattern here, I’m a big fan of getting rid of things.
- I don’t stress if my yard doesn’t look like a magazine, because it never will, but I keep trying to improve it anyway.
